AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hoped that was right. His vehemence proved that we’d been doing exactly as we’d meant to do. We were weakening him.
I felt the Blood Hunter’s glower through his visor. “For what you’ve done, they won’t just be killed quickly. Your crew will be tortured fordays.I will wipe them off the map when I find them, and it’s all because you tried to defy me.”
Maybe if I provoked a little more anger, I could get something out of him he didn’t mean to reveal. I pushed my mouth into a smirk of my own. “What’s wrong? Are you pissed that you can’t control yourpropertyas thoroughly as you thought?”
This time, the Blood Hunter’s laugh was chilling enough to send a shiver down my spine. “You don’t think I have full control over you? From the time you were a child, I’ve manipulated every part of your life. I gave orders to your handlers for years, sending you on missions to advance my agenda. I had you kill remorselessly, and I created that killing power inside of you whether you acknowledge it or not. And when I finished turning you into the killer I knew you’d become, I slaughtered everyone but your handler to spark your rage. Even your outside sources—the girl in the tech shop and the guy in the bakery. Everyone.Idid that.”
I’d wondered what had happened to Jay and Scarlett. Now I had my answer. Even though I’d barely known them, my throat constricted at the thought that they too had been caught up fatally in this war that I hadn’t even realized I was fighting back then.
I jabbed a finger at him. “You failed. I’m still walking free. Your plans went to shit because you can’t control everything. Because nobody is that powerful.”
“I can’t?” he asked, and I could hear the smile on his face. “Maybe I didn’t account for the Chaos Crew taking you, but I sent out a call for their deaths, not because I thought it would work, but because I knew it would bring you closer. And when you finally trusted them, I let you come here where I knew they’d help you kill your family. I set up a failed bombing at Malik’s office to focus your attention on him. I’ve been guiding you for your entire life, and you never even noticed, did you?”
How could he possibly have known we’d come here when we had? It hadn’t been the bombing that had brought us here, and we’d nearly died getting the genetics information that’d allowed Blaze to match me with Damien Malik. The Hunter had to be bluffing. But he spoke with such confidence it sent the shivers deeper into my gut.
“From start to finish, I orchestrated your birth family’s destruction,” he went on. “You never suspected I was the one attacking your allies. You bought into the clues I left that pointed to your father as the culprit. I sent you running out to that home they kept hidden by kidnapping that man of yours, and you didn’t hesitate for a second. You thought you were protecting him from them when it was me all along.”
We’d put those pieces together, but it was still unsettling hearing the man gloat about it. I groped for something that would shatter his ideas of grandeur.
“I would have taken out the Maliks anyway,” I said. “I didn’t kill them because of anything you did but because of whatthey’ddone. They really murdered those kids. They believed in torturing children. That’s why they died. You only gave me the clues I needed to figure it out and deliver justice. So really you were serving my agenda.”
Just as much as I’d served his, but I didn’t see the need to mention that part when he was emphasizing it so much already.
My reframing obviously pissed him off even more. He exhaled roughly. “And is your agenda also seeing the men you’ve allied yourself with dead? Killing them has always been a part of the plan—every second since the moment I found you with them. Their deaths will be your final punishment before you follow them.”
“Is that why you haven’t tried to kill me right now?” I taunted, my heart pounding faster as I all but dared him to try. “Because you want me to suffer through their deaths first? Or maybe you’re afraid you can’t match me after all. You told me that I’m the finest assassin you’ve ever known.”
The Blood Hunter guffawed. “You’re a fine soldier, but I’m your commanding officer. No single soldier is going to eliminate me, Decima. You can be sure of that.”
After everything, he was still confident enough to look me in the face while I held a gun on him and speak so arrogantly. My nerves wobbled. What if he could make good on his threat after all? Look at how easily he’d found me here. If he destroyed the crew…
He’d said he wouldn’t accept me as an employee now, but he might have been speaking out of anger rather than the full truth. If I offered to set down my weapon and go over to his side, was it possible he’d spare them after all?
But every piece of my body screamed against the idea of giving myself over to his manipulations. I couldn’t allow myself to become a puppet ever again. I had to trust that my men and I would find a way to defeat this monster.
I was just drawing in my breath to answer when his voice rolled out through his helmet again with a strange but far too familiar phrase. “Garlic milkshake.”
A prickling sensation rushed through my mind, my muscles starting to seize. A flare of panic followed, but in the same moment, I heard Julius’s voice, guiding me.Imagine a wave that washes over you without catching hold.
The conditioned command didn’t have to control me. I hadn’t let Noelle use it, and I wouldn’t let this psycho force my obedience either.
I pictured the wave sweeping all the phrase’s influence away, and my limbs loosened.
“You can be sure that I’m never going to stop fighting,” I snapped at the Blood Hunter, and pulled the trigger.
I should have known he was prepared for his gambit not to work. The Blood Hunter’s head jerked back, but only a few inches before he righted himself. The bullet had dented his helmet without coming close to penetrating the material. His hand whipped to his side, to a weapon he must have had concealed there, and all I could feel was how very vulnerable my body was in comparison.
Not knowing what other protective gear he might be wearing, I didn’t risk taking another shot while I left myself open. A sense of urgency was creeping over me that I needed to get back to my men anyway—we all needed to get out of here in case the Blood Hunter had called in others to join him.
I threw myself into the shelter of the forest and ran back toward the road. No sounds of pursuit came from behind me, only a cool, rolling laugh that made me sick to my stomach.
I could run away now, and we could keep running, but how long would it be before he hunted us down exactly as his name and his words promised?
