Rogue Descendant (Nikki Glass) - By Jenna Black Page 0,99

hurt plenty. Anderson wasn’t exploding in rage, but the pain and sadness that wafted from him made my eyes tear up in sympathy yet again.

Not trusting my voice, I cleared my throat before I spoke again.

“Strangely enough, Cyrus doesn’t feel the need to protect Konstantin anymore. He suggested you and I might want to hunt Konstantin down and bury him somewhere that no one will ever find him.”

Anderson nodded slowly. “He wants us to do the dirty work for him so he can deny having anything to do with his father’s disappearance.”

“That was my interpretation. So far he and Mark are the only Olympians who know what Konstantin tried to do, and I think Cyrus plans to keep it that way if he can. I don’t know if he’s trying not to piss off Konstantin’s supporters, or if he just doesn’t want to give anyone else ideas.

“Anyway, Cyrus told me Konstantin’s been moving around constantly, trying to make it hard for me to get a bead on him. But he was apparently staying at Alexis’s old place last night. I’m sure he knows by now that his assassination attempt failed, and he’s no doubt on the run, but we have a solid starting point, and the moon is still up.”

Anderson raised an eyebrow at me. There was still a haunted expression in his eyes, and his face hadn’t fully regained its usual color, but he seemed entirely calm and rational. “You mean to tell me you’re willing to hunt him now? His revenge has come to its head, and I doubt you and your family are in any danger from him anymore. He was never really after you in the first place.”

My shoulders slumped, and I suddenly felt almost unbearably tired. Until that moment, when Anderson challenged me with it, I hadn’t even allowed myself to think about what I was doing. The pain and anger that swelled in me when I learned what Konstantin had done were so overwhelming that I’d been acting on pure instinct, letting those swirling emotions guide me. I wanted Konstantin dead, and if I could help make him that way, then I was all for it.

But had anything really changed since I’d refused to hunt Konstantin because my conscience rebelled at the idea of killing for revenge? Sure, Konstantin had hurt more people, but as Anderson had said, his revenge was now complete. At least, it seemed logical to assume it was.

I like to think of myself as a nice person. I’ve long taken pride in being a bleeding heart, in being a voice of reason when others around me were acting on pure emotion. I’d considered myself above acting out of revenge. And yet even now, when Anderson pointed out the inconsistency of my decision, my conscience couldn’t quite rouse itself to try to talk me out of it. Konstantin had hurt too many people, in too many twisted ways. And unlike Emma, or even Justin Kerner, he was not clinically insane. There was no excuse for his actions, not even in my unusually open mind. He was just an evil man, and the world would be a better place without him.

“I still don’t believe in revenge killings,” I said slowly, thinking over my words carefully. “If there were a way to sentence him to life in prison, I’d be all for it.” Even as I said those words, I wasn’t sure they were true. Not anymore. In my arrogance, I’d thought there was no situation that could persuade me to believe in the death penalty, ever. Maybe I still didn’t. I’d have to wait until my emotions settled down before I would know for sure. But there were exceptions to every rule, and I couldn’t deny that in my mind, Konstantin was one of them. “But since we can’t imprison him except by burial, which I wouldn’t wish even on him, then I guess he has to die. If that makes me a hypocrite, then I guess I’m just going to have to live with it.”

Anderson gave me a gentle smile. “I don’t think you’re being a hypocrite, Nikki. We’re being spurred into action by revenge, but that’s not all there is to it. Even if he doesn’t personally come after us anymore, he will still be an evil person, and countless others will suffer and die at his hands if we don’t take him out. There are good, logical reasons to kill him above and beyond our desire to punish him