Page 74 of Hunted to the Altar

Just enough to make him scream.

The sound echoed through the basement, a raw, animal sound that bounced off the concrete and came back distorted.

I cut him again.

Lower, across his ribs.

He sobbed, choking on blood and terror.

I looked at Nina again.

And that’s when I saw it.

The blankness.

The detachment.

The acceptance.

She wasn't horrified. She wasn't shocked. She was numb.

Because of me.

Because I had carved the humanity out of her, slice by slice.

I stumbled back from Ricci like I had been burned.

"You see now, don’t you?" Nina said quietly.

Her voice was a blade, slipping under my skin with surgical precision.

"You made me this way."

I wanted to deny it. Wanted to scream that I did it to protect her.

But the truth was a weight in my gut.

I had made her into this.

Not the Picones.

Not the world.

Me.

No amount of punishing my prey was going to change that fact. I was just like the men who came before me. No, worse. I wanted to not be like Silas and somehow I’ve crossed a line that surpassed him.

I handed her the knife.

I don’t know why.

Maybe because I wanted her to have the choice I had stripped from her.

She took it with shaky hands.

Nina wheeled forward slowly, the knife trembling between her fingers.

She turned toward Ricci, her body stiff, like she was holding herself together with sheer force of will.