That last thought had me taking the steps down two at a time, but I reached for the guns from the holsters beneath my shirt. If it turned out there was a welcoming committee of gunmen beyond the door, I was at least going to take at least a few of them out with me.
“Wait” the message appeared on the screen.
Wait? For what?—an engraved invitation? Hurry the fuck up, damn it.
Another text, “Two men. Seventeen yards in.” And then another, “Breathe.”
Breathe? This wasn’t a fucking yoga class.
Another, “It’s bad.”
Fuck, I couldn’t think about what he meant by that. I couldn’t.
Adrenaline was coursing through my veins. Every muscle taut. Ready. Two men?—I’d rip them apart with my bare hands.
More messages, “No gun. Too loud.”
Then it seemed like my bare hands were going to get the chance to do exactly that. I holstered the gun. Fuck, I was putting an awful lot of faith in mystery man.
The quiet click I’d been waiting for sounded. I opened the door as quietly as I could.
A quiet moan of pain assailed my ears, though it felt more like a knife through the heart. Scar? It couldn’t be. It sounded so weak.
The crack of a whip. Another moan. I wanted to cover the distance in one flying stride, but I forced one silent step after another until I could see what I was up against, praying to a non-existent god that it wasn’t her.
Two men, just like mystery man had said. But the girl who hung limply, held up by one set of beefy hands, couldn’t be Scar. It fucking couldn’t be.
The same long, auburn hair hung down the girl’s back, but it was matted and stuck to her neck and back by sweat and blood.
Oh fuck. No. No. The nausea, the bile at the back of my throat, the sting behind my eyes, the knife piercing my heart were all wrong. They were wrong. It wasn’t her.
This girl had been whipped so many times there was scarcely a flash of creamy white flesh between bloody lashes. What wasn’t whipped had been covered in bruises and cuts.
Her head lolled to the side and I could see the crusted scab that covered her entire cheek. Her eyes opened briefly. I barely saw them before they’d closed again, but I saw them.
Scar. There was no way to deny it. It was her. At least, it was Scar’s body. Whether they’d left any of her soul in her body, I didn’t know.
The bastard with the whip dropped it to the floor and the hands holding her wrists released her. She crumpled to the ground, facing the exterior stone wall.
I became pure rage. It consumed every cell in my body. White hot fire flowed through my veins. A growl rose up from the depths of my being.
I pounced on the one nearest to me, the one who’d had the whip. His head smacked against the wall with a heavy thud, and his eyes rolled back in his head. He slumped to the ground. Fuck. Too hard.
“Who the fuck are you?” the other one exclaimed as he stood up tall, flexing his bulky muscles.
I lunged at him. No amount of steroid-fed muscle was going to help him. I had his arms behind his back, both shoulders popped in seconds.
Screams.
I bent his arms at his elbows, then further. And further. Crack. One and then the other snapped.
More screams.
I kicked in one knee.
He wailed in agony as he crashed to the ground.
The other knee. More grotesque screams. And then he was whimpering like a fucking child.
The whip-wielder moaned, coming to and pushing himself up off the floor.
The feral animal in me smiled. I wanted blood. I’d never felt the urge to sink my teeth into another human being and tear the flesh from his bones. But that was precisely what I wanted. I wanted to feel the blood drain out of him.
The stupid fuck actually charged at me. The feral animal’s smile grew wider.
I caught his wrist as it flung at my face and yanked it behind his back. The bastard struggled so hard he snapped his own shoulder. Bowed like he was, it was easy to reach. Irresistible. I knew exactly where the jugular vein was located and I sunk my teeth into his neck. I didn’t want to rip it right open. Just a pierce. Just enough to know that his death would be slow, pulsing, agonizing. And certain.
He kicked back as he howled, making contact with my shin. The force could have snapped it, and I wouldn’t have known. I didn’t exist at that moment in a realm of human limitations. Rage had no limits. It didn’t feel. It didn’t hurt, and it couldn’t be stopped. It lashed out and ripped apart everything in its path.
And that’s just what I did. Shoulders, elbows, knees—the fucker looked like a marionette on strings, just like his accomplice.