Page 100 of Monsters Carve Thrones

I leaned in close, my voice a whisper only the dying get to hear. “This is for every time you laughed while I cried. For the poor woman who wore these clothes before me. For all of the people you helped that monster hurt.”

I pulled the blade out slowly.

“Fuck you, Riley.”

Then I stood and wiped her blood across my thigh. The door creaked behind me as I stepped out of the room, my hands now stained with six people’s blood.

I moved through the hallway with purpose, my steps silent despite the hammering in my chest. The house was in chaos. I didn’t know what was happening, but it was glorious timing.

I turned the corner and stopped dead.

Derek and Jason.

The two fuckers who’d been there the night I was first taken. The ones who grabbed me. Held me down. Laughedwhen they jerked off on my thighs in the shower. They froze when they saw me.

Their eyes snapped to the blood coating me.

“Fuck,” Derek hissed, raising his gun.

Too slow.

I dove forward, grabbing the dagger I’d used to kill Riley, and slashed upward, slicing across Jason’s throat in one clean, furious motion.

Blood sprayed.

Derek lunged at me from behind, but I twisted, letting the momentum carry me down and to the side. His arm flew over my head, and I drove the blade into his thigh.

He roared.

I didn’t stop.

I drove it again into his stomach, twisting as he fell backward, gasping, his hands scrabbling at mine like he thought he could stop me.

“There you go,” I hissed.

His mouth opened, blood bubbling at the corners.

“I rememberyou, Derek. And what you did. I didn’t forget your ugly face.”

I leaned in close, twisting the blade again, slow.

“You’re going to die as a little bitch who wouldn’t even fuck a hot woman because he feared hismaster. Remember how bad you wanted me?” I laughed hysterically before leaning in close. “What a goddamnwaste.”

His eyes rolled back. He collapsed.

I stood over their bodies, blood staining the dagger, my wrists, my thighs.

I didn’t feel fear.

I feltclear.

The woman who’d been taken–she was gone. I was coating these walls in their fucking blood, even if I died on my way out.

The hallway felt like it stretched for miles. Every creak in the floor and every flickering shadow set my nerves on fire. I could feel the tension tightening like wire in my chest. I had a gun in one hand, a knife tucked into the waistband of my sweatpants, and blood still drying under my fingernails. Then–

Voices.

Raised. Angry. A suddenshout.My heart jumped into my throat. They’d found the bodies. I squeezed my eyes shut.God.Sure, I had weapons now. But there were still at least ten men in this house. One of them being Waylon.