in hell which promised pain and bloodshed. Nicoli moved between Quentin’s men like a demon, slashing and cutting and slicing. Their screams rang in my ears like the most beautiful orchestra, every crescendo meeting a dramatic, violent end as hearts ceased to beat.
I watched it all with my own heart leaping and my breaths crashing from my lungs. My nails were digging deep into the trunk of the tree as I crouched on a branch, bracing myself so I didn’t fall. Nicoli was showing me the most monstrous part of his soul as he stabbed and punched and fought and bones shattered beneath his powerful blows. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Quentin was crawling towards his snowmobile, carving a path in the snow and leaving a trail of blood behind him. My upper lip peeled back and darkness seeped through my body, every muscle and fibre filled with hatred for this vile creature. I had one task in this world and one only: to kill The Five. And while Quentin’s heart still beat, I wouldn’t be satisfied.
I climbed down from the tree, dropping from branch to branch until I was low enough to jump into the snow. Then I stalked toward him, pulling the hat off that Nicoli had given me to wear so my crimson hair tumbled around me in the wind as I stuffed it in my pocket. Quentin looked up as I made it in front him, his mouth stained red and his eyes alight with fear. I crouched down, life flooding my veins and filling me with euphoria.
“Now, poppet,” he whispered and I cocked my head to one side as he reached for my shoe, clinging onto it with shaking fingers. “Help out your old friend, Quentin. I’ll look after you. It won’t be like before.”
Nicoli’s heavy boot suddenly stamped down on his wrist and made him wail, forcing his hand off of my foot. His shadow fell over us, encasing me and Quentin. It seemed ten times wider and larger than Nicoli’s body, like darkness was seeping from his flesh, unable to remain contained within it. His face and hands were splattered with blood and there was a fierceness in his eyes that drew me to him like a magnet.
He twisted the blade around between his fingers, holding out the hilt to me with an offering in his eyes. “You don’t have to, baby doll. But if you want it, he’s all yours.”
I smiled, a grim and twisted piece of me needing this more than I needed air in my lungs. I took the blade, finding it heavy and warm in my palm. I peered down at Quentin as he stared up at me, pale faced and full of hate as he realised I wasn’t going to be swayed to help him. He scrambled backwards, clutching his gut as he tried to stand, but Nicoli booted him in the side, sending him crashing back into the snow.
I crawled after him like a hungry tiger as he tried to get away, but he was slow and I was fast. I was the one with the knife now, I was the predator hunting her prey. I was free of my cage and my captors had better run, run, run for their lives or me and my wild man were going to flay and gut and sever until a river of blood painted this whole mountain red.
Quentin started whimpering and the sound made me smile harder before I leapt forward and straddled his back.
“Please, poppet!” he screamed and I grinned like the devil. I’d made the whisperer scream. And I was going to hear it a thousand times more before I finished this. I may have been small, but the power of hate was as strong as Thor’s hammer. And it took no effort at all to slam the blade into his shoulder. His screams echoed across the mountain as I fell into a frenzy, losing myself to the bloodlust, the need to rip this man to pieces for what he’d done to me as I drove the blade into him over and over.
He started flailing and I sensed Nicoli drawing closer, ready to step in if Quentin got free. But he wouldn’t, I had him at my mercy like he’d had me at his so many times. I thought of the knives he’d sliced into my skin, the time he’d pressed an iron to the backs of each of my thighs, or when he’d