The Blood Debt

“Well done,” my brother, Luca, says with a smirk. “I’m surprised you even managed to pull the trigger.”

“Fuck off,” I say, throwing him an equally devious smirk.

But my eyes trail away from his to the yard behind him, where two grown women and two girls my age sit and talk at a table. One of them looks at me, and when she smiles, my heart thumps louder than any gunshot ever could.

* * *

The memories come in waves and leave just as quickly as they appear. I never know when they were from or how old I was. But I force myself to remember as I close my eyes and take in all the little bits, no matter how harsh they feel to my empty brain. Because even bad memories are better than none at all.

I sigh as I get up from the ground.

The deer has collapsed, a clean wound clearly visible in its skull. A gentle death without a second of pain. Not at all what my father used to teach my brother and me. But if I have to kill, I will do so with fucking kindness in my heart.

At least when it comes to animals.

Because humans … they deserve every ounce of pain coming for them.

After hours of painstakingly cutting up the deer and putting it in the freezer, I finally go back inside my warm house and strip naked, throwing all the dirty clothes in the bucket filled with soap and water before stepping into a bath.

The water tempers my blood and cools the anger still swirling through my head. I close my eyes and let the water take me over. There is nothing but darkness. Just like inside my heart.

Everything about being in the water like this makes my heart beat faster and faster until I hear that one scream again. The one that always makes me sit up straight as a frigid chill rolls down my back.

Images flash before my eyes again of a car driving fast, too fast, careening off the road, crashing into the water.

And the last thing I see is the driver of the car … A girl with plump lips and her half-long blond bob swaying in the wind as the water hits my lungs.

Jill Baas.

I blink a few times to make the image disappear, but nothing will quench the fire raging in my heart.

Fuck.

Even after her death, she still haunts me.

If she even is dead at all.

But who would survive a fall like that?

Then again, my brother jumped in after her. What if he managed to save her?

Grunting, I force myself to forget.

Nothing I do will change what happened. Nothing.

SNAP!

My ears perk up like those of a hound, my head turning toward the sound.

Another snap that sounds like a twig being stepped on makes a vicious smirk spread on my face.

I jump out of the bath and rush to put a towel around my waist, then pull the plug. Even though I’m not nearly clean, I’ll finish this bath later.

Adrenaline pumps through my veins, excitement egging me on as I snatch my axe off the table and make my way outside wearing nothing but a fucking towel around my wet, naked body.

But I am more than fucking prepared.

Because whoever is outside, lurking around my property, is not a friend.