“You think that I’m worth saving?” I yanked my prey away from the wall, spinning hard and letting go. Gutierrez stumbled back, landing between two garbage pails. They clattered and fell to the ground, spilling trash all around. “You think I’m a good man?”
I hauled Gutierrez off the ground and shook him hard. “What—” the man mumbled. “What did I do to you?”
“This isn’t who you are,” Sam insisted. She inched closer, standing at the mouth of the alley. Even with the sick, delectable smell wafting all around, I still sensed her there. But it didn’t matter. There was no turning back.
As the demon fed, the poisonous emotion seeping in, a twisted feeling of euphoria filled me. A detached, weightless sensation that made me feel like I was bulletproof. I pushed Gutierrez back against the wall again, grabbing hold of a fistful of his hair. Once. Twice. Three times. I slammed his head into the brick. “Does this feel familiar?” I whispered in the man’s ear. He was barely conscious. “Do you remember doing this to that girl a few days ago?”
“Stop!” Sam screamed. A second later, she was dragging me away. Gutierrez slid down the wall and crumbled into a heap. I resisted the urge to spit on him. People like him were garbage. Gutierrez was just like me. He fed on the misery of others. His nose was bleeding. So was his head, and both his top and bottom lip were split with a nasty-looking gash, but he was still alive. Still breathing. But I’d taken what I needed. For now.
Reality would set in soon. It always did. The amped, contented feeling never lasted long. But at that moment, I reveled in the mist of my prey’s emotions. Pain. Suffering. Fear. They fed the demon and eased my pain and that was all that mattered. Those first few moments after a feed were blissful. They were the only ones that brought any semblance of peace. There was no pain and no itching hunger creeping out from the darkest corners of my subconscious. There was only satisfaction.
“The corner of Eighth and Broadway,” I heard Sam say. When I turned, she was on my cell phone. It brought the world crashing back down, and with it, the demon’s rage.
Before I could stop myself, I ripped the phone from her hands. She gasped. “What the hell—”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I advanced, and for the first time, Sam actually looked scared. Tufts of gray rose around her shoulders and swirled above her head.
“I didn’t give my name. I had to call an ambulance. That poor guy is—”
“Is still alive,” I snapped. “And unfortunately he’ll continue to live, which is more than he deserves. And that poor guy beat some girl the other day. I’m sure he’s beaten others, too.”
“It doesn’t matter what he did, Jax. You’re not God. You’re not judge and jury. You don’t get to decide what he deserves.”
Azirak was amused by Sam’s words, and I, still feeding off the demon’s high, couldn’t help smiling. I didn’t know where the words came from, but somehow I knew they were true. “But I am. I’m this world’s judge, jury, and executioner.”
In the distance, sirens wailed, and Sam paled. She grabbed my hand, flinching for just a second. “We need to go.”
I looked down. The front of my shirt was splattered with red. Same with my forearms and hands. “I’m—” That tiny switch inside, the one that shut down my humanity and set the demon free, flipped back. Guilt flooded in and a rush of cold came over me. The broken bones, the echo of screams inside my head, the blood… This part I hated. The guilt. Not because of what I’d done—but because of how I’d felt while doing it. Invigorated and enthusiastic. I didn’t like feeding the demon. I loved it. And Sam had seen the whole thing.
She tugged on my arm and I followed, lost in a haze. The movement of my legs and the warmth of her touch barely registered, along with the feel of her hand slipping into my front pocket in search of the keys. Like a child, I allowed her to stuff me into the passenger seat, and was vaguely aware of the squealing sound the tires made against the pavement as she peeled away from the curb.
We drove for several miles. I wasn’t paying attention to the direction. North. South. It didn’t matter. I was too busy staring at my hands. Hands that were covered in blood and to blame for the pain and suffering of so many. I’d lost count. Until February in my eighteenth year, I’d kept a running total. The number of poor bastards who had been unfortunate enough to wander into my path. They were the horrible and the violent. Sick and twisted… But they were humans whom, as Sam pointed out, I had no right to judge.
“Pull over,” I said, looking up from my bloodstained hands.
“Pull over? Where?”
“Now,” I snapped. The sound rattled around in the small space, making Sam flinch. The car listed hard to the left and stopped a few seconds later. I couldn’t get out fast enough. Air. I needed air. I stumbled several feet from the door, doubling over and bracing myself against a nearby pine tree. My pulse thundered as the blood rushed through my veins.
Sam came around the front. “Jax?”
“I liked it, Sammy,” I said with as much control as I could muster. Turning to face her now wasn’t an option. “It made me happy. I took more pleasure than you can possible imagine from making him bleed.”
She didn’t answer right away, and when she did, her tone wasn’t sharp or disgusted like it should have been. It was soothing. Forgiving. “Funny. You don’t look very happy right now.”
I straightened and pushed off the tree. A single step and I sank to my knees.
The blood on my hands would wash away but I would always see it. Each time I closed my eyes, the world turned red. How many nights had I sat in roach-infested motels, staring at a blade and wishing to hell that I had the strength to end it all? Most committed suicide long before they reached their twenties. They’d done the honorable thing. Spared the world from their particular flavor of madness and horror.
I was a fucking coward.
Too afraid to leave this life behind for fear of what the next held. After everything I’d done, there was no eternal peace waiting on the other side. “When I left, I made a choice to continue living—even though I knew what that would mean for others. You were right. I’m selfish, and this is the price I have to pay. There’s no happiness out there for me, Sammy. No redemption. Only endless blood and violence.”
Sam didn’t say a word as she came around to stand in front of me. The sun was going down and the broken beam of light that shone through the trees was so bright, that it illuminated the outline of her body, making her look like angel.
An angel standing over the devil awaiting judgment.
“I don’t believe that, Jax. I don’t believe that there’s anyone who can’t be saved.” She pulled me close, cradling my head against her belly. “You can be saved. I can save you.”
“This asshole behind us is getting on my nerves,” Sam mumbled.
It was starting to get dark and we were almost back to town. She’d been complaining about the car behind us for the past ten minutes. I glanced over my shoulder. “Pull to the side and let him pass.”
“I’m going over the speed limit. There’s no reason for him to be on my ass.”
I checked the speedometer—she was going almost seventy—and peered into the passenger’s side mirror, squinting against the glare from the other car’s headlights. It was too close to see the plate number, but it looked like a New York plate. I was about to suggest turning at the intersection ahead when the car lurched forward.