Page 13

Wrath

Stepping off my bike the next morning, I stare up at the house I once called home. It’s dark and ghostly, still oozing with that blood-drenched kind of wealth that annoys me. Expensive silence, like every brick was paid for by death. This… this is where it all started for me. Or at least, that’s what I tell myself. The truth is, I don’t remember much before I became a member of the Shadows.

I don’t remember my parents or who they were beyond the vague ghosts in my head. All I know is they’re gone. Dead. And I was dropped here, left to rebuild into some messed-up freak with my dad’s old friend. My godfather. Valen.

Valen’s just as fucked in the head as I am, but his brand of fucked is far darker. Meaner. He doesn’t just kill. Hechooses who suffers. And it’s always women.

They call him one of the most prolific Shadows killers, like that title means something. Like it’s an achievement. But it’s not about numbers with him, it’s about control. It’s about watching a female fall apart piece by piece and enjoying every second of it.

He doesn’t kill to end things. He kills todragthem out and make them suffer.

And the fucked-up part? He’s protected, respected and feared. They talk about him like he’s some untouchable myth. But I’ve seen him up close since I was a boy. He’s not a fucking myth. He’s the exact disturbed bastard he’s known to be.

The huge thing we lack in common is he doesn’t shut the fuck up. He talks, rants, teaches through pain and laughs when people scream. He trained me—broke me down and built me back up from the ashes, and even though I can’t say I like him, I still stupidly have enough respect for him to listen when he calls, which is rare nowadays.

Maybe it’s the trauma bond carved into me like a second fucking spine. Fuck knows.

He told me my parents were brutal—sadistic slayers to the core. Part of Oddity before it was ever placed into the hands of The Shadows. Violence wasn’t just a job for them, it was a love language. They were obsessed with the insanity, the gore and with each other. They liked to kill together like it was fucking foreplay, like every scream was a hymn, every body a sacrifice to whatever sick god they both worshipped in each other’s eyes.

But they got sloppy. One night, too wrapped up in the chaos and too busy fucking in the mess they’d made, they let their guard down and someone wanted some kind of revenge. And just like that, they were gone. Dead and wiped out by the very thing they’d underestimated.

Can’t say I’m surprised, and it makes sense, really—look at me. The way my mind works, the things I crave, hate and can’t seem to stop. I’m the aftermath of their recklessness. A consequence wrapped in human flesh. Their child didn’t stop or change them, and this... this is the price. Me. Alone. And fucking cruel. Thrown into the hands of someone far worse than they ever were.

My life was always going to end up like this, no matter how it played out. Who I am was never a choice. It was engraved into me before I even knew what living meant. And yeah, there’s been moments in the past where I’ve questioned everything—my existence and my purpose, whether I could’ve been something or someone else. But I know better. There’s no fucking running from this. No undoing the things I’ve done or unseeing the things I’ve seen. You don’t come back from the kind of darkness that makes a home in your fucking veins.

After kicking out my bike stand, I lift my hood and head toward the door, entering without even a knock. I glance around as I close the door behind me, staring at all the useless stuff piled to the ceilings.

Although Valen is rich as fuck, he is also a hoarder. He buys or collects pointless shit to, I guess, make himself feel something, but sometimes I wonder how many bodies are still rotting beneath it all.

I slip through it all with ease, a little pathway made, aiming for the back of the house where he usually is. After walking through the kitchen, I open a door to ‘his room’ and enter.

“Surprise!” Valen calls out, his arms stretched lazily to his left, a big smile plastered across his aging face, eyes covered by his usual, thick specs.

I stop at the threshold, my eyes narrowing as his hand gestures again toward whatever’s behind that door and I almost don’t want to fucking look. My jaw tightens, teeth crushing, but I take a slow step forward, edge around the open frame—and then I see her.

A young naked woman is in the middle of the dark, cold room—arms yanked out at either side, meat hooks buried deep into her muscles, suspending her like a slaughtered angel.

Her skin is stretched and pulled upward so horrifically, there’s holes gaping. She’s trembling under the strain, still very much alive, blood dripping slow and steady into a growing pool beneath her feet. Her head hangs limp, chin to chest and her long dark hair veils her face like a curtain.

A black satin bow sits perfectly over her hips, hiding her pussy like some sick joke—a neatly wrapped gift, like she was meant just for me.

Valen moves toward her and my eyes track his every step and when he stops beside her, he curls his fingers into her hair, yanking her head back with a sharp pull.

The moment her face is revealed, something in me cracks and my expression drops.

“It’s that little bitch who got away from you. You know the one.” Valen grins, something hideous morphing on his face, malicious eyes flicking between me and her.

“Took me months to track her down,” he goes on, voice full of pride and poison. “But your birthday’s coming up and fuck it, I couldn’t wait any longer. She was becoming all too tempting to take for myself.”

I remember her. How the fuck could I forget? She’s the only one who ever managed to escape me in the thick of my downward spiral when Hollow Haze was killed. Valen hates when they get away—he’ll rip the world the apart just to drag them back to his hell, and in his mind, I’m the same.

Maybe once, I was. Maybe he’s not wrong. But as I stare at her now, all I can see is Aurelia. Her face, her breath, her disobedience, her trembling naked body covered in my script, and my knife hanging out her ass.

And for the first time in my wrecked, pitiful existence, I don’t want to touch this chick. I don’t want to touch anyone.

Just her. Just my little corpse.

My loyalty suddenly belongs to a girl who hasn’t even asked for it. She doesn’t even want me. Not yet anyway. But obsession doesn’t wait for permission—it spreads like a toxin, and now she’s nothing but a lingering, relentless erosion in my bones that I’ll never rid of.

