Cursed Angels

Placing the steel on his jaw, I trail it up to his ear, pressing harder, piercing just a tiny pinprick to see the crimson trickle from him. “I’m crazy, yes. But this is what you created,” I tell him, cocking my head to the side.

“What? Who are you?”

“Oh dear,” I utter a fake, shocked gasp. “He doesn’t remember the girl he violated. But then again, there were so many. Weren’t there, Dr. Hickson?” Once again, I press the shimmering tip of steel against his throat, this time making a tiny incision where it now slowly bleeds.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice is more confident now, adamant at his innocence. Rearing my hand back, I make contact with his nose. The sickening crunch is the only sound that rings in my ears.

Nothing can ever make up for what he did to me, but this is close enough. I take the knife, watching him splutter and beg for his life, for mercy, and I laugh. The full belly chuckle vibrates through me. I grab one of my amulets, shoving it into his mouth, and punch his jaw shut, listening to the crystal crack. The poison will slowly work itself into his blood stream, and the agony he’ll suffer will be nothing short of blood curdling.

“Mercy?” I spit the word. “Did you show mercy when you shoved that cold, steel pipe inside my body?” I question with enough venom in my tone, trailing my fingertip over his now convulsing chest, over the buttons of his pajamas.

Blood spurts from his mouth as he tries to cough up the metal of the amulet, splashing against my arm. The droplets of crimson a pattern of revenge on my skin. For a moment, I’m hypnotized by it, by the sound of his screaming.

His sagging skin appears like a beacon. I want to see him sliced open but watching him choke on his own lifeforce is almost poetic.

“Did you show me mercy when my cunt bled out over your filthy cock while you laughed and told me how pretty I was?”

My hand finds a life of its own as I pull my knife from the belt holster and make an incision. Like a doctor operating on a patient about to perform heart surgery, I move with the same precision, only my patient isn’t knocked out by drugs. He’s alive, screeching, begging, crying, all the things I did when he violated my innocence.

I don’t know when I finally come to, but Hunter’s arms are around me. He’s holding me so close I feel as if we’re one person. When I turn to glance behind him, I find a dead man slumped in a chair.

“You did it, Buttercup,” Hunter tells me. “You made him pay.”

Chapter 10

Archer

“Sorry to get you out of bed so early, sir, but I thought you would want to deal with this personally.” I must’ve yawned again the way the foot soldier looks at me as we near the entrance to the house. I’m not the best with early mornings. I look at his name tag. Liam Kennedy. I’m sure I know that name from somewhere, and his face looks familiar, but we both stare at each other with eyes devoid of any recollection. This constant feeling of déjà vu is giving me a terrible headache. Liam continues his speech when I don’t answer him. “I was doing my rounds at about seven this morning, and I noticed his front door was open. We don’t normally check out his property as routine because he said we don’t need to. He said he could look after himself, but I was passing, and I just thought it strange the door being like that.”

“He’s an arrogant prick,” I respond as we make our way through the stuffy home.

“Well, it’s got him into big trouble.” Liam opens the bedroom door for me, and the stench of death hits me. “He emptied his bowels everywhere.”

“Shit, what did he have for dinner? Smells like rotten flesh.”

“There’s evidence of a curry in the kitchen.”

“Explains it.”

I stride purposefully into the room and look around. The room is pristine except for the fact that Dr. Hickson is attached to a chair, his head slumped forward, and the crimson hue of blood covers his body. His chest cavity has been carved open, and his heart lies on the floor beside him. What would have once been his dick is hanging by a thread. Someone has done a real number on him. A thought flashes through my mind. It couldn’t have happened to a better man, but it is quickly suppressed when I remember this is the head doctor of The Factory. He is responsible for the project I’m a part of. He gave me life.

“Any idea who did it?” I ask while surveying the scene further.