Page 850 of Coal Hearts

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IT TRULY WAS AMAZING WHAT you could do when you were no longer afraid of death. When you had nothing to lose. When you just didn’t care.

Life parted like a miraculous sea for me.

Death laid out a red carpet for me to tread.

Destiny led me by the hand and delivered me exactly where I belonged.

Any love I’d ever had. Any hope or yearning or faith, all hardened until I was nothing more than coal.

A heart made of coal.

No embers.

No cinders.

The fire completely burned out.

Ily was dead.

And...I was done clinging to life hard enough for both of us.

I let go.

I put my existence in the hands of fate and had to laugh at how easy it was.

How fucking easy it was to drive away.

How convenient it was to find a bag in the trunk of my stolen car with spare clothes for a doctor who travelled often. He favoured black slacks and black shirts which suited me fine. We even wore the same sizes. Where I was going, I didn’t want colour. I didn’t want light.

The darkness seeped out of my skin and turned me as black as the borrowed clothes I wore. The beast inside me no longer had to crawl through my veins and search for a way free.

I let it take me over.

I sank deep into my rotten soul and gave in.

I stopped on the side of the road and input Q’s passcode into his phone. I pulled up the list of traffickers again. I ignored the endless ringing as he tried to contact me and put the stupid device on flight mode so he couldn’t get through.

I itched for retribution.

I felt as if I’d tear myself apart if I didn’t tear someone else apart instead.

How lucky for me that a few names on Q’s little list lived in France.

I chose the first one. A man with a membership to a club called The Dolls.

I drove all night.

I pulled up outside his house at daybreak.

I knocked on his door with no weapons, no protection.

And fate once again intervened by delivering him right into my hands.

He was home alone.

Rambling about in a huge townhouse with a ridiculous giant poodle for company.