Page 3 of Curse of the Bride Assassin

“Well whoever you are, come on out. Find out what happens if you fuck around.” After a few moments of silence, he calls out again. “Come out, come out, whoever you are, so I can give you some gnarly scars!” His teeth pop out, and his eyes turn pitch black, ready to tear this fucker to shreds.

The intruder steps out from the shadow at the bottom of the staircase. He’s wearing a sharp, black suit, his brown hair is combed back, and a creepy smile sits on his gaunt, angular face. His eyes are unfocused, and he’s in a daze. Something isn’t right with him… Somehow this human walked right into our lion’s den, despite how insanely tight our security is. He may knowwho we are if he broke in, but he doesn’t seem scared…And everyone is scared of us. We have a reputation for being brutal.

I fly at him, tackling him to the floor and catching him in a stranglehold as I straddle him to hold him down. “Who sent you?!”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t move, or blink. He just lays there smiling at me. I wait for him to say something, but he seems determined to stay silent, with that toothy, sinister grin on his face.

“I asked you a question…” I punch him in the mouth, to wipe that creepy as fuck smile off his face, but it stays firmly in place. What in the actual fuck is going on right now?

“Lemme try something.” Dad walks over to us, then backhands him. He’sstillsmiling. Actually, he’s smiling even wider…like he enjoyed it. “He seems to be under some kind of spell or manipulation. This human is doing someone’s dirty work.”

I get off him, but he doesn’t spring up. He just stays there, and it’s making me uncomfortable. I know he’s human, because I hear his heartbeat, and the blood rushing around in his veins. He has a scent. But he’s not moving or responding to danger, and that’s a huge-ass red flag. I start to pace around the foyer while Dad keeps an eye on him. I tend to think kinetically, whereas Dad is a more stoic thinker.

“Self-destruct mode, activated.” A robotic, medium pitched voice blares from the silent man, as if he were a radio walkie-talkie.

Self destruct…

Seconds before the dots connect for me, the nameless, creepy as fuck robot man explodes, knocking me flat on my ass. Straight up explodes like a fucking bomb. The entire room is covered in blood, guts, organ shrapnel, and nastiness.

I feel… Oh my gods. I’m covered in human stew… It’s in my hair. In my boobie crack… It’s on my lips… Drinking blood to survive is one thing. It tastes good. But the rest of the human body is disgusting.

I jump up from the ground, and realize it’s all over my jeans, too.

“This can’t be real…” I sigh, leaning against the foyer wall. Blood soaks through the back of my V neck shirt and I cringe. It was the only dry part of me… I hate the feeling of wet fabric against my skin.

What the fuck is happening right now? Who is this man?! Why is he here? The whole room reeks of guts, menthol cigarettes, and this foul smell I can’t place, which is disturbing because I’m near a ton of dead bodies on the regular. I know what I’m talking about when it comes to dead body smells.

“Girlie, look…” Dad says, pointing to the mess of body-pulp stuck to the hardwood, where the man laid before he self-destructed. I start to move toward it, but he waves me away. “No, let me get it, in case it’s dangerous.”

Dad pulls a black envelope with red lettering. Despite the mess all around us, it’s clean, not a drop or smear on it. I can clearly see my full name, Delilah Storm Sangre, on it in a fancy script. His face immediately falls and he drops the invite like it bit him. His face is whiter than Keith Winton-Dumbass’ was before we ended his life. I pick it up, and it vibrates with dark, promising energy, completely terrifying me as much as it excites me.

“No… not again…” he cries. Tears stream down his ivory skin, and his black irises go to a light gray. Something is wrong. Dad’s eyes have never changed color…except the morning after Mom left.

“What do you meannot again? Are you okay?”

Open meeeee. Open me, Delilah,a sweet voice whispers to me inside my mind in a mischievous voice. It’s almost like it’s coming from the envelope.

Freaky. Someone really wants me to open this…

“Hun, you’re spacing out…” Dad says, breaking me from my thoughts. He stares at me, then at the envelope on the floor with a suspicious expression, as if it’s a second bomb that’s about to go off.

At this point in the evening I wouldn’t be surprised.

“You obviously know something, so while we wait for the cleaners, please tell me what is going on,” I calmly ask him while texting the cleaning team we use on our messier jobs.

Usually, I’d do it myself, but our home’s location is already compromised and I’m exhausted. I’d like nothing better than to crawl into bed, ball myself up, and doom scream into a pillow.

“Dahlia got an envelope just like that before she left. Black with her name in red script on the front. We went out for a date night, and it was floating above the kitchen table when we got back. She told me it was nothing to worry about, and wouldn’t let me read it before we went to bed. Two days later she was gone.”

“You never told me about her getting an envelope like this. That could have changed everything!” I shout.

How could he keep something like this from me? I spent months asking around, trying to find a shred of a clue as to where she went. Some people pitied me, while others laughed in my face, telling me to give up and let her go if she didn’t want to be here. I burnt some bridges in my quest to find her.

“The people who sent this to Mom are powerful enough to make her leave us and disappear—they’re probably dangerous. I didn’t want you looking for trouble. She’s a strong woman, and whatever mess she got herself into, she can get out of. I can’t lose you too, girlie. I just can’t.” He wraps me in a bear hug, lifting me off the ground and almost crushing me.

“But what if she can’t. This envelope may be my only way of making sure she’s safe and bringing her home. I have to at least open it, Dad,” I say with a thick voice, blinking back my own tears.

Open me…I hear that same saccharine voice inside my mind.Find out what’s inside…

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