Page 62 of Our Vicious Descent
Elise’s throat tightened and went dry at the sight. She took a deep breath, pulling herself back while her hand closed over her gun. If Layla noticed her defensive retreat, she did not say anything. She continued to watch Elise with those eyes, her muscles straining while her arms fought against the restraints.
“Now!” one of the reapers at the door called.
Elise gripped the gun hard and pulled herself back to her originalposition by Layla. She ignored her desperate gaze and nodded to the open floor nearby. “Get as far away as you can. I’m going to shoot this thing off.”
“Just shoot. I trust you,” Layla rasped.
Elise could only roll her eyes. “You really have a death wish, don’t you?” She aimed for the wood around the metal bar on which Layla was chained and fired. A gunshot would no doubt draw more crew members and gangsters toward them, but the only thing Elise cared about in this moment was Layla and getting her free. Once the wood splintered into pieces and part of the floor fell away, Elise reached down to pull the metal bar up. She slipped the chain off it and helped Layla into a standing position after the reaper managed to pull her bound wrists in front of herself. Dried blood crusted around deep burns on her wrists where the cuffs dug in. Still, the reaper made no complaints and only breathed heavily while Elise tried to move them forward.
Layla swung an arm around her shoulder and leaned heavily on Elise, her injured leg dragging between them. “You need to go. I’m only slowing you down.” Layla.
Elise rolled her eyes again. “Say something like that again and I will make Hendricks sleep in your room tonight.” Layla’s head shake and faint smile made her heart slow to a calmer rhythm. If only for a moment. Elise crouched to tear a piece of her dress off and wrap it haphazardly around Layla’s leg. The bleeding seemed to weaken under the applied pressure, though Layla still struggled to stand on it. When they faced the door, however, all the reapershad disappeared. Instead, a seething young woman stared down at them.
“What have you done?” Nicoletta growled.
Despite the chaos erupting around the boat, from the gunshots to shouting gangsters, Elise still heard the rush of water increasing beneath their shoes. Her gunfire had no doubt gone all the way through the ship, no matter how unintentionally. Elise was glad for it, seeing the panic and true ire on Nicoletta’s face. She opened her revolver and saw the final bullet in its chamber. Then Elise met Nicoletta’s eye and smiled sweetly. “We’re sinking your operation.”
Nicoletta barked out a humorless laugh. “You will drown. We all will.”
Elise shook her head. “No. You’ll die before you can touch the water.” Before Nicoletta could properly react to her threat, Elise lifted her gun and fired off her last round.
The bullet barely grazed Nicoletta’s arm. It skimmed right over her, leaving her bare shoulder red with a line of blood and burnt flesh. Her sinister smile widened on Elise, and she reached for her own gun, stepping forward. “You missed me, you fool.”
Though the gang leader seethed, Elise did not have to respond to her anger. Layla had already stepped away from her. The reaper’s eyes, sharp and black, honed in on the crimson leaking down Nicoletta’s arm, and her fangs dripped her own blood as her lips parted. She inhaled, more blood spilling from her mouth.
Nicoletta’s expression fell into fear. She backed up and tried to lift her gun, but Layla was already charging forward.
29
Nicoletta closed the door, but Layla burst through it like a bullet through flesh. She caught up to Nicoletta in the corridor and slammed her into the ground. The moment Elise’s bullet had split the gang leader’s skin, exposing her blood to the atmosphere, it had been all Layla could focus on. For some time, she had feared she might give in to her urges to drink from Elise. It would have been forceful and messy. Even more than that—violent. Layla did not like to think about it. But the whole time Elise had been near her, all she could smell was her sweet blood. This Saint girl, she would never understand just how much of a hold she had over Layla. Elise had worked with her most precious life force pulsing only inches from Layla’s begging teeth. It was a miracle they’d both made it out of that room with just Layla’s blood covering them.
Now, however, Layla relished in the spray of another human’s blood. She dug into Nicoletta’s chest and throat, tearing at her fleshuntil her muscles and tendons stuck between her fingers and beneath her nails. The gang leader gurgled on her own blood, her mouth hanging open while she stared up at the dark sky above them. Still, Layla did not drink from her. Though blood found its way down her throat from her messy slaying, she refused to fill herself with this gangster’s rotten essence. By now, after getting her fill of violence and shedding some of her angry instincts, most of her blood fury had subsided from uncontrollable urges. Every once in a while, the snapping restriction between her arms reminded her of the Saint chains she still wore, and Layla snarled with frustration as she squeezed bits of Nicoletta’s flesh in her hands.
