Page 42 of Wolf.e
And the man standing before them both, like a gloriously dark and terrifying god, is Wolfe.
He stalks forward and stands over them, looking down at their broken bodies from his full height, holding some sort of butane torch. He has an evil in his eye as he fires it up, and flames flow in a thin jet from the tip.
I watch, frozen in horror, as he grips the bigger one by the hair and yanks his head up. Wolfe slowly brings the torch to the man’s neck, and as his garbled screams fill the air, he burns off the flesh all the way from the ear down to the collarbone. Erasing a tattoo. He’s concentrating like the man’s pain means nothing. It’s like he doesn’t even hear his cries.
The man whispers something I can’t hear, and Wolfe turns down the flames for a moment to listen.
I would almost think the man had just fallen unconscious if it weren’t for the tiny whimpers that leave his lips. His skin still sizzles, as more of the thick, pungent smell fills the air. You’d think I would get up and run but I can’t.
I can’t look away from what I assume is a tattoo associating him with whatever club or gang he’s a part of, now grossly destroyed by Wolfe, chased away by his own charred flesh.
I’m breathing so quickly and so silently I’m not even sure air is making its way to my lungs. My brain screams again to get up and move out of sight but I’m frozen like a deer caught in headlights.
I should be disgusted. I should be in shock.
But all I see is the dark power of the man standing before me. He knows exactly who he is without any shame, guilt or remorse.
It’s…hauntingly beautiful.
I’m so consumed by the horrific feelings rushing throughmeas I choose to stay there, that I don’t even notice Kai’s eyes on me as I kneel outside the cabin door, the grassy dirt is cool against my skin. Wolfe sets his torch down but there’s no regret on his face for what he’s doing. He doesn’t speak. He just draws his gun.
I feel ready to pass out.
Someone is crying.
“Wolfe.” Kai nods his head in my direction. My eyes flit to him when I hear his name. He turns and his gray eyes snap to mine, holding them for the longest ten seconds of my life.
His gaze is my anchor, and I realize it’s me who’s crying.
“I’ve heard enough,” I hear Mason say.
I see Wolfe’s mouth move but I don’t hear what he says. Then he takes a single shot—
A shot that hits the bigger man square in the middle of his forehead. He falls lifeless to the floor and there’s a sickening thud when his head meets the bloody tarp.
I scream and then somehow, I’m on my feet and running. I don’t get very far when I register the words, he mouthed to me were “don’t look.”
Too late.
Chapter 22
Brinley
I never thought that in facing my death, I would face this type of disbelief. Like this can’t be real, there has to be another way. This can’t be all I was put here on this earth to do. Something or someone has to save me, don’t they? Did every action, every choice I’ve ever made lead me here, just like my parents always told me? If I had stayed with Evan, I’d be home safe on my living room sofa instead of trying to outrun a psychopath. All these thoughts crowd my mind as I bolt for the woods. My lungs burn as I run without stopping, uncontrollable sobs wrack my body and adrenaline courses through my veins.
He murdered that man. And by now he’s probably murdered the other one too.Murdered. And they had been tortured for who knows how long? They were missing body parts. Fingers. Teeth. Genitals? Images flash through my mind as I finally register them. The way the bigger man’s stomach was cut open in several places and leaking blood, the cuts deep, his one eye swollen shut. The smaller man’s arm was broken inmore than one place and hanging limply in front of him. I blink to rid my mind of the memory, and more tears fall.
That’s where he went after dinner. To torture and murder those men. And it looked like it was second nature to him.Because it is.The voice in my head reminds me.
This man, I let himtouch me. I wantedhim.And even as he stood over them like their own personal reaper, I’m ashamed to admit Istillwanted him.
And now he’s going to kill me too, and probably bury me with them.
Time passes in a blur. I’m covered in cuts and scrapes; I’ve fallen numerous times. I don’t know how long I’ve been running. I keep praying for a road, or a break in the trees so I can scream for help but there is none. I have nowhere to go and the sound of heavy boots on the ground behind me tells me to keep running, but I’m so tired. I have to stop.
“Brinley.” I hear Wolfe’s deep voice echo off the canopy of the woods, he doesn’t even sound winded. He sounds calm. I freeze, my back scrapes against rough, cold bark as I do my best to hide behind a tree. I can feel the sting of dirt in my scratched-up skin as I pant, so quietly I think I’m barely breathing.
“Running is pointless, I can fucking smell you, hummingbird.” His voice booms through the woods, closer this time.
