Page 7

CHAPTER 6

I don’t know how much time has passed. All I know is pain, the taste of my own blood, and the smell of my burning flesh as they repeat the same question each time.

“Why are you here?”

It stopped having meaning when they pulled my fingernails and toenails.

It started being hysterically funny when they shoved hot pokers into my ruined thighs to cauterise the wounds so I wouldn’t die too quickly.

It started becoming a blur when they made me choke on water and I almost drowned.

“I will ask again, why are you here?”

“Why are you here? Why are you here?” I sing it, knowing my voice is hoarse from my screams. I sound like a maniac, but I don’t care as I lift my head and squint at Black through my swollen eyes. “Why are you here, Black? Why did you become a hunter? I think it was because it was the only way you could kill and hunt without being locked up. I have a theory. In another life, you would have been a serial killer.”

“A very good one at that,” he says with a wicked grin. “Why are you here?”

“Gods, you’re fucking dumb. Do you think asking the same question will get different results?” I spit my blood on his face, and he jerks back, his nostrils flaring. “Keep using it as an excuse if it makes you feel better. I’m not a traitor, Black. You are.”

He raises his hand, ready to smack me, when the cell door suddenly swings open.

“We have an emergency hunt,” Eric exclaims as he steps into the room. “Message from Stalkers’ Rest, directly from Shamus. We have to go.”

Black’s nostrils flare as the others reluctantly file out, lingering outside the door. Black stays behind, watching me. Eric hesitates near the doorway, looking horrified as he meets my gaze, but he does nothing to help. He didn’t participate, but he also said nothing.

He’s just as much to blame as them.

“You are a traitor, Tate, to us, our kind, and what we stand for, and you will die a traitor’s death. Nobody will care, will they? Not those monsters you helped or the other hunters. Nobody.”

His fist slams into my ribs so hard, I feel them break, piercing my lung.

Blood fills my airways and mouth, causing me to choke, and I know this is the blow that will eventually kill me.

He knows it too.

I lift my head groggily, blood dripping from my parted lips. At least two ribs are definitely broken, maybe more. Betrayal lies thick on my tongue as I stare at the men I trusted with my life.

We are family. We have been together for years. I might not have always agreed with their methods, but I agreed with the end result—until now.

As the elite of our kind, we have survived things no others have by trusting one another and fighting side by side, but as I stare at them now, all I see are strangers—strangers willing to hurt innocents and torture and imprison me, one of their own, to get what they want.

They are corrupt. It has taken me too long to see it, and now I am left without any options or freedom. Everything we have built lies in tatters, and my dreams and hopes are broken, along with my body.

“I am sorry, Tate,” Eric, one of our youngest and newest recruits, calls as he heads to the cell door.

“You will be,” I snarl.

“You won’t make it out of here alive,” Major Black replies as he wipes his blade clean of my blood and grins at me. I knew the first time I met him that he was capable of evil, but it was aimed in the right direction, until it wasn’t anymore.

“We’ll see about that.” I smirk, even as it causes agony to ripple through me.

He simply spares me a disgusted look. “We could have been great together, Tate, an unstoppable unit. Such a waste. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have some hunting to do.” I watch him walk away, feeling such intense hatred, I’m surprised he cannot feel it.

The outer door slams shut, followed by Black’s mocking laughter, and I let fury fill me.

They won’t get away with this.

I won’t let them.

I will hunt down every inch of evil within our house and destroy them.

It’s time I become a monster rather than just hunting them.

Sometimes, it takes evil to fight evil, and before this ends, my soul will be as black as theirs.