Page 68 of Steel Rain

“He does, but he … he …” He looked back at Eoghan and Dairo. “If he marries her, then she becomes his, so he was going to …”

He swallowed hard as if his words would be a difficult truth. A painful truth that would cause him pain. Because it would. I was more than willing to turn them into human punching bags, depending on his next words.

I pressed the blade in further, pulling down to widen the cut in Grimes’ skin. He screamed at the pain.

“He was going to make it look like suicide!” Grimes’ declaration made me pause.

O’Rourke’s face fell in total despair, as his mind must have realized what she was to me. And now, I’d kill them both.

“And how was he going to pull that off? In a fair fight, she’d destroy him.”

“By getting guardianship over the sister,” O’Rourke was weeping. The man had, wisely, given up on living, and now all he could do was hope for something that resembled a merciful end.

I pulled out the knife. The light sound of metal tearing at flesh filled my ears, the smell of copper and blood was a heady aroma. I had forgotten how much I loved the tang of it.

The very deep, destructive nature that had been inside me all along was coming out to play.

“And you were going to help him?” I pondered out loud, not really looking for an answer. I was just trying to figure out the odds in my own little head.

“No!” The two of them screamed in unison. But I wasn’t convinced. So, I stepped to O’Rourke and slowly, deliberately, pierced his skin in the same fashion.

“We didn’t want him to do any of that! Because it would make the Italians not want the wedding to Cosima!” O’Rourke screamed as the blade went in, and I pushed it deeper.

“Keep talking or I keep cutting,” I said through clenched teeth.

“I thought he should just rough her up! That’s all we wanted to do! Rough her up and he could do what he needed, then get out but …”

Oh, the confessions were flowing like the blood that dripped down his shirt, and the sudden, and disgusting, trickle of urine that darkened his left pant leg. I stepped out of the stream of the puddle, extending my arm so the knife kept its pressure, tickling his innards.

“She got away!”

“You wanted to help him rape her.” I said it to let the gravity of it sink in.

“He’s done it before.” Eoghan’s interjection was gasoline in the fire. I was ready to stain the room red. “Ten years ago. That’s why she ran.”

It’s amazing how saying something out loud, putting words to something, can give it such power. In this case, it pulled the restraint I had in my body, and let out the beast inside.

And that beast was hungry to gift it’s mate the justice she deserved.

“I thought if he got a chance to do it again, then he’d get over it …” I sliced the knife across O’Rourke’s abdomen, over the soft, squishy flesh of his intestines, opening the skin, and letting his bowels fall out like the sad innards of a buzzard getting dressed on the table. He screamed, looking as the gray and purple intestines slipped from his body.

He screamed to God. He screamed for mercy. He begged for it to end.

But I am not a merciful man. Nor am I God. So, I kept slicing, and beating, and bloodying my knuckles against cracking bone and flesh, until they were as tender as ground beef. And when that wasn’t enough, I buried them both in shallow graves, with Eoghan’s wicked smile peering at me through the darkness.

Chapter 31

Sin

They’regoingtopay,Snow White. One way or another. They’re going to pay …

He had disappeared after class and was gone for hours. When he got back to the room, he looked absolutely exhausted.

“Can you feel your fingers and toes?” He didn’t look at me when he asked the question. He pulled off his shirt and tossed it to the side. His bare torso was something to marvel at. His dark skin was smooth, and taut. Paper thin from a lack of fat. And, of course, there were those beautiful scars.

I touched my own abdomen where mine were, feeling the strange pull between us.

“We’re supposed to have ten each, right?” I hoped I sounded like a smart ass, and not the weakling I felt like.

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