Page 70 of Wicked Nightmare

What. The. Fuck.

I stabbed the letter opener through the armrest on the chair, into the flesh between his thumb and index finger. He shrieked. "Explain yourself. Now!" Cam was silent beside me, his body still, his breathing controlled.

He winced. "After you two... left, they destroyed everything... Thought they did, anyway. Word came down the pipes that someone ransacked the place. Suppose that was you two. Surprised you didn't fucking figure it out yourselves. It was all there."

I pulled the letter opener out, driving it into his thigh. "What. Do. You. Mean?"

He screamed, trying to grab at his leg as blood seeped out, staining his pants. What a baby. It's just a fucking letter opener. When you think about it, it really could have been much worse. I could have stabbed his sweaty little dick. Rolling my eyes, I opened my mouth to taunt him, but he heaved a sigh and started talking before I even had the chance to stab him again.

"Man, you're slow, aren't you? You are a byproduct of something greater. Greater than either of you could ever picture, ever dream of. I'd have given them my own daughter, if they could have made her into half of what they'd made you into, but they only want 'pure' stock. Bloodlines, untainted." He breathed heavily as I pushed the letter opener in, pulling it out slightly and changing directions. Blood oozed from the wound, dripping onto the floor. "I am not lost, for I belong. And those who stray, I shall find." He whispered, staring straight at me.

The words wrapped around me, putting me in a haze for a moment. Long enough to see his rotten teeth as he smiled. Shaking my head, I dispelled the feeling, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and drove my fist into his shocked face.

Guess he thought some weird fucking words would turn me into a blubbering mess. Wrong bitch, bucko. That shit meant nothing to me.

Except it did. Something in me had responded to it, and I didn't want to think about what that meant.

His whimpering grated on my last nerve. I'd had enough of his half-truths and vague bullshit. My smile twisted into a snarl as I leaned down.

"Listen here, you worthless sack of shit," I said. None of it made sense. I have memories of a mother. Didn't I? "I'm done playing nice. None of what you said makes sense. You've got exactly ten seconds to spill everything you know about Chimera's plans, or I'll start peeling off your fingernails one by one."

Cam came up behind me. "Lakey," he warned, but I was too far gone.

He blubbered on, his face a mask of pain as I stabbed the letter opener down on his leg again. "Please, I swear I don't know anything else! I only dealt with the kids. They keep us in the dark, compartmentalized—"

My hand shot out, gripping his throat and squeezing. "Wrong answer, sweet cheeks."

Cam's voice cut through. "Lakey, we need him alive—"

But it was too late. In one fluid motion, I jammed the letter opener into his jugular. Blood sprayed, hot and sticky, across my face and chest. The sudden silence was deafening, broken only by the wet gurgling of the dying man.

I stood there, panting, as the last twitches of life left his body. The rush of the kill sang through me, but beneath it, something else gnawed. We'd failed. We hadn't gotten everything we needed. And I'd let his words get under my skin, and the frustration of that had made me sloppy.

Cam's heavy sigh brought me crashing back. I turned to face him, blood dripping from my chin, waiting for the lecture that was coming.

His jaw was tight, but his voice stayed level. "Well, fuck me sideways. That's one way to end an interrogation."

He moved past me, brushing against my blood-soaked clothes. I watched, frozen, as he grabbed a cloth from the pocket of his jeans and began methodically wiping down surfaces. His hands, those same hands that could be so gentle with me, now efficiently erasing our presence.

"You gonna stand there catching flies, or you gonna help?" His voice snapped me out of it.

I blinked, realizing I'd been staring at the corpse. "I... I didn't mean to—"

"It's fine," Cam cut me off, tossing me a rag. "Start on the doorknobs. Anything you touched, wipe it down."

As I started cleaning, my brain wouldn't stop replaying the conversation. Not the parts about Chimera. The parts about us. Designed. Genes carefully selected. Placed into a host. Born in a laboratory.

If that was true, then every vague memory I had of a mother was either fake or planted. Every fragment of childhood before Carmen's house, before the fork, before Cam, all of it was either a lie or a programmed response.

And if we were designed, then everything we'd done since, every kill, every impulse, every time my body craved violence the way other people craved food, was that us? Or was that them? Were we making choices or running code?

The thought made me want to vomit.

Cam's voice broke through. "You good?"

I looked up, catching his eye.

"I'm fine," I lied. "Just peachy."