Aurelia is the only person who’s ever truly survived me. Not this girl, hung like a piece of fucking meat, waiting to be used, abused and killed.

Not by chance or luck—but because Ilether.

Over and over, she stops me from being what I’ve always been. And the fucked-up part is…I’m not even mad about it. Not like I thought I’d be, but the temptation’s still there, it always will be. It’s imprinted into a mindset I never chose.

I’ve always let my wrath bleed wild—painted the world in chaos just to feel alive. But for her? I’d swallow every ounce of it. Chain it the fuck down, cage the monster inside me and become a graveyard of my own fury. Just to keep her breathing. Just to keep her mine.

I knew I was risking everything last night when I did what I did. I had countless chances to snuff her out in a second, but I didn’t.

Instead, I finally let loose—playing sick games without it turning into a murder scene. And yeah, she gave me hell, she’s feisty as fuck, but deep down, I know she wanted it just as much as I did. I could tell in the way her body reacted. She didn’t have to say a word.

She just needs to have every bit of fight forced right out of her until there’s nothing left but obedience and bruises. She needs to finally fucking accept what we are and let it sink into that pretty little skull of hers that she now belongs to me.

Or maybe I’ll cut out her tongue, silence her in a way I’ve been all my life.

I shake my head, caught too deep in the bizarre spiral, and I feel Valen’s eyes on me from across the room, like he’s trying to figure out what the fuck I’m thinking about.

Nah. That tongue felt way too good around my cock last night to get rid of. Choking and gagging on it like she was being throat fucked into a near death experience. Plus, her brazenness only gives me more reasons to keep fucking punishing her.

Aurelia’s a dark little thing. Pretty, small and soft on the surface, but there’s something gloomier lurking in those eyes and something brutal hidden beneath the scars on her body.

I saw it last night. There’s an angry demon inside of her and a story of how it got there. And it’s now a fucking story I’m dying to unravel—piece by piece, with every twisted part of me.

There’s a reason I’m drawn to her, why she’s the only woman to stop me from killing and I want to find out why.

Suddenly, an empty wine bottle drops and crashes to the floor behind the half-dead girl, followed by her pissing herself, the fluids running down her thighs and Valen glances back before chuckling.

“I had a bit of fun and buried it inside her tight ass for a good few hours, I couldn’t help myself.” His eye and neck twitches as his dark gaze wanders down her. “I know you like them loose.”

Then he leans around her, his body shifting and a sound, quick, wet and sucking, rips through the air. His entire hand disappears inside her stretched asshole like she’s nothing but a cavity to fill.

Her scream cracks the room in half, high and savage, but he doesn’t care, he just watches, enjoying every second of her pain.

“Yeah, the ugly cunt is ready.” His voice is calm, almost detached, as he yanks his hand out of her with a vicious tug.

My eyes shift between them, wondering how the fuck I’m going to get out of this shit. If I turn away, he’ll grow suspicious and start digging into my personal life, like he always does.

“You don’t want her?” Valen asks, his expression changing half in surprise, half in disappointment.

I lock eyes with him for a second before moving my gaze to her. She’s not making it out of this regardless. Not a chance. I can see it in the way her chest stutters with each breath, how her pupils barely reacting to the light.

An hour left, maybe less.

I walk toward her, slow and steady, like death on two legs and my hand slips into my jacket pocket. When I stop in front of her, I stare down, watching her blood leaking out like her body’s trying to get rid of itself.

My fingers find the playing card stashed in my pocket. But not just any playing card—my weapon. Black, solid metal with edges and sides like razor blades. Forged to kill and only kill. I use them sometimes, throwing them into throats or skulls. Silent, precise and cruel.

Without hesitation, I whip it out and slice it clean across her throat. I step back as her blood erupts, spraying in violent arcs from her open neck, her body convulsing and jerking as it tries to fight for a life it no longer has.

Valen just stares at me as if he’s seeing a stranger wearing my skin.

This ain’t how I do it and he knows it. It’s not how I kill them—and definitely not how I fuck them. But this wasn’t that.

This was… mercy.

Because I knew if I’d walked away and left her breathing, he would’ve patched her up just enough to keep her going a little longer. Long enough for more days of brutal rape and horrific torture, dragging her through the filth of his world until there was nothing left but nerves and horror.

So maybe, just maybe… today, I’m feeling… nice.

As I step back, Valen’s stunned into silence for once, and I meet his gaze for a moment, just long enough, then turn and walk out.

But behind me, I hear his footsteps, quick and desperate, chasing the quiet I’ve left behind.

“Wrath…” he calls out, but I don’t slow down. I don’t wonna see his face. Don’t want to hear the fucking questions that I don’t even have the answers to.

As soon as I get outside of that suffocating house, I reach my bike and swing a leg over, my hands already moving like muscle memory. The engine roars to life beneath me, a savage growl in the quiet morning.

Valen catches up and stops beside me as I rev the throttle once more and I peer at him from the corner of my eye.

“What the fuck was that about?” he asks, voice tight, too many emotions crammed into just a few words. “I got you her as a gift… You… I… We’re…”

I glance away, blinking fast, too fast, trying to shake the pressure creeping under my skin. It’s always been me and him. He’s always looked at me like I was his—a son or a fucking weapon.

But not today. Today I choose my little corpse.

I don’t answer him. I don’t even look at him. I just yank the throttle like I’m trying to rip the engine out of its fucking cage. Then the tires shriek against the gravel, spitting stone and dust like shrapnel as I tear off.