Page 83 of Death Rydes Shotgun

6:10 AM

Itake a slow, menacing step forward, my double-bladed knife tilted upward, ready to shear through Xander’s neck and paint the wet fog red.

But, before I can strike, Harmony moves.

She rushes at him with a sudden, lethal fluidity that takes my breath away.

In one swift, breathtaking motion, she unsheathes her father’s heavy hunting knife—steel flashing like a silver lightning strike in the gloom.

Speed and terrifying grace define her every movement as she corners Xander against the mossy, rotting stones of the ancient well.

“Harmony, wait—I didn’t mean anything by it.” Xander scrambles backward, his hands flying up.

She doesn’t waste a single breath. Harmony steps into his guard and viciously slashes the broad tip of her blade straight across his abdomen.

The fabric of his shirt rips open with a wet, heavy tear, followed instantly by the sickening, yet sweet squelch of steel dragging against flesh.

Blood spurts outward in a thick, hot arc, spraying across the damp moss and painting her knuckles dark crimson.

Xander lets out a high, ragged shriek of agony, clutching his torn stomach.

The slice was so masterfully executed, I almost wish his intestines would spill through the weeping slice of flesh. That would’ve been a fair punishment for trying to force himself on someone that doesn’t belong to him.

Before his mind can register the blinding shock, Harmony drives the heavy hunting knife deep into the meat of his upper thigh.

A ghastly, wet sound echoes through the quiet woods as the blade buries itself to the hilt, crunching through muscle tissue and scraping along the bone.

She twists the steel deliberately—a revolting, torturous wrench—making sure to miss the femoral artery so he won’t bleed out too quickly.

She wants him alive. She wants him broken.

“Agggghhhh!” The visceral, guttural sound of pure horror echoes off the pines.

As I stand frozen in the mist, a dark, euphoric rush pulses sharply along my spine. I watch her with unbridled adoration, my chest heaving as the absolute reality dawns on me: she likes to play with her prey.

The sweet, innocent, victimized girl she’s been carefully constructing all night—the pathetic little mask she’s worn for fifteen long years—finally sheds, falling into the mud like worthless trash.

This is the real Harmony Grove.

Panting, terrified, and bleeding profusely, Xander violently shoves himself away from the well, ripping his thigh off her blade.

He stumbles, falling and scrambling on his hands and knees through the dark forest, dragging his ruined leg as he flees blindly into the deep thicket.

I step up right beside Harmony, my eyes lingering on the slick, dark blood dripping from the tip of her knife onto her boots.

A slow grin spreads across my face, dripping with a dark, intimate pride. “Are you just going to let him get away? I’ve been waiting fifteen years to see what kind of monster you’ve become.”

Harmony turns her head toward me.

Slowly, a wicked, sadistic grin spreads across her face—matching mine completely, dark for dark, horror for horror.

In this exact, macabre second, I know beyond any doubt that I’ve found my soulmate.

We are cut from the exact same psychotic cloth, bound together by the blood on our hands and the darkness in our souls.

Harmony doesn’t say a word. She turns on her heel and disappears into the thicket, hunting after Xander with her knife held firm in her grip, blood dripping into the wet earth below.

I fall into step right beside her, our shoulders almost brushing as we stride through the dark fog.