Page 92 of Souls We Rip

The lingering smell of tobacco was making my stomach sick.

“Who are you?” the man sitting at a desk asked, his eyebrows raised.

He was not fazed by the fact that I was carrying a scythe in one of my hands, not even my eyes frightened him.

He saw this before.

“I am here to collect your soul,” I stated, my head held high.

The office he stood in was not large by any means. In the middle of the room was a desk with a wooden chair on which his filthy body was slumped. It was filled to the brim with papers left unattended. A small cupboard stood in the faraway corner of the room. And a window overlooked the morning shift at the plant.

He chuckled, his beard jumping. “Someone else tried this joke before. I am not doing anything evil here.”

“What about all these people suffering from the work in the factory?”

He stood up, his round glasses falling from the bridge of his nose. “These people have a paid job, food on the table and shelter. What more can they want?”

“You truly believe that having food on the table would suffice from the meagre wages you give them?”

“What else would?” He stomped his cigarette on the floor.

“Happiness,” I answered, my hand becoming numb on the scythe.

He started laughing, his hands grabbing his stomach.

When he finally stopped, he eyed me with a frown before his eyebrows. “Happiness does not exist. It is an illusion. Money... money is real.”

“Do you really believe that?”

I stepped closer to him, seeing clearly that he would step over bodies to get his purpose.

“And making that money on the back of hard-working people brings you happiness?” I leaned my head on my shoulder, eyeing his big belly. “Do you think that they are healthy while fulfilling their duties?”

I leaned my palms on the desk, my eyes brighter from the lamp.

Snatching my scythe and pressing it on his neck and drawing blood, fear intruded into the man’s eyes. “I am not just a Soul Ripper. I still have my soul intact, despite the swirls in my eyes.” Cutting deep into his vein, crimson stained his collar.

I left his limp body fallen on the chair, my mind conjuring money to rain in the shop floor. As much money as the people working in the factory needed.

“A worthy price to pay,” Tiberius said when I joined him.

The rain finally stopped, the sun barely scraping the sky.

Nodding, I turned to him. “Who was the Ripper who visited the first time?”

“I was.”

“And you let him live?” My eyebrows shot up.

“Yes, I had an appointment on the Găina Hill,” he winked at me, a smirk appearing on his lips.

I couldn’t stop smiling, even though I just came from taking my seventh soul.

For the last few days, we spent searching for a way out of the contract, and we concluded that there was none. I had to take all of the souls in the short span of two months. Or else, who knew what the Elk had in store for us.

Biting my cheek, I held in the words that kept me up last night. Feeling my inner turmoil, Tiberius stepped closer to me. His scent soothed the thoughts I had. I took a deep breath and turned to him. There were questions in his eyes that needed answers. That only I possessed.

“You showed me the places you hold dear to your heart,” I said, and he answered with a nod. “I want to show you mine.”