Page 23 of The Vigilant

I smiled and pressed harder, instantly feeling his hand spring open and release my wrist as a rivulet of red trickled down my slim silver blade.

“You’re going to pay for this.”

“You should probably wait until I’ve put my knife away before threatening me, Jack,” I drawled and smirked.

His eyes bugged wide for a second, and then he let out a hiss of pain as I pressed the knife and forced him to turn.

“Against the wall,” I directed.

“You’re a fucking cunt,” he repeated once our positions were reversed and it was his back pressed to the brick, his head tipped to try to stop the bleeding, his arms spread to the sides, hands up in a show of surrender.

“So you’ve said,” I quipped, watching the blood soak the white cuff of his shirt and drip onto the ground.

“Just like Mara.” When he spoke, blood sprayed from his lips, but I didn’t flinch when it landed on my chest.

“We’ll get to her in a moment.” I moved closer to him—as close as he’d been to me before, but now our roles were reversed. The power was reversed. And he was quaking.Imagine that.

I lifted my free hand and pulled the other knife from my hair, the long black length tumbling down my back now with nothing to hold it up.

“What the hell—are you fucking psycho? I said I’d fucking tell you?—”

“Psycho? To defend myself from a man trying to threaten me? To hurt me? To touch me without my permission?” My head cocked. “You had your chance to tell me. Now, I want something in return.”

“Something—fuck!”he roared in pain as I drove the second knife through his open palm and nailed it to the brick behind it.

“You wanted to know how it felt,” I reminded him coolly as he struggled to control his pain.

Any movement made, one or both knives wound him deeper.

“You’re. Fucking. Psychotic,” he panted, the veins in his face thumping.

“Because I defended myself? Or because I penetrated your body without your consent?” I felt a thrill of pleasure as I mocked him.

He huffed raggedly, sweat mixing with the blood running from his nose.

“That was what you were going to do to me, right?” I asked as I slowly dragged the knife from the base of his chin down his neck, watching the sharp blade redden the skin it threatened to puncture with just the flick of my wrist. “But I’m the psycho.” I let out a forced laugh, bringing the knife through the part in his collar and slicing the button from its mooring.

“Fuck you,” he forced out, more bloodied spittle landing on my chest.

I smirked and pressed the tip of the blade a little harder to his skin, continuing its path through the buttons until the front of his shirt gaped open.

“Now, tell me what happened to Mara.”

“Fuck. You.” He managed one more show of bravado until I let the knife slice a smooth cut down the center of his chest. Nothing deep. Just enough to draw blood…and make him think twice about not answering me again.

“Where is she?” I demanded low, finding his wild, strained eyes as he battled the pain.

“I don’t know.”

I pressed the edge of the knife to the top of the first cut and then swooped it out and back in a curve, turning the single line into the letterP.

“Ahhhh,fuck,” he groaned and then rambled quickly. “I don’t fucking know where she is. I fucking swear. But I know she’s with him.”

“Who’s him?”

“I don’t know—” He broke off in another cry as I sliced another single line into his chest.

“You better start knowing something, Jack, or you’re going to run out of skin to cut.”

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