Page 176 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

The cartilage gave way for the blade to slide between the tiny bones so satisfyingly I practically missed his scream.

Unfortunately, not a pleasant one. Nothing compared to hers.

The handle lodged in the table vibrated from the force, and a small puddle of crimson encircled the blade. Whining, he cradled the stump, and his flowing blood drenched his maroon, long-sleeved shirt.

Fitting.

“Take this as a warning.” I picked up the useless body part, the flesh still warm, and held it above his glass. A steady trickle of scarlet contaminated his drink, pink streaks swirling in the clear liquid, and I dropped the severed finger into the glass. Holding it by the nail, I mixed the upgraded cocktail. “You dare to look in her direction, and I will kill you so slowly you will wish you were never born.”

Zion shoved the glass into the man’s uninjured limb. “Bottoms up.”

“Wh— What?” he stuttered, a hint of white peeking out from his profusely bleeding stump.

I arched an eyebrow. “Are you saying one finger is not enough for you? I could make it two or twenty, depending on how much iron you would like to taste in your drink.”

Trembling, he lifted the glass to his mouth and gulped it down, most of the liquid spilling down his chin and soaking the dry parts of his shirt.

“It was nice to meet you.” Zion patted his pasty cheek. “By the way, you may want to have your finger—or the lack of it—looked at. I heard Eislyn and Jayce are on duty tonight, so be sure to tell them we sent you their way.”

Not waiting for his response, we left him to be taken care of by his friends and hurried outside.

“Do you think she,” Zion scanned the deserted street besides the few customers coming out of the bar behind us, “went back home or to the clearing?”

“The clearing. She would have waited for us otherwise,” I said, and we ran through the neighborhood, most of the streets desolate as people had turned in for the night, then across the field of high grasses and through the forest. Moonlight filtered through the naked branches and twigs sticking out like withered thorns.

Kali appeared on the far side of the tree line lining the circular field of open space, restlessly shifting her weight from one foot to another. Clutching the trunk of an oak, as if encouraged by the life of the few half-dead leaves clinging with all their might to the lower branches of the tree, she raised her foot and stilled with it mid-air, not daring to take that final step.

A minute ticked by, the sight of her like a photograph, a moment frozen in time. The sole sign she was alive was the night’s wind tousling her hair. Finally, she stomped her foot and vanished, the forest’s shadows engulfing her figure.

Our footfalls thudded as we hurried across the clearing and back into the woods, listening for that telltale crunch of dried branches under the rubber soles of her favored boots. She emerged in the grassy field leading to our compound, and we rushed to catch up.

“I don’t want to talk,” she gritted out, hugging herself so tight her nails had to prod her skin through the fabric of Zion’s leather jacket she was drowning in.

Exchanging nods with him, we respected her request and steered her along the streets in the shortest way back home, trailing her as we climbed the stairs to the uppermost floor, our footsteps echoing in the concrete stairwell.

Kali shuffled on her feet in the center of her bedroom. “I don’t feel very well. I—” She glanced at the bed. “Would you mind if I slept alone tonight?”

Zion helped her out of the jacket. “Why? You know we won’t do anything unless you ask.”

Not until she was ready. But I was set on making it happen. For her. She had to trample the messenger’s nightmare haunting her.

“It’s not that.” She tucked her dark hair behind her ears and hugged herself around her waist again. “I got my period.Everything hurts. I just want to curl up in bed and groan into a pillow.”

Without a single word, Zion marched out of her bedroom.

Anticipating her question, I asked, “That’s it?”

“What do you mean ‘that’s it’?” she sputtered. “Do you want me to kick you so I’m not the only one hurting?”

I crossed the distance between us and kissed her forehead. “I will not sleep if I know you are suffering across the hallway from me. So go get ready for bed. And no is not an acceptable answer.”

Huffing, she disappeared into the bathroom, and I took the time to discard my clothing in the laundry hamper she insisted on keeping in her closet. She came out, having changed into a pair of black sweatpants and a cotton t-shirt—evidently stolen from my room—and slipped under the bedsheets.

“Lay on your side,” I told her as I crawled in beside her and pulled the suffocating duvet she had an obsession with over us.

“Just so you know, you’re an overprotective prick,” she muttered as I pressed to her back. “No one is going to snatch me away at Vice. You didn’t have to sit there my entire shift.”

“We do not have a fifty-foot-high wall or similar protection measures. And even with them, I brought you out of Ilasall, did I not?” I asked, chuckling at her mumbles about a kidnapping. “Their military has tried to take out Zion and me multiple times, and now we have two cases of them targeting you. They will not cease their attempts until they are successful. But I will not allow them to take you back, and that entails watching your back,” I said as I massaged her pelvis in clockwise circles, using a scrap of knowledge Eislyn had drilled into me during her first mandatory first-aid training. She had nagged me into going through with it a year ago by declaring we were useless if we had no clue on how to manage pain without meds.