Page 210 of Dance of Defiance

“You know, I think heis,” I growl.

My fist slams into the side of Connor’s head, wrenching it to the side and sending him tumbling face-first into the dirt. I snarl as I grab a fistful of his greasy hair, yanking him back up to his knees.

“What was that,Connor?!” I roar in his face. “Spit it out!!”

Vaughn snickers next to me. “It might be lodged a bit too far down his throat for that.”

“Hmm, I think you might be right.”

We’re not talking about whatever the fuck he’s trying to say. What’s lodged in the back of his throat isn't words.

It’s his severeddick.

I punch Connor in the face again, sending him screaming around the flesh in his mouth as he goes crashing to the side, face-first into the dirt.

“Well, I bet he’s glad we took his teeth,” Vaughn says dryly. “He might’ve just bitten something that he doesn’t want bitten.”

People respond to pain, hatred, and vengeance in different ways. Nero, for example, lets his not-so-hidden psycho out to runwild. Vaughn, apparently, reacts with gallows humor and that icy smile.

But me?

I just see black and blood, and I want fuckingmore.

I turn and let my gaze drop to the hunting knife in Vaughn's hand.

“Be my guest,” he murmurs, handing it to me.

Connor sobs, trembling and spasming as I yank him by the hair to his knees. I drag him across the ground to a nearby rock and toss him face-down across it. I slam my knee into the small of his bare back, grabbing him by the nape of the neck and keeping him pinned to the stone as the knife glints in my hand.

Vaughn doesn’t blink or look away once, not even when the screaming turns wet and gurgled, or when I hit some artery or vein which violently sprays a geyser of blood across my face and over my shoulder.

I take my fuckingtimewith each letter. Each word. Each part of what I carve into his back.

Rapist.

I fuck kids.

My name is Connor Leary, and I earned every bit of this.

“Stay the fuck with me, asshole,” I grunt, yanking him up by the hair again and punching him in the nose to snap him out of whatever dulled shock he looks to be fading into. “You don’t get to tune this out. You don’t get to escape.”

I drag him off the rock and then pull him up, angling his head back with his face to the sky as I loom over him and hand the gory knife to Vaughn.

“We’re not done yet.”

I let him scream as Vaughn carves another “rapist” into his forehead.

I take his eyes.

Vaughn relieves him of his nose and ears.

Then we both tie Connor’s feet to the waiting cinderblock at the edge of the cliff above the Hudson River.

Vaughn clears his throat delicately. “Pro tip—if you don’t puncture his abdomen, the body will eventually fill with gas and float.”

“M-hmm.” I tug the knots tight and toss the blade away.

Vaughn looks at me. “He’ll befound, Roman.”