Page 1 of Executing Malice

CHAPTER ONE

DANTE

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Safety is an illusion.

A fabricated lie we tell ourselves to sleep at night, but the truth is so much bleaker. So much more profoundly horrifying. I have seen the other side, tasted the bittersweet tang of my own blood on my tongue for safety.

To protect her.

To guard her.

Only to have her run, to escape the first chance she got.

No goodbye. No explanation.

Now, she wears someone else’s name. Someone else’s life. She peeled me off like a scab and left the wound to fester. To rot and spread. To consume what was left of my humanity.

She stole ... she stole everything. Walked out of my world like I hadn’t bled for her. Starved for her. Like I hadn’t shattered ribs against steel toed boots to keep the monsters away from her. To hold them back when they clawed at her door. I was her shield. The weight against the barricade keeping Father from touching her.

And she ran. She fucking ran from me.

I taste blood in my mouth and hear the creak of my molars. My entire body twitches with the effort to keep from closing the distance between us and letting her see me. See the unhinged beast she fucking created. I have to fight to keep from spiraling because I know what happens when I lose control. I know what my hands are capable of when I stop trying to be human.

People get hurt.

Sometimes, they die, and I can’t. I need to be better for her. I need to be worthy of her this time. Maybe if she sees I’ve changed, she won’t leave me again. She won’t be disgusted by my DNA. By the shit I can’t change.

I rub a shaky hand over my face, back through my hair. I can’t catch my breath. It rips from my chest in tattered wheezes.

“Stop,” I tell myself through gritted teeth.

My fingers hook into the thinly woven plait fastened securely around my right wrist. The simple braid of inky satin bound with a knot where I can find it when the demons crawl too close. It’s a security blanket I fumble for in the dark.

I grip it now as the voices rage through my skull, screaming questions I haven’t been able to answer.

Why did she leave me? How could she walk away? She promised ... she fucking promised she would never...

I grind the heel of my hand between my eyes, over the pounding vein. I swallow the bile climbing up my throat.

It’s okay now, though,I remind myself, soothe the injured beast thrashing inside me.We found her. It took eight years, six months, two weeks and two days, but we have her back

She’s right there, sweet and soft curled up on her sofa, bathed in the warm glow of the lamp lit at her side.

My Aila.

My sanity

My destruction.

My damn curse.

No.

Leila.

Leila Weir from Jefferson. She has a new life. A new family.