Page 173 of Stone: The Precursor

It’s not a question. “Yes.” She resumes touching me, caressing each mark. She doesn’t shrink away from the knowledge of what I did, but reads the words above the tattoo. I close my eyes as she reads.

“He took fire and burned; and ashes wholly

Behoved it, that in falling he became.

And when he was on the ground, he was thus destroyed,

The ashes drew together, and of themselves

Into himself they instantly returned.”

She presses deeper, and the pain makes me moan. I want her nails digging deeper, hurting me. “Dante’s Inferno?”

Opening my eyes, not shocked that she knows. “Yes. Vanni Fucci, is a thief who stole sacred objects and his punishment is to turn to ashes and burned over and over. Tormented. He stole something sacred.” I touch her lips. “He stole you.”

She kisses my fingertips softly, and I’m done. Gone. I wrap my arms around, pulling her close, and kiss her back, hopeless and hopeful at the same time.

She opens her mouth, meeting my tongue, matching the fervor in my blood for her. When she pulls away, both our lips are swollen.

“You said you skinned him. What do you do with the skin?” Her face is expressionless, and I don’t know how to read her. “Are they like the maps?” Her voice is steady. Calm.I nod. The dark knowledge in her eyes about the evils of the world lures me in. There’s a somber shadow about her that calls to the damage inside me. “Show me.”

Chapter 79

Stone takes my hand, and we walk partway through his woods. It’s shocking to know that beyond the gorgeous views of his cabin, there are the remains of men, rapists, and kidnappers. Forever bound in a cemetery of evil. It’s his own form of justice.

A part of me, the part of me that lives in a world where murder is wrong no matter the consequences, is appalled, but the other part, the part that still has trouble looking in the mirror and seeing 30 scars on my body from where that bastard punctured my skin, aiming to kill me, is delighted at their demise. I don’t know if the memories of being trapped under his body or how I braced myself to be raped by him will go away. The mental toll of that is still hard for me to cope with some nights.

When Stone opens the double doors, I prepare myself to see gore and blood everywhere, but it’s not the case. It smells sweet like fresh sawdust. It covers the ground. There is also the scent of pine in the air. I look along the wall and blink at the collection of knives. The bear traps. Like the one I saw the day I was lost in the woods. Tubes hang in neat coils. The brown bottles, which I assume contain chemicals, are lined up on a wall. I walk over to them, reading their labels.

“What are these for?”

“To remove flesh.” He stands in the doorway. “The chemicals destroy tissue.”

There’s a rack and a stove, a vintage potbelly-looking one. I wonder if it’s a stove filled with ash from their burned bones. “You burn them here?” There’s no confirmation except the cold look in his eyes.I keep moving until I see a huge 70-gallon tank. I move forward, fascinated, staring at the insects crawling around. “Are they mealworm beetles?” A half-eaten snake is inside, ribs and skull exposed, the rest still has skin and scales. The dark brown beetles are moving around it.

“No. Dermestid beetles. They clean carcasses of rotting or dead flesh.”

The subtext is there. He uses them for the men he’s killed. “Will you stop?”

“No”

Stone says it so matter-of-factly. There is minimal gray area when it comes to his complicated man.

“I can’t. Not yet. The leader is still alive, and his reach is wide and far. I’m going to help Onyx kill him.”

“Onyx?”

“Onyx was married to Ivory.”

The horror still makes my stomach churn. “I’m sorry for what happened to your family.”

“I won’t rest until the gang is destroyed. This is the dirty side of me, Camryn.”

He keeps his hands to his sides. He says it, brutally honestly, and I know it’s a test. When he touched my scars and told me how he felt the need to punish the man who hurt me, I could feel the anger inside him. But despite all the atrocities he’s admitted to, the horrifying tools he’s using to torture those men, I feel safe with him. Only him. Even now, seeing the number of tally marks on his chest, I want him inside me. “That’s not all that you are,Stone.” I touch his face and kiss the center of his chest. His skin is warm against my lips.

“Whatever else there is, is dead,” he repeats.

“I don’t believe that. I’ve seen the other side of you. The way you are when you touch me. When you hold me. When you care for me.”