Page 1 of Executing Malice (Jefferson Rejects #4)

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.

A new brother.

Fuck that. He will never replace me. I was first. She belonged to me first.

She shifts on the threadbare sofa and every nerve in my body pulses. I am so aware of her, of her every breath. Her every heartbeat. My Leila — maybe it suits her — remains oblivious.

She sits curled on the cushions, knees pulled to her chest, lost in some book she’ll never finish before sleep takes her.

The golden hue from the lamp next to her shines in the riot of curls, the unbound chaos of ebony twisted haphazardly into a thick braid down her back.

She doesn’t know that outside her cozy home, just outside the warmth of her cocoon, I wait.

I exhale, slow and steady. The cold bites, but I welcome it.

Pain reminds me that I am alive. Reminds me that I have work to do.

My Leila is safe, but that safety is a lie, a fragile illusion if I let my guard down again.

I live in a consistent spiral of fear, wondering if I might lose her again.

If she might vanish if I blink for too long.

I may have killed the thing that chased her from my life, but he will never truly be gone as long as his blood is in my veins.

Leila knows that. It’s why she left. She saw the evil lurking deep in my soul.

She was right.

I roll my shoulders and shift my weight against the tree that hides me. My muscles ache from the day’s work. There is still grease under my nails and blood crusted on my tattered knuckles. But it doesn’t matter.

What matters is her.

The soft glow of her muted TV flickers and shadows shift over her delicate features.

They highlight the coils of ink spilling in wild tangles against the smooth pallor of her skin.

Eyes the vivid green of polished emeralds move across the row of words, barely blinking as if she’s afraid she might miss something crucial.

My chest tightens at the sight of her with her bare legs tucked under a ratty old blanket.

Her worn sweater slips off one shoulder, exposing the smooth curve of her skin.

She shouldn’t look so fucking innocent. Not when she’s lived on this cruel and ugly planet for twenty-five years.

Not when she was born in the same chaos and blood as I was.

I drag my gaze lower, scan her little home, memorize the absence of locks on the windows. The faulty hinges on the doors. The lack of an alarm.

She thinks she’s safe because she lives in a town where nothing happens. No evil lurks. No drunken monster waits with hungry eyes and violent hands.

I could show her how wrong she is.

I could slip inside right now, press my palm over her mouth and let her fight and scream. Let her fears spike before whispering that she’s mine. That she’s safe.

That I’ve been here this entire time.

That I will always be here.

Will always fucking protect her because I love her with a madness that ... I would rip my own heart out. I would carve it from my chest and place it still beating at her feet if she asked.

But not yet.

Not tonight.

Instead, I step forward and cross the street soundlessly. I move like a shadow, unseen and silent to the path along the side of her house. Towards the dark expanse of forest .

My fingers linger, trace the rough grain just beneath the spot her sofa would be and imagine what it would be like to touch her again. To feel her skin under my hands while she’s awake.

Soon.

I need to be patient for a little longer.

Only this time, I won’t let her leave. I won’t let her break me. She’s going to answer for her betrayal. She’s going to fix us. She’s going to pay for every second I had to live without her.

Every second I spent alone.

Every scream I had to swallow because it wouldn’t bring her back.

Every night I lay awake with the ghost of her breath on my skin and the phantom shape of her body beside mine.

I need to carve my grief into her skin so she never forgets me again. Never runs.

She made me this way.

She broke my shell, softened me. Made me fucking weak.

Then she starved me. Broke me. Snatched away everything she promised we’d have together.

Now, I’m something else. Something that only exists because she destroyed the humanity she gave me.

So, yes, I’m trying to be worthy of her, but she will bleed with me first .

She will scream my name. Curse it. And once I am satisfied that she has suffered as I have, I will put her together.

I will fix her.

I will make her love me again and we will be happy just like she promised.