Page 80 of Where Angels Fall

The Wraith’s shipment is late. But I can feel them here, waiting. I’m sure they are on the lookout in case we decided to retaliate. They won’t see us until it’s too late.

A container door screeches open.

Then chaos.

Gunfire cracks open in the quiet, the sound causing an excited shiver to rack through me. I fucking love this shit. The adrenaline. The chaos. The fucking smell. All of it. I move before the sound finishes echoing, my body acting on instinct that has been instilled in me before I was even born. A man turns, too slowly, and I don’t hesitate. It’s all muscle memory at this point. Muscle memory and bloodthirst.

His blood hits my knuckles warm, slick, and familiar before his body crumples to the ground, my knife sliding across his throat with the most satisfying sound.

Another lunges with a knife in his hand. Held with an amateur grip. I break his wrist, the wet pop cracking in the air, then drive his head into the steel side of the container until he stops moving. There is probably a better way to do this. A cleaner, quicker, more effective way. But the monster inside me demands pain. Demands blood and gore and all things depraved.

Blood splatters my forearms, my vest and my face, smattering around my wild grin.

I tell myself it’s the Wraiths I see when my vision tunnels. I tell myself that’s who I’m killing. Not the image burned behind my eyes.

Not her.

My angel on her knees, in blood that wasn’t hers. Wide, terrified, and bright eyes looking up at me like I am the monster that I know I am. My jaw tightens so hard that it aches.

I hit harder. A crate explodes open as a body slams into it, pills scattering across the concrete like spilled teeth. White, blue, stamped with the Wraith’s symbol. I crush them under my boot without looking.

All I can hear is the wild way her breaths seized in and out of her, the way she rasped as I gripped her throat. A scream erupts in the air, and it’s hers when she saw Thomas on the ground, not the Wraith that Kaleb just gutted.

I’m vibrating with the need to prove her right. That I am that monster. My eyes lock onto another target, and I sheath my knife, needing to feel skin on bone. A Wraith holds a shotgun up on sturdy arms, lifting it towards the massive target of Griff. Distracted by his target, he doesn’t see me until my elbow collides with his temple, the gun weak in his grip.

I snatch it and throw it aside, laughing when I see his wide eyes. His face doesn’t sink into my mind as my fist connects with his face, taking us both to the ground. It’s just fucking hers.

Always fucking hers.

I growl, feeling bone crunch under my knuckles as I hit and hit and fucking hit the grunt worker. My chest heaves, face twisted into a snarl as I take out my anger on this worthless asshole, my mind glued onto what happened just hours before.

“Fuck! You!” I grunt, emphasizing each word with a punch. “Get out of my fucking head!”

He was dead at least ten punches ago. When I finally stand, my body still hums with the need to kill. But the dock is quiet again. Too quiet.

“Kai has one tied up in the container,” Griff murmurs, his eyes narrowing on the bloody mess of a face by our boots. He doesn’t say a word.

My chest heaves, hands slick with blood that isn’t mine. My head feels hollow, and something poisonous leeches into my chest.

It didn’t work.

It never fucking works anymore.

The high from the kill. The calm that used to follow.

Blood-slicked hands slide through my hair as I grip the strands, pulling at my scalp.

“Tell Kaleb to strip the skin from his bones until he sings,” I rasp, feeling untethered from the earth beneath me. “I need that fucking location.”

Griff’s dark eyes watch me silently, as my eyes dart around the dock, wishing another fucker would rise so I could beat the fuck out of him, too. But even then, I know it won’t be enough.

“Don’t bother cleaning this up,” I add. “Let Zeke have fun paying to cover this all up.”

The sun is starting to rise, the faintest light bleeding into the dark sky, as I turn and stride towards my bike.

My chest is cracking as images assault my brain, and I bite my lip until the taste of blood coats my tongue. I drop to my haunches when I’m far away enough that my men won’t see me, my head falling into my hands.

“Get out of my fucking head, get out of my fucking head,” I murmur over and over again.