There weren’t many things that smelled quite as foul as a rotting corpse.
Except, of course, three of them.
“Fucking bastards,” I growled, looking down at the bodies of three decomposing and horribly injured dogs.
The capacity for human cruelty against innocent animals would never cease to infuriate me.
You want to kill some business rival? Go at it. Slip some poison into the food of the bastard who slapped you around? Good for you. Take out the local peeping Tom? No problem.
But forcing animals to fight to the death for your own sick pleasure?
Yeah, no.
In fact, fuck no.
Was that why the person had been wearing a mask? Because they knew what a deplorable shithead they were, and didn’t want anyone to be able to identify them outside of the fight?
“Pussy-ass mother—“ I started, feeling that old, familiar rage bubbling up and threatening to spill over. Which usually meant people would end up beaten to ever-loving shit. If not dead.
But then the door was opening again, and the back of the person who had disappeared was coming back out.
The back.
Because they were walking up the steps backward, pushing the door up with their shoulders and head.
Weird.
That was really fucking weird.
I didn’t catch sight of the front of them at all as they closed the door, but not as quietly as they had before, then turned and ran.
“Oh, no. Not today, asshole,” I hissed, cracking my neck, then following that old, familiar rage of mine down the alley, following behind the mysterious dog fight stranger, ready to give him a piece of his own medicine.
If he liked fights so much, it was high time he was involved in one himself.
He ran between two buildings only to end up in a surprisingly well-lit parking lot of a closed bakery. Which was an odd choice of parking, given the whole ski mask thing.
If I was having a hint of second thoughts, though, I wasn’t all that aware of it as I charged up toward him.
But then he reached up, yanking the cap off his head, and shaking out a long mane of red hair.
Not a man, then.
I’d thought he’d been a little delicately built for a guy, but, hey, some guys were just made that way. It didn’t make a difference to me if he was small, I still planned on kicking his ass.
But a woman?
Yeah, it didn’t matter how fucking warped she was, I drew the line there.
“Hey, asshole!” I called.
I might not lay a hand on her, but I was going to go ahead and tell her what I thought about people who participated in dog fights.
At that, her head whipped around, her dark green eyes huge.
I really never wanted to find someone so despicable attractive, but, yeah, she was a fucking knockout, that’s for sure. The red hair, the green eyes, the milky skin. Yeah, it was all working for her.
Even as she gasped, though, my gaze started to travel down.