Page 147 of Stutter

A low incessant hum of his murmurs. Whatever he’s saying, doesn’t matter. Will never matter. Hasnevermattered.

I enter the room with only one thing in mind –blood.

I can see the top of his head bobbing along as he speaks but the music… fuck it’s so… it’s so quiet now. His eyes widen as he takes me in. “Raven. What are you doing here?” He glances down at my free hand, the one holding the knife I’ve had up my sleeve and let it slip free into my grasp.

“Why?”

His eyes narrow, almost in a dissociative understanding of what I’m asking. “It was just business,” he shrugs.

Shrugs.

The simmering anger in my belly boils into fury but I won’t go silent into the night.

Not this time.

I take a step closer.

“Why?”

A spark of surprise flashes in his jade eyes at the sound of my now raspy voice but they’re the wrong kind of jade. So unlike my darling professor’s. No, this devil’s eyes are devoid of love, or warmth. They’re unkind, as if the light behind them went out a long time ago.

That’s okay. He’ll be back home in hell soon.

“You were simply an asset,” he says.

I was simply anasset.

A thing. A joke. A mere object.

A pretty little doll to be given away for the price of a soul.

Mysoul.

I take one more step closer and lift my hand, tipping the blade to his throat. That answer is just not good enough.

“Why?” I press the tip when he swallows, watching blood pour slowly out of the small cut onto the blade and chills spread throughout my body as it sings to me.

“I only negotiated for you to marry Tyler. The rest… you’ll have to askhimabout. We covered up as much as we could. His involvement. Kept you under lock and key in that facility, Prescottmaking sure you still didn’t remember, still couldn’t speak. I kept him safe. Did what I could to keep you safe. And him, well, he was reprimanded by the Elders. Couldn’t even negotiate for him anymore. He’s stuck now. Nothing more than a Watcher. A henchman. All because you. Didn’t. Die.” He says that last word like a whisper, but it reverberates, bouncing off my eardrums, twisting and swimming back into my brain, sticking like cancerous tar in the crevices.

I let my hand fall to my side as John stares up at me. For years I thought this man wasn’t great, but I didn’t think he was…this.

“It may as well have beenhimthat night. Our legacy… he still completed his initiation and that wasn’t enough. Stephen still wanted more. After he found out it was you murdering them all, he still wanted you – now more than ever.” He chuckles harshly. “I should’ve known you’d try to come for me. But I did nothing wrong.”

I snap. Without hesitation, I plunge the knife into stomach causing him to lunge forward, just like Thaddeus but this time, I go until I feel his stomach rupture and then drag the hilt as much as I can before withdrawing and then… keep fucking going even when he’s slumped on the ground, I turn him.

Anywhere I can reach. Anywhere that’s vulnerable I stab, and I slice until I’m drenched and I’ve hit every spot available to me. Drenched in blood and pieces of viscera but it’s… it’s so fucking warm and this melody…

Ohhhh God…

It'sdelicious.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Real.

My fingers are drenched in John’s blood that’s seeping out onto the floorboards. I’ve seen red before but not like this. Not as deep, not as beautiful, not as –

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