Page 139 of Depravity

It takes me a second to remove the silencer, and then I’m back, focused, moving onwards. The thing might have been useful at the start, but it means you can’t shoot as straight and I’m all for the accuracy right now.

A guard rounds the corner, and his eyes widen as he sees me. Before he can react, I shoot him in the neck, and he falls back. As his body slumps I crouch down, asking him where Brynn is. Only, the man is dead or as good as.

I kick him over, leaving him to bleed out while I carry on looking.

Room by room, I make my way. Maybe it’s the noise of Antonio’s lot that gains all the attention, because there’s a distinct lack of guards in this section.

I climb another staircase, this time the servants one. On the next floor, I spot the guard, standing with his back to me as if he’s too stupid to recognise death when it creeps through the darkness.

I smirk, taking aim, and hit his lower back right where I intended. The fucker will never walk again, not that he’ll be drawing a breath come sunrise. I stride up to him, kicking him so that he rolls over and he coughs up, blood splattering his lips.

“Tell me where Brynn is.” I growl.

The man blinks, his bloodied lips turning into a grin. “Fuck you.” He gasps.

It’s the wrong fucking thing to say.

I kneel down, pulling my dagger, and I plunge it into his left thigh. “Fucking tell me,” I snarl.

He splutters more; he groans, but I can tell it’s a losing cause.

Fine then, I don’t need him when there’s a hundred more of his ilk between me and my wife. He’s not special. He’s not necessary.

I plunge the blade into his eyes, one after another as he howls. His hands try to bat me away but with his spine as good as useless, he doesn’t have the physical strength to do anything of worth.

As I get to my feet, I point almost lazily at his forehead and pull the trigger, but I’m barely two metres away when someone comes barrelling into me. I’m quick to land a punch and then I’m ducking, avoiding the blow aimed straight for my face.

Finally, a real fucking fight.

The man tilts his head, as if he too can sense the energy coming off me.

He’s big, bulky, but not all of it is muscle. Stupid fat fuck should have spent more time in the gym than eating all the pies. He’s no match for me on a normal day, and today, I’m not normal. Today I’m a fucking psycho.

As he attacks again, I can see he’s untrained, unskilled. What he lacks in talent though he clearly thinks he can make up for in brute strength.

I let him land a punch, a good hit to my ribs. The pain helps, the pain gets my own adrenaline pumping, and it’s a reminder of what the stakes are. What happens if I get cocky.

He swings again, a lazy, poorly timed swing that tells me the bastard thinks he’s winning this, and that’s when I make my move. I let his arm come around and then I’m reaching out, snatching it, bending it right the way it doesn’t fucking bend. He howls, and we both hear the delicious sound as the bone cracks.

“How’s that feel, huh?” I taunt.

He falls to his knees. Hard, and his other hand curls into a fist, as if he could do enough to hurt me now.

I lift my boot, kicking him right in the jaw before he can land it and he falls back as the blood spurts out, and a few of his teeth go flying.

“Where the fuck is my wife?” I ask, getting right into his mangled face.

He shakes his head like he doesn’t know who I’m talking about and I snatch at his throat, hauling him up to look me in the eyes.

“Brynn, where the fuck is she?”

He mumbles something incoherent, something bullshit. I release my grip, letting the fucker hit the floor hard. And then he repeats whatever it is, but his mouth is too mangled, too broken to make sense.

I pull my gun, finger on the trigger but as I go to put the bullet in his useless brain, another guard comes running.

Like I have fucking time for this.

Brynn is here, Brynn is somewhere in this house.

---