My body sinks into the mattress, too heavy to move, too tired to think and just as quickly as he brought me here, he’s turning away without looking at me.
“You’re not taking my life tonight?” I ask and he stops.
He waits a second, his hands clenching, but he ignores me, continuing to leave. I just stare at his bare tatted back while he heads toward the door, as if this was all he needed to do. As if he’s done enough.
After hearing the door close, and the silence settles in, I look up at the ceiling blankly. Feeling confused and dismissed all at once.
Chapter Ten
Wrath
Stepping off my bike the next morning, I stare up at the house I once called home. It’s dark and ghostly, still oozing with that blood-drenched kind of wealth that annoys me. Expensive silence, like every brick was paid for by death. This… this is where it all started for me. Or at least, that’s what I tell myself. The truth is, I don’t remember much before I became a member of the Shadows.
I don’t remember my parents or who they were beyond the vague ghosts in my head. All I know is they’re gone. Dead. And I was dropped here, left to rebuild into some messed-up freak with my dad’s old friend. My godfather. Valen.
Valen’s just as fucked in the head as I am, but his brand of fucked is far darker. Meaner. He doesn’t just kill. Hechooses who suffers. And it’s always women.
They call him one of the most prolific Shadows killers, like that title means something. Like it’s an achievement. But it’s not about numbers with him, it’s about control. It’s about watching a female fall apart piece by piece and enjoying every second of it.
He doesn’t kill to end things. He kills todragthem out and make them suffer.
And the fucked-up part? He’s protected, respected and feared. They talk about him like he’s some untouchable myth. But I’ve seen him up close since I was a boy. He’s not a fucking myth. He’s the exact disturbed bastard he’s known to be.
The huge thing we lack in common is he doesn’t shut the fuck up. He talks, rants, teaches through pain and laughs when people scream. He trained me—broke me down and built me back up from the ashes, and even though I can’t say I like him, I still stupidly have enough respect for him to listen when he calls, which is rare nowadays.
Maybe it’s the trauma bond carved into me like a second fucking spine. Fuck knows.
He told me my parents were brutal—sadistic slayers to the core. Part of Oddity before it was ever placed into the hands of The Shadows. Violence wasn’t just a job for them, it was a love language. They were obsessed with the insanity, the gore and with each other. They liked to kill together like it was fucking foreplay, like every scream was a hymn, every body a sacrifice to whatever sick god they both worshipped in each other’s eyes.
But they got sloppy. One night, too wrapped up in the chaos and too busy fucking in the mess they’d made, they let their guard down and someone wanted some kind of revenge. And just like that, they were gone. Dead and wiped out by the very thing they’d underestimated.
Can’t say I’m surprised, and it makes sense, really—look at me. The way my mind works, the things I crave, hate and can’t seem to stop. I’m the aftermath of their recklessness. A consequence wrapped in human flesh. Their child didn’t stop or change them, and this... this is the price. Me. Alone. And fucking cruel. Thrown into the hands of someone far worse than they ever were.
My life was always going to end up like this, no matter how it played out. Who I am was never a choice. It was engraved into me before I even knew what living meant. And yeah, there’s been moments in the past where I’ve questioned everything—my existence and my purpose, whether I could’ve been something or someone else. But I know better. There’s no fucking running from this. No undoing the things I’ve done or unseeing the things I’ve seen. You don’t come back from the kind of darkness that makes a home in your fucking veins.
After kicking out my bike stand, I lift my hood and head toward the door, entering without even a knock. I glance around as I close the door behind me, staring at all the useless stuff piled to the ceilings.
Although Valen is rich as fuck, he is also a hoarder. He buys or collects pointless shit to, I guess, make himself feel something, but sometimes I wonder how many bodies are still rotting beneath it all.
I slip through it all with ease, a little pathway made, aiming for the back of the house where he usually is. After walking through the kitchen, I open a door to ‘his room’ and enter.
“Surprise!” Valen calls out, his arms stretched lazily to his left, a big smile plastered across his aging face, eyes covered by his usual, thick specs.
I stop at the threshold, my eyes narrowing as his hand gestures again toward whatever’s behind that door and I almost don’t want to fucking look. My jaw tightens, teeth crushing, but I take a slow step forward, edge around the open frame—and then I see her.
A young naked woman is in the middle of the dark, cold room—arms yanked out at either side, meat hooks buried deep into her muscles, suspending her like a slaughtered angel.
Her skin is stretched and pulled upward so horrifically, there’s holes gaping. She’s trembling under the strain, still very much alive, blood dripping slow and steady into a growing pool beneath her feet. Her head hangs limp, chin to chest and her long dark hair veils her face like a curtain.
A black satin bow sits perfectly over her hips, hiding her pussy like some sick joke—a neatly wrapped gift, like she was meant just for me.
Valen moves toward her and my eyes track his every step and when he stops beside her, he curls his fingers into her hair, yanking her head back with a sharp pull.
The moment her face is revealed, something in me cracks and my expression drops.
“It’s that little bitch who got away from you. You know the one.” Valen grins, something hideous morphing on his face, malicious eyes flicking between me and her.
“Took me months to track her down,” he goes on, voice full of pride and poison. “But your birthday’s coming up and fuck it, I couldn’t wait any longer. She was becoming all too tempting to take for myself.”