Page 42 of Out for Blood
“You’re that detached, you call human beings shipments?”
Cassidy runs the tip of the knife from the end of her eyebrow down her face and stops at where the cheek begins, thick fatty tissue.
The woman goes rigid, fear ravages her.
In a split second, Cassidy plunges the knife all the way through her cheek and severs it in two.
A ragged scream rips out of her.
The nerves are detached, and the wound is bleeding profusely down her body.
She’s choking on her own blood now, emptying her mouth in agitated bursts.
“Where are these people coming from?”
She delays too long on answering the question, probably weighing what it will cost her.
Cassidy skips the pretense and acts; her arm retracts in a flash as she stabs the woman’s other cheek and, with both hands on the handle, slices through all the way to the corner of her lip again.
She cries out in pain while she dissolves into sobs, her head dropping forward as more blood copiously pours down her face, staining her blue scrubs red as the blood splashes when it connects with the floor.
Sputtering, she claws for air to answer, “There are no exact locations, only that it comes through different channels. Mostly cartel routes and sometimes private.”
She whimpers, the sound catching in her throat.
Cassidy’s attention shifts to me, her eyes pin mine. The last question, and I already know what it is before she voices it.
Her focus locks onto the woman again. “How many are here?”
This time, the woman garbles as her mouth is full of blood, “Down that hallway are two bedrooms. In one room, there’s a doctor and a nurse. In the other bedroom, I’ve never asked.”
Cassidy’s eyes thin as she circles the woman, pure rage radiating off her.
She halts beside her, considering her next move as the pressure in the room mounts.
“Please, just let me go, I’ve told you everything.” As she hacks up blood.
Cassidy studies her again. “You told me what you could. I sawwhat you did with your bare hands. What you are doesn’t get mercy, you get The Reaper.”
Her fingers wrap around the handle with her thumb locking over her index finger as the blade points forward, arching her arm behind her back, she takes in a deep breath, her upper lip lifts, exposing her teeth, into something feral, and she stabs the woman in the neck repeatedly, deepening the lesion.
Ensuring to rupture the carotid artery. Bright red blood sprays everywhere, pulsating in a high volume as large splashes and mist-like droplets cover Cassidy’s face and upper body.
Time distorts around her until she finally stills and looks up, breathing heavily.
I tip my head, gesturing toward the door in the back corner. “Hallway.”
CHAPTER TEN
I switch the earpiece over to the rescue crew, letting them know where we are and how to enter. We have the best team of triage doctors on staff, ready and waiting to treat anyone and safely evacuate these people in a coma.
I instruct them to start in the main room first, its location, along with the code for the entrance; it’ll take some time to get these people out, and even longer attempting to wake them up if they can. I also inform them of the man, awake on the floor, to restrain him.
Cassidy stabilizes her breathing, taking point.
A chorus of beeps from the monitors fills the otherwise quiet room.
Her eyes scan down the beds, assessing and already ahead of me.
