Page 37 of Bleed the Shadows

“Call Doc,” Bram said, stalking to the door. “This one needs a cleaning.”

We walked out less than ten minutes after we’d entered.

Like Bram said, problem solved.

25

MAEVE

I caughtup on Ethan Todd’s videos while Poe, Remy, and Bram were out dealing with the Ghosts, but my heart wasn’t in it. It wasn’t that I didn’t still want Ethan Todd dead — I definitely did — but I couldn’t help wrestling with what I knew was happening to the Ghosts who’d given up their spots in the Hunt to another team without permission.

It shouldn’t have been a moral quandary: killing was bad.

The end.

But my moral boundaries had gotten a lot less clear in the year and a half since June’s murder. Was it wrong to kill someone who’d taken another life? Was it wrong to kill someone like Ethan Todd who had the potential to hurt hundreds more people?

Was it wrong for the Butchers to kill the Ghosts when the Ghosts had put all the women in the Hunt in danger, myself included, by allowing other men to take their place? Men who’d hurt me and would probably have done a lot worse if the Butchers hadn’t found me?

Two years earlier, I would have been horrified by the knowledge that the Butchers were, at that very moment, killing people. Now all I could think was good riddance.

That should have bothered me too — the moral slippery slope taking me for a ride — but it didn’t, and that just gave me more to think about.

Surprisingly, I wasn’t worried about the Butchers. They seemed invincible, like indestructible gods.

I almost felt sorry for the Ghosts in their path.

I hit play on one of Ethan Todd’s most recent videos and let it play while my mind spun. I should have checked in with the girls on our encrypted chat, but I didn’t have the social bandwidth.

In the video, Ethan was bro-ing out with another manosphere influencer, both of them talking about how they would divorce their future wives if said future wives “let themselves go.” The comments were as expected, a string of enthusiastic support for the message punctuated by the occasional objection, always by a woman, because men who called themselves good too often didn’t want to rock the boat by calling out dangerous misogyny.

The video was winding down when I heard voices downstairs on the second floor.

I shut my computer and stepped into the hall in time to see the Butchers coming up the stairs.

Bram looked no worse for wear, his face unreadable as he walked past me. He disappeared into his room without a word as Poe trudged up the stairs after him.

And Poe was covered in blood.

“Oh my god…” Rushing toward him was instinctual.

“It’s not mine,” he said.

Remy appeared next, a spatter of blood on his shirt. He held up his hands. “I’m good too.”

All the awkwardness that had been between us in the week that I’d been back at the loft dissipated as I held Poe’s face in my hands, studying him just to see for myself that he was okay.

I ran my hands over his shoulders and chest, like my fingers might find something my eyes didn’t.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I looked past him at Remy. “Both of you?”

I felt stupid thinking about how cavalier I’d been, assuming the Butchers would be okay, that nothing could hurt them. They were dangerous men doing dangerous things. Anything could have happened.

“I’ll be right as rain after a shower,” Poe said.

I grabbed his hand and tugged him toward my room without thinking.

He let me pull him along and I heard Remy’s voice behind us. “Is this an invite-only thing or…”