The gang leader let out a shuddering breath. Despite the deep gashes in her chest and at the base of her throat, she still lived. Layla had been careful to avoid any major arteries or organs. She wanted the woman to suffer for as long as possible.
Nicoletta opened her mouth as if to speak, but before any words came out, a bullet whizzed by Layla’s ear. She snapped her head up and turned, finding the culprit. One of Nicoletta’s men stood by the corner of the corridor, gun in hand and aimed at her. Layla rose and charged for him. He ducked back behind the wall, but she got to him before he could lift his gun again. She shoved her nails into his throat and tore it open, sending his blood across the floor and windows along the wall in a brilliant red fountain. Layla let his body slump onto the damp floor and continued down the corridor, chasing the other gangsters. They tried to run from her, but with the water seeping over the deck coupled with her fury-led speed, she caught up toeach of them and killed them even faster. By the time she had gone through them all, tearing throats open and reaching right into their ribs to pull their beating hearts from their bodies, blood covered her body from head to toe.
Layla panted as she rounded more corners. The massacre ran the boat red. Her hands appeared gloved in scarlet. They shook as she lifted them before her, the chains hanging between her wrists. Even the Saint metal had been tainted with all the carnage. Some stringy flesh clung to one of the metal links, and Layla’s throat bobbed at the thought of leaving all that fresh human blood wasted and ready to rot on the sinking ship around her.
Water spilled over her feet, and she stumbled as the ship swayed. Layla reached for a grip on the wall, her heart skipping a beat when she remembered Elise. With all the blood around her, it was difficult to parse out Elise’s scent, but she found it and followed it out to the upper deck. The farther she traveled, the faster the water seemed to fill the ship. It careened violently to one side every few seconds, and Layla had to grip the wall several times to prevent herself from falling over.
“Elise!” Layla shouted. She hoped to see the Saint poke her head around one corner, smiling and relieved. But even as Layla continued to call for her, she found no one.
Horror struck through her at one particularly vicious thought. What if one of the bodies she had left behind had been Elise’s? What if through all her rage and starvation, she had failed to realize that she took Elise’s life? Had failed to recognize her face in the midst ofher ravenous drive for destruction?
Layla’s throat tightened and she shook her head.No. No, no, no. She would retrace all her steps—cover every inch of the ship if she had to. Layla refused to find Elise dead. Her Elise—
An explosion rocked the ship. Layla was thrown into a nearby wall, hitting it so hard, her vision swam. It continued for a long moment, and all she could think about was the blood around her and how starved she had been for a taste of a particular human’s essence. She struggled to stand, her hands slipping on the blood- and water-slicked deck. Eventually, Layla found purchase and forced herself to her feet.
She stood alone on a ghost ship full of bodies and blood. Layla let out a heavy breath and braced herself against the onslaught of sudden emotions. A sob rose in her chest, but she clenched her jaw against it, bearing the pain to keep herself together. Crying would not solve any of her problems. It would not get her off this sinking ship, and it certainly would not find Elise.
She pushed herself away from the wall and began walking the corridor again, but not even moments after she righted herself, a gun went off nearby. The bullet burrowed into her chest, shoving her back against the wall. Layla pressed her hand to her ribs, and blood came away, crimson and deadly in the moonlight. Her knees buckled at the sight, and she slid down the wall, her blood trailing along the corroded metal behind her. On the floor, her vision distorted, her hunger rising again and rearing its head like a beast within. Every part of her body ached, and keeping herself alert and awake only gotmore difficult with each passing moment.
Layla felt her lips moving and words spilling from her mouth while she tried to utter something. An apology, perhaps, for all those she had failed and let down. Her death had been a long time coming—this much she knew. But as long as Layla had lived as a reaper, she had hoped she would find a new purpose in life and reason to keep going. Something that would make her more okay with being half dead until she eventually had to be put to rest permanently.
She swallowed back a mouthful of blood and opened her eyes to the night sky. Tears emerged again, and this time she did not stop them from falling.
One wicked thing interrupted her grief into her own death. The blood of sin and stubborn perseverance that filled her senses and forced her to look away from the bleeding sky. Nicoletta stood at the end of the corridor, her hand, shaking and bloody, on her gun. “It’s over for you.” The woman could barely limp along the sliding, slippery floor. The water was up past her ankles, and she gripped the wall so hard, Layla half expected to see marks in the metal. Despite the gaping wounds in her chest and the blood covering more than half her body, Nicoletta still managed to approach Layla on her own two feet. She gave her a bloody smile and raised her gun again, pointing it directly at Layla’s face. “You have ruined everything.”
