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Nine
Declan
Before
Eight weekslater
Adrenaline was bursting through me,making me feel a little light-headed, a lot shaky.
Which, of course, made me feel like a pussy.
This was my first kill. I knew Aidan and Brennan had killed someone when they were a lot younger than this, and I had no real idea why Da had cut me as much slack as he had, but I was grateful for it.
Because I was going to puke.
I knew it.
I was going to shame Da and my brothers by puking over a dead man.
A man who’d betrayed us.
A man who’d deserved to die.
A fucking rat.
I sucked in a shaky breath, gulping when I saw those stars twinkling in the periphery of my vision, but Da slapped me on the back, and muttered, “Well done, son. Hold your gut a little longer, and go and puke back at home.”
His compassion stunned me.
Da wasn’t exactly known for that. He’d bred us to be tough, bred us to be hard, and that he was cutting me even more slack made me wonder if some alien had popped down and snapped up my father to colonize Saturn or something.
He was certainly extraterrestrial enough to fit in on another planet.
At his words though, I headed out of the warehouse where I’d been told to kill Jimmy D. execution-style, and on shaky feet, I made it out of the massive empty space and into the yard where there were fewer people wandering around.
I wasn’t sure how there wasn’t blood on me. Why it wasn’t soaking into me, into my clothes. Drenching my skin.
When Jimmy’s head had exploded the way it had, gore had gone everywhere. I’d thought I’d know what to expect, but I really didn’t. I could never have expected the mess. The sheer force as a bullet caved in a man’s skull.
I sucked in another breath, but it was too late. I rushed toward a nearby wall and pushed my back into it, trying to keep straight, trying to stop my knees from goddamn knocking.
Feeling like a baby and hating it, I closed my eyes and breathed through the chaos attacking my mind.
Most guys would talk about the first time they got laid, or the first time they got drunk. My brothers often shared war stories. The first time they’d been shot, that they’d killed. But even though I’d listened, and while I’d felt sure I’d learned something from them, I realized I’d learned nothing.
Christ, nothing could have prepared me.
I wanted to puke out my guts, but the one thing that stopped me?
The stupid tune that Aela had set as her personal ringtone on my cell.
My clammy hands found the flip phone I’d shoved into my pocket earlier, and I opened it, rasping, “Babe, I can’t talk yet.”
“I know it sounds stupid,” she muttered, “but I just felt like you needed to hear from me.”
Pain speared me at how well this woman knew me, and how little I could give her when she deserved the fucking world. “No way.”
“Way.” Her laughter was faint. “Stupid, right?”
