Page 40 of Stalked By the Alphas

39

ZACH

I stand over Ayden’s mutilated body, my chest heaving and arms aching from the exertion. The machete slips from my blood-slicked fingers, clattering to the floor. The red haze of rage clears from my vision as I take in the carnage around me.

Noah is still working on David, the drill whirring as he methodically destroys the monster who hurt Hazel. David’s agonised screams have faded to weak whimpers. Good. He doesn’t deserve a quick death.

A small figure appears at the bottom of the stairs like a ghost.

Leah.

Her face is a mask of grim determination as she approaches David’s broken form. Noah looks up grimly and then takes in the gun in her hand.

“You can do this?” he asks quietly.

She doesn’t reply. She crouches down, looking into her father’s pain-filled eyes. “You ruined so many lives,” she says softly. “Including mine.”

David tries to speak, but only manages a wet gurgle. Leah raises the gun, pressing it to the middle of his forehead.

“Goodbye, Daddy,” she whispers.

The gunshot is deafening in the small space. David’s body goes limp, his eyes vacant. It’s over.

Leah stands, her hand shaking slightly as she lowers the gun. “Is it done?” she asks, her voice hollow.

Noah checks for a pulse and gives a nod.

“It’s done,” I say quietly.

She takes a shuddering breath, her eyes roaming over the carnage in the room. Her gaze lands on Ayden’s mangled corpse, and she flinches.

“He was my cousin,” she says softly. “I didn’t know until recently. He was looking into the death of Hazel’s parents.”

This piece of information, which is something we already guessed, is random at a time like this.

But when she looks up at me, her eyes full of caution, maybe not so random. She knows. Or she thinks she knows it was us who got rid of Hazel’s parents.

“Let’s get you out of here,” Noah says, his voice tight with tension.

We make our way up the stairs, leaving the gruesome scene behind to deal with once Leah is out of the way, and Hazel is safe. The cool night air is a relief after the oppressive atmosphere of the cellar. Carter is crouched against the wall, cradling Hazel protectively. She’s wrapped in his shirt, her face buried against his chest.

“Is it over?” Carter asks, his eyes hard as he looks at Leah.

I nod once.

Carter stands slowly, keeping Hazel close. “We need to get Hazel safe and then deal with this.”

“No,” Hazel whimpers, clinging tighter to Carter. “Please, don’t leave me.”

“Okay, sweetheart,” Carter soothes. “I won’t leave you.”

She nods weakly against his chest, slumping into his embrace. She hasn’t even looked at me or Noah. Does she even know it’s us? Has she figured it out yet? I want to remove my mask and show her that we are here for her, but Noah grips my arm and shakes his head.

Reluctantly, I stand down. I want her to know that we saved her as well, but maybe it’s too much information to handle in one go. Hazel is trembling violently, probably going into shock.

“Leah, can you drive us back to Hazel’s village? It’s about an hour away.”

Leah nods grimly but doesn’t say anything. She simply stalks off, leaving Carter to rise with Hazel still in his arms.

“Can you two figure this shit out?” he asks, almost desperately.

Noah nods, still not speaking, in case Hazel recognises his voice .

We watch them drive off and then Noah turns to me. “We need to start digging.”

“With what?” I ask, looking around.

“There’s a couple of small shovels back in the car. Do you want to go and get them while I find us somewhere to bury them?”

“Okay,” I say numbly and set off, unable to process everything that has happened in the last hour.

The walk back to our car feels endless. The adrenaline is fading, leaving me confused and unable to tell reality from fiction.

Did we rescue Hazel? Did we kill the bad guys?

When I reach the car, I grab the small folding shovels from the boot. My hands are still sticky with dried blood. I should feel disgusted, but I don’t. All I feel is a grim satisfaction that those monsters can never hurt Hazel, or anyone else, ever again.

I make my way back to the abandoned school, shovels in one hand, my phone’s torch showing me the way. Noah is waiting for me at the edge of the overgrown property.

“I found a spot,” he says quietly. “Follow me.”

We trek through the tall grass and weeds to a secluded area behind the crumbling building. Noah has already started clearing away some of the vegetation.

Without a word, we start digging two graves. The work is gruelling, made more challenging by the fading light. But we push on, driven by the need to erase all traces of what happened here.

As we dig, my mind wanders to Hazel. The terror in her eyes when we found her... will she ever recover from this? Will she ever feel safe again? It makes what we did to her so much worse, knowing that there was someone else out there stalking her. Sweat beads under my mask. I don’t want to remove it yet. Neither does Noah, by the looks of it. The anonymity of it makes it seem less real.

“Do you think she knows it was us?” I ask Noah suddenly, pausing to wipe sweat from my brow.

Noah stops digging, leaning on his shovel. “I don’t know,” he says heavily. “But right now, that doesn’t matter.”

As much as it hurts, he’s right. It doesn’t matter.

We work in silence, digging two deep graves in the overgrown field behind the abandoned school. The physical labour helps clear my mind, giving me something to focus on besides Hazel.

As we finish digging, Noah and I exchange a grim look. Time to deal with the bodies. We make our way back into the dank cellar with the stench of blood and death. We haul David’s mangled corpse up the stairs and across the field to dump him unceremoniously into one of the graves.

Ayden’s body is more of a challenge, given how thoroughly I dismembered him in my rage. I don’t even really remember doing it. We have to make multiple trips, gathering the pieces of him in our arms. By the time we’re done, I’m covered in sweat and gore, but still, I feel nothing.

As we shovel dirt over the graves, obliterating any trace of the monsters who hurt Hazel, Noah finally breaks the silence.

“We need to decide what to tell her,” he says quietly.

I pause, leaning on my shovel. “About what exactly?”

“Everything.”

I sigh heavily. “I don’t know if she can handle the truth right now. She’s been through so much already.”

Noah nods grimly. “We may not have a choice. If she finds out afterwards, it’s all over.”

Ignoring him, I go back to work, flinging dirt over Ayden’s body parts. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about anything.