Page 47 of Shattered Sinner
“There is a journalist investigating us. Getting too close. Snooping around where he shouldn't be.” Nash cracked his knuckles. “If he publishes an exposé on us, it'll cause some issues, and we don't want that.”
I shifted my weight as bile rose in my throat. I was supposed to kill someone? But even if I didn’t want to do it now, it was already too late. If I didn’t do it, the Chevaliers would kill me instead.
“Your task is to take care of the problem,” Nash said, his eyes were completely cold. This was a different side of him than I’d seen before. “Everything that you need is in the storage crate next to me.”
I hadn’t even noticed the crate that was about a foot away from him. I bent down to dig into the box and took out a gun, gloves, a knife, a flashlight, and a rope. It might have been overkill, but it was what it was. The crate included a book bag, so I put everything in there but the gloves. Those went on my hands.
“Good luck,” Nash said.
I took that as my cue to leave. The hunt was on.
I left Nash there and went further into the forest. Silence surrounded me outside of the wind dancing through the branches on the bare trees. The moon was out tonight, so thankfully I didn’t have to use the flashlight yet.
I continued walking until I saw something near a big tree in the forest. Was this where the journalist was supposed to be? I turned the flashlight on and found someone knocked out against a tree.
This had to be it.
He looked younger than I expected him to, and I honestly didn’t think he was that much older than me. His brown hair covered parts of his face, but I could see that he was still wearing glasses. As if he heard me, he looked up and his eyes widened at the sight of me. There was already a gag in his mouth and his hands were tied.
A slew of thoughts flooded my brain as I took in the sight before me. My first thought was that they’d made this easier for me, and I wondered why.
I shook my head slightly. How had I gone from feeling somewhat nauseous about this to wondering why the Chevaliers were handing me a murder on a silver platter?
The journalist struggled against the zip ties that held his hands together, and he tried to scream from behind the gag, but it was muffled. The noises that were coming from him were pointless because anyone who would have been willing to save him, couldn’t hear him.
My determination broke through, forcing me to carry out the promise I made. I placed the bag down on the ground and unzipped it. I pulled the knife from the bag and tested its weight. I wasn’t sure how much the guy in front of me could see given how dark it was in the forest.
But when I walked toward him, he jumped and tried to get away from me while shaking his head frantically. I didn’t blame him. I would be trying to get away from the person who was sent to kill me as well. The closer I got, the more I could see the terror in his eyes.
“So, you’re trying to take the Chevaliers down, hmm?” I bent down to his level and stuck the knife’s edge under his chin. I applied pressure to the knife, drawing some blood. “It looks like I’ve been tasked with teaching you a lesson.”
My words sounded foreign to my own ears. My threat hung in the silence, and I wondered who would make the first sound. Would it be the man in front of me or the forest?
The journalist swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut, giving in to his fate.
I took a deep, steadying breath and pressed the knife into his neck.
His screams were muffled, but I could still hear the pain in his voice. However, I didn’t stop moving the knife until I’d pulled it across his throat. Blood fell all over my hands as I completed the motion and ran down the front of his white button-down. There was no way that stain was coming out.
His movements slowed and the light in his eyes dimmed, his head fell to the side and his glasses slid to the ground. An eerie silence fell over the forest, including the wind I’d heard earlier.
My heart slammed in my chest like a jackhammer. Had I really just done this without a second thought? Had I really just taken a human life? I’d done some shit in my past, but nothing this sinister.
After a couple of minutes, I took the knife back and stepped back from the body. My glove-covered hands had blood all over them, and I would need to take care of that. I’d completed my final task.
There were claps in the distance and I turned around to find Nash and several members of the Chevaliers descending on me. How had they’d known I’d killed the journalist?
They must have been watching me.
Nash walked up to me while everyone else stood back. He clapped me on the shoulder and said, “You completed your final task. Congratulations.”
Nash’s announcement led to a round of applause from the Chevaliers standing behind him. They walked forward, shaking my hand and welcoming me as a part of them. Given how serious I thought this organization was, having them smiling and clapping was a weird contrast.
Nash came back around and said, “We’ll celebrate later, but first, we must do the final step of the initiation process.”
Together, we all turned and walked through the forest. I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going, but I was following the crowd. I turned to one of the guys next to me, and asked, “What’s going to happen to the body?”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
