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Hestia blows a rather elegant raspberry. “I ain’t gonna die, honey. I’m just along for the ride.”
I might just kill you myself.
“Well, are you two ready for this?” I ask. “Last chance to back out, seeing as how both of you are having doubts.”
“Hell fucking no, I ain’t backin’ out,” Osiris says and steps out into the hall. “If I die, at least I die doing what I love best.”
“I thought you loved fucking best?”
Osiris blows a rather graceless raspberry, even spitting a little. “I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been fucking you lately, but it’s kinda lost its luster—I’ll go with killing.”
I roll my eyes and walk out the door. He always talks shit to get under my skin, so when we hop into bed together again, I’m pissed and focused on payback. That’s how he likes it—violent.
The three of us leave together, dressed as everyday citizens, with an armory of guns hidden strategically beneath our clothes.
11
Fredrik
Years Ago…
“Control,” Seraphina told me in her trademark poison-honeyed voice. “It’s what you lack, my love. You’re impatient. Reckless. Sloppy—”
“OK, I get it—I’m terrible at this.” I wanted to throw in the towel and return to impatience, recklessness, and sloppiness, but I knew that Seraphina was right. I had to learn to handle myself; I needed to know myself. I had to be able to trust myself—and Seraphina.
The woman strapped to the chair in the room we’d borrowed from a wealthy family on vacation screamed through the gag stuffed in her mouth. Sweat and blood ran down the sides of her face in rivulets. Seraphina had already beat her severely before I’d arrived. That was Seraphina’s way—everybody was fair game, so asking questions and whether or not someone was innocent or guilty beforehand didn’t much apply. But I have to say that Seraphina, for all the wickedness and cruelty for which she was capable, it never hindered her judgment—she was usually right about a person’s character without first needing to follow a moral procedure.
She did not seek out criminals or the “guilty” to torture and kill; they just always somehow fell into her lap. And also, unlike me, she didn’t need to inflict pain, to draw blood, but she sure as hell enjoyed it when the opportunity presented itself.
“But what has this woman done, Seraphina?” I asked. “Can’t you at least tell me that?”
“What has she not done?” Seraphina straddled the woman, their breasts touching, the warm, wet oasis between Seraphina’s legs that I was addicted to more than any addict to any drug pressed firmly against the woman. Her jet-black hair was cut in an artistic point just beneath high cheekbones; her eyes were as black as her hair; her lipstick as red as the blood trailing down her victim’s chin.
She caged the woman’s face behind long, graceful fingers and tore the gag from her mouth with her teeth.
The woman did not scream; perhaps she already knew what Seraphina would do to her if she did.
“I can’t just dive in without knowing whether or not she’s done something to deserve it,” I point out.
Seraphina ground her lap against the woman’s; her tongue snaked out and traced her bloodied lips. I could’ve sworn I heard the woman whimper. Or moan.
Wait a minute…
Trust. Seraphina wanted me to trust her for fucking once. Stop questioning everything she did, stop doubting; stop contemplating right or wrong—and trust myself!
I realized at that moment that things weren’t as they appeared. The victim wasn’t a victim at all—she was a willing participant.
With that thought, Seraphina drew back her fist, and a sharp crack! rang out. The woman’s head snapped backward on her neck and bobbed a few seconds before she got control of her senses. Blood gushed from her split lip, and she appeared momentarily dazed. The words “victim” and “participant” traded blows in my mind. Which was she? At this point, I had no idea.
But I played along.
I trusted her. But more importantly, I began to trust myself, and that was what Seraphina wanted most of all, what she had been trying to teach me.
“What has she done?” I asked again, though this time, the question wasn’t meant to distinguish between right and wrong or to justify whatever was about to happen—it was my acceptance of the delectable gift Seraphina had presented me.
“What hasn’t she done?” Seraphina echoed, her voice spiked with seduction and cruel intent. “Listen to your instincts, my love—they are never fucking wrong.”
“What are my instincts supposed to be telling me?”
