Page 104 of Monsters Carve Thrones

Waylon spat blood and sneered. “You think you scare me, baby?”

“No,” I said calmly. “I think I disgust you. Because Isurvivedyou. Because I never came around to enjoy what you did to me. No matter how hard you tried.” I smirked.

He growled, his eyes narrowing up at me, then to Rafe. “What did you do to Waleria? How did you escape?”

Rafe smiled, and it was horrifying. “You wanna know?”

Waylon blinked.

Rafe pulled out her phone, tapped the screen, and pressed the play button. The video showed Rafe talking to the camera, then Waleria chained and sobbing seconds before he ended her life. Her screams filled the room.

Waylon thrashed in the chair. “NO! What thefuckdid you do?!”

Rafe shoved him back down with a growl. “She begged at the end, as you heard.”

Waylon was shaking now. His eyes darted around the room. His breathing turned shallow, wet with panic. The powerhe’d wielded for so long was gone, stripped bare in the presence of the two people he should’ve never touched. The people who walked through the flames of hell to drag him into it.

But I didn’t smile. I didn’t gloat. Instead, I stepped forward. Waylon looked up at me, disbelief in his blood-smeared face. His lips trembled, stained with red. “You raped me,” I said softly, evenly–so much calmer than I felt. “Night after night. You beat me. You starved me. You humiliated me.”

Rafe’s arm was still extended, gun aimed, trembling violently with the effort of holding back. His knuckles were bone white, teeth bared like an animal held on a fraying leash.

“You took,” I said. “And took. Andtook.”

Waylon flinched, but then the bastard laughed. He lifted his swollen face and turned it toward Rafe, bloody teeth flashing in a sneer. “She’s a fun little ride,” he croaked. “Tight, too.”

I didn’t have time to react. But Rafe did. He surged forward and slammed his fist into Waylon’s face with a sound like a gunshot. Bone cracked. Blood splattered the table, chair, and floor. Waylon gagged and choked.

Rafe hit him again.

Andagain.

The chair splintered beneath the weight of Rafe’s fury as he beat him into a sagging heap. Waylon cried out, trying to cover his face, even if it was useless. Rafe’s fists were merciless. There was blood on his hands, blood down his arms, blood dripping from his chin.

Rafe grabbed him by the collar, yanking his face up. “Open your fucking eyes!”

I couldn’t help but flinch at the scream that tore out of his chest. It was so brutal that I would have been shocked to know his throatwasn’tbleeding.

Rafe slammed him back into the chair and stepped away, chest heaving, pupils blown wide with hate. He turned to me, shaking with rage. “Hold my gun, Adela,” he rasped.

I took it, nodding once. His icy eyes were dead. The man I knew no longer existed. And I supposed the woman he knew was long gone, too. Hopefully, we could find a way to navigate the world as these new characters.

Rafe cracked his neck and made Waylon regret everything he’d ever done. He didn’t use the gun. He used his fists, his elbows, his knees. He grabbed a broken chair leg and rammed it into Waylon’s gut. Cracked his head against the wall. Tore through him like a man possessed by Satan himself.

It was animalistic. Wrath in its purest form.

Waylon was barely conscious by the end. He slumped in the ruins of the chair, face a mess of blood and bone. One eye swollen shut. One arm bent wrong. He coughed and spat something dark onto the floor, twitching.

Rafe finally stumbled back, breathless, jaw clenched tight. Blood soaked through his shirt. “Your turn, little doe,” he whispered with a sadistic smile.

I stepped forward, gun in hand, steady.

Waylon blinked up at me, barely there anymore.

“I want to remember this,” I whispered. “You didn’t break me. You honed me into the very blade that would slit your fucking throat.”

He wheezed, half a laugh. I raised the gun, and his eyes widened in that final second.

And I pulled the trigger.