Page 80 of His Pretty Little Queen

Pity.

Dustin's head lulls along the dirt, his eyes rolling around like marbles within his skull. We may have taken him back with us once, drawn out the revenge. Not today. The bushfire will end this. The bodies charcoal soon.

I hear my sweet girl's breath hitch faster. This is not for Fawn to see. I pull her face into my chest, protecting her from the murderous scene. She can be my queen without witnessing her own flesh and blood die. That action doesn't rip away her strength. Nor undermined her bravery. It allows her humanity.

"He's yours," I say to Max. "Finish him.

Bronson and Xander look on from my side, and Max glares down at Dustin as the rarest of smiles creep across his face. Time becomes longer, stretching, as he hovers over him. The glow of the fire sets the backdrop. The grey smoke circles Max like the phantom of each betrayal readying itself to reap the consequences.

For the kidnapping of Konnor.

The attack on Cassidy.

For being undeserving of his daughter.

“Silence him, Max,” I order, not wanting to lead Fawn from my clutches to the safety of the car but not wanting her to hear his howls of pain either.

Max squats slowly, hovering over Dustin. A shadow cast over the crippled body of his enemy.

He reaches down and tears a piece of Dustin’s shirt, removing a strip of soiled fabric. Dustin comes to with a hazy groan as Max shoves the ash-covered material into his mouth, muffling the guttural sounds that rumble out.

Dustin begins to choke, the smoke and soot filling his pulsing throat, provoking it to contract and fight for air.

“I don’t like his eyes,” I say in Sicilian, holding the trembling body of my sweet girl, only further driven by her sorrow. Further angered by his effect on her.

Max’s smile widens.

Dustin gapes as the shiny blade approaches the first glistening orb, his black pupil darting to follow the skew just as it connects. Sliding in with ease, the blade spears the brown eyeball straight through the centre.

A few twists later and Max has the first orb impaled and plucked from Dustin’s skull.

He flicks the wet ball to the dirt, where it lies on its side, sizzling in the charred dirt, wide and watching as Dustin vomits around the cloth. Muffled rasping sounds curdle within his clogged mouth and throat. His body shakes with horror.

Max leans in for the second one, slowly lowering the blade closer and closer until the tip dips into the fluid coating Dustin’s last eye—the last one that looks like Fawn’s.

He plunges in slowly.

A fraction at a time.

Then he slams the knife down until only the handle can be seen bobbing and swaying with the eye it has impaled.

My brother is not a man of words, but he still hisses by Dustin’s ear, "No eyes. You must reallyfeelthe Butchers all around you now… And a Butcher is the last thing you will ever feel."

CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE

fawn

The webbingof trees makes a near-black tunnel that envelops the car as Clay drives us from the campsite, from the dead bodies, ash, and debris. From the executions.

Everything happened so fast.

As though I had only just whispered, “Hello,” to my dad moments ago, then someone hit fast-forward, a blur of events flashing behind my eyes in an instant; the vision of Max taking a bullet for me, of Clay dragging me beneath him. Of bullets flying. Of people dying. Of flames and smoke and ash, and then it stops. And I am dropped into this seat.

In this gliding car.

Where everything is still: the glass blocks the smoke, the tyres roll gently on the whiny road, and the man beside me is as cold as stone, but my heart—

My heart is still on fast-forward. Still mirroring the events that have somehow ended just as they began.

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