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“I get it, I do, but you’re not a killer. Do you understand that?” he asks, looking me in the eye. I get it. He’s trying to protect me from what might come, but I can’t let this go. I can’t let someone else deal with him. Can I?
“I get it, but if I don’t see this through, what kind of person does that make me?” I ask him.
“It makes you stronger, Raven. You don’t have to kill him to know it’s over.” Tears spill down my cheeks as I look at Cross, but there’s just something nagging at the back of my mind. I can’t walk away from him. I can’t do that. My mind won’t let me.
“I’ll be upstairs if you need me, but Drake is comin’ down just in case,” he tells me. I nod my head and watch him turn and walk away. This is harder than I thought it would be. I thought I could just slowly slit his throat and watch him bleed out. I thought I could just end him and move on, but what if Cross is right? What if it changes me? What kind of person would I be?
I swallow hard as I turn back to Luke. His eyes are wide as he looks at me, uncertain what I’ll do. I walk over to the table and pick up the knife before stalking toward him. I hear the door close behind me, and I’m sure it’s Drake.
“I hate you. You killed a piece of me,” I tell Luke before pulling the gag from his mouth.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he mumbles. Drake chuckles behind me.
“You traded me. Like I was nothing. You knew they’d rape me.”
“I didn’t know they’d traffic you, Raven.”
“What’s the difference? Huh? Being raped is being raped, and I was raped repeatedly.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You knew,” Drake mumbles behind me.
“This is it, final payment for what I lived through,” I tell him before slicing through his flesh. He screams louder than before, and I smile.
“Please, Raven. Don’t do this,” he begs as tears fall down his cheeks.
“I have to. Don’t you get that?” But then it hits me. Will Cross hate me if I do it? Is he right? Will this change me? Will I ever be able to sleep at night knowing what I did to him?
I hesitate longer than I thought, lost in Cross’s words. Before I know it, I feel Drake’s hand slip over mine, and the knife is taken from me.
“Cross was right, you know?”
“About what?”
“What killin’ does to a person. It fucks with your head, Raven. It leaves a scar that will itch and remind you of your actions. You can never take it back. You can never fix it,” he says as tears slip down my cheeks.
“I need it to be over, Drake.”
“It’ll be over, darlin’. Just not by your hand.” I watch him move past me and cut Luke. His screams pierce my ears as I slowly back into the corner and slide to the floor. My chest rises and rapidly falls as Drake gets to work. Luke’s screams are something I will never be able to silence.
When the sounds stop, I stare at the floor. It’s over. It’s all finally over.
“Go find, Cross.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. He did this for you, Raven. Go find him.” He’s right. Cross let this happen because of me, for me. He chose me. I push to my feet, walk past the blood staining the floor, and head for the door. Drake whistles a tune as if none of this bothers him, and maybe it doesn’t.
I climb the stairs in a daze and walk into the main room. Then I lift my head and glance around until I see him across the room. He’s standing with a beer in his hand, looking out the window. I swallow hard and walk toward him, catching stares from a few of the guys, but I ignore them. My focus is on him.
I grab his arm and wrap it around me when I'm close enough. He pulls me in close and leans down, breathing me in.
“I can breathe when you’re here,” he whispers.
“I hated being away from you too.”
“We’re meant to be together, Raven.”
