AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER16
Bastien
The air smellslike blood and moldy hay. Two men are sprawled at my feet, their life fluids leaking onto a dirty barn floor. I’m an hour outside of Philadelphia on a decrepit property I’ve owned for a while now, purchased by one of my shell companies. As soon as I decided to move to Pennsylvania, I started buying up different properties I thought might be useful. Simon helped while I got situated.
I’m out here because someone tried to break into my hotel room early this morning at three o’clock. They weren’t very smart. Too loud and clumsy, they alerted me to their presence. I crouched against the wall waiting for them, gun in hand, but unfortunately, they were scared off by a drunken hotel guest who was staggering in from God knows where.
That made me angry because I really wanted to meet the man and get to know him a little better before I cut his tongue out and stuffed it down his throat.
I suspect it was Troy or Benedict who sent him, though. So I left my hotel room this morning and went for a drive to lure my assassins into following me.
I’d already mapped out the route perfectly. I vanished down a hidden side road on my new property and watched as the car following me went over the stop stick strip I’d laid out.
Idiots.
I shot both men who climbed out of the car with tranquilizer darts, and when they collapsed, I dragged them into the barn and cuffed them. They were going to kill me, so what they get is more than deserved.
I took turns torturing them with a package of skinning knives I bought just for whoever came for me. I baptized the knives in blood, taking my time to relish in the merited sacrifices. The men started screaming their secrets far too quickly, so after I got everything I needed from them, I just cut them for the sheer joy of it.
This… this is amazing. I’ll never tire of the sight of watching a man’s flesh open up, of the sounds he makes as he’s dying. I can feel his life force flowing into mine. It nourishes me in a way that food never could.
Am I sick? Yes. Do I care? Not in the slightest.
Well… maybe a little.
I have no interest in being like Artemis and his band of sycophants, but it’s kill or be killed in this new world. What’s wrong with taking pleasure in my efforts?
The men were working for Troy— they told me through split, bloody lips. Apparently, Troy and Benedict are gunning for each other, each hiding out in their own houses until the day of the challenge. Fucking cowards.
They also told me they weren’t behind the attack on me, and they didn’t kill Robert, which means one thing. That must have been Benedict.
I found out how many men work for Troy and where he’s hiding out until the day of the challenge. Interestingly, they also told me Benedict has a man on the inside, someone fairly high up, but he doesn’t know who. My money would be on Paxton, the bitter little whiner.
One of the men has stopped breathing. I guess he doesn’t want to play anymore. I grab his body and heave him into the incinerator in the back of the barn. I return to the other man, who is moaning, blood bubbling from his mouth. I can’t spend much more time with him because backup might be arriving soon. A pity. I wanted to hunt and watch him run through the fields, weeping as I stalked him. I crave it. It’s such a sick and specific urge, but I no longer hate myself for it. I understand now that it’s a peculiar psychopathy passed down from one generation to the next in our family.
I don’t glory in it the way Artemis does. I don’t take it as a sign that we’re exalted above other men. I just accept it. I was born this way. I will work to find a way to satisfy my urges and not get caught by the authorities. My parents pounded conventional morality into my head, and I can’t escape it completely, so I won’t snatch random people off the street. Instead, I’ll follow my own path, and hunt criminals and those who threaten my life.
The surviving assassin makes a gurgling sound, and blood runs from his mouth, dribbling down his chin, yet somehow, he manages to speak. “Please,” he snivels. “I’ll work for you.” Each word is labored and choppy, but I hear him just fine.
“But you failed to kill me and couldn’t keep your employer’s secrets, which means you’d be a piss-poor employee.” I smile at him as I grab his feet and start dragging him toward the incinerator.
“I don’t want to die!” he whines.
I shrug. “I didn’t either. I won; you lost. This is the consequence of failure. Since you gave everything up so nicely, I’ll give you a choice. Do you want to go into the incinerator alive or dead?”
The alarm system I set up chimes and warns me of a car a few miles away. There are no houses or businesses in the area. It could be someone passing through or a team sent by Troy or Benedict. I’ll have to pick up the pace.
“Please,” he tries again. “I have a wife and kids.”
That gives me pause, but in the end, I shut off that part of me. There’s no time to second-guess. This man will come for me if I allow him to live. He won’t win, but he’ll be a nuisance.
“How sad for them. Quit stalling. I’ve got a fun date tonight and can’t be late. I’m counting down from five, and after that, I stuff you in and you burn alive. Five, four, three—”
“Shoot me, you motherfucker! Fuck you, fuck you!” he screams. “I hope you—” I shoot him in the head. I never get to find out what he hopes. I watch his face dissolve into raspberry jam, and then I quickly haul him off the floor and shove him into the incinerator. I slam the door shut and turn it on.
I hurry out of the barn to another car waiting for me, climb in, and fly off the opposite way, just as a car screeches onto the front of the property. As I head down a back path, an enormous explosion tells me that Troy’s men triggered the bomb I’d rigged inside the barn.
A short time later, I pull into the house I rented for myself a couple of months ago. It’s got excellent sight lines, and it’s a couple of hours from the city. I hum to myself as I shower. Today was a good day. I fed the beast that lived inside me, and for now, it’s napping, fat and happy.
