Kylian’s done well with this little side quest.
Their heads snap up as we enter, their confident smirks faltering as they take us in.
“Who the hell are you?” one of them demands, rising to his feet.
Kylian’s grin is feral.
“We’re the ghosts of your past,” he chirps, his voice deceptively sweet. “And we’re here to collect.”
The first one lunges, a stupid, predictable move. I sidestep, my fist connecting with his jaw with a sickening crack. He goes down like a sack of bricks. The other two are on their feet now, but they’re slow, clumsy. Kylian is a blur of motion, a dance of brutal efficiency. He takes one down with a kick to the knee and the other with a vicious elbow to the throat.
In less than ten seconds, all three are on the floor, groaning and bleeding.
I grab the first one by the hair and yank his head back.
“Do you remember Brylee?” I ask, my voice dangerously low.
I don’t even know why I ask.
Of course they do.
Are they haunted by what they did to her?
Do they replay those final moments again and again in their heads?
Do they fall asleep to the sound of her screams as the Noths dragged her away?
His eyes widen in fear. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kylian crouches down beside the second alpha. His knife traces a line down his cheek.
“Liar,” he sings. “She was sweet, wasn’t she? Trusting. And you three… You threw her away like trash.” Something dark and malevolent distorts his features before he masks it behind a playful smile.
The third one spits blood on the floor. “She was a weak little bitch who couldn’t handle?—”
Wrong fucking thing to say.
He doesn’t get to finish. My boot connects with his face, and bone gives way under the impact.
“Don’t you ever talk about her,” I snarl, my voice barely human. “Don’t you eventhinkher name.”
I grab him by his hair, hauling him up and slamming him back against the wall. His head connects with a dull thud, and he cries out, a paltry, pathetic sound.
“You thought she was weak?” I snarl, my voice a low growl. I press my forearm against his throat, just enough to make his eyes bulge. “You have no idea what strength is.”
We work them over, a symphony of pain and punishment. We break bones, we carve our initials into their skin, and we whisper all the ways they’re going to suffer if they ever cross her path again. We make them beg, make them cry, make them regret the day they were born. But we don’t kill them. Death is too easy. Too kind.
Kylian gets…creative, a whirlwind of gleeful malice.
Currently, he’s straddling the second alpha, humming a discordant tune while he methodically dislocates the man’s fingers. One by one. Each wet pop is accompanied by a high, thin scream.
“Oops,” Kylian says with a bright, terrifying smile. “Did that hurt? My bad.”
He twists the next finger, and the scream gets louder.
“You know,” he says conversationally, looking over at me before refocusing on the soon-to-be-dead triplet, “I’m thinking of a number between one and ten. It’s the number of bones I’m going to break in your hand before I move on to something more…unique.”
The third alpha tries to crawl away, dragging his broken leg behind him. I kick him in the ribs, hard enough to hear them crack. He collapses with a choked sob.
