I tip my head back, breathing in deeply through my nose as black fire licks at my nerves. Addie left here only a week ago, but that’s an incredible amount of time in the human trafficking world.
“You sent the files?” I ask. I don’t even recognize my own voice.
“Yes,” Jay confirms. I hear rustling as he packs up his belongings, sensing the obliteration on the horizon.
“Get out of here, Jay.”
“Yep, consider me gone.”
“And Jay?”
He pauses. “Yeah?”
“Set up
cameras that point toward these windows. Just wait until after I break through it,” I order.
He hesitates but ultimately agrees and shuffles out.
I give him two minutes to leave. Two minutes of warfare raging in my head, bubbling to the surface, and bleeding out onto the floor where I stand, just like the bloated dead man below.
My body moves on autopilot. I head down to the hospital room and rifle through a cabinet, collecting drapes, clothing, and anything else that's flammable, then scatter them throughout the entire building. Next, I grab alcohol-based liquids, and saturate the littered floor with them. Fires are more common in hospitals than most realize, and it’s fucking perfect for the destruction I’m intent on causing.
After that, I take every bedsheet I can find in his studio and tie them together into an extensive rope, then set it aside.
Breathing heavily, I aim for a heavy cabinet in his kitchen and empty out the contents. Dragging it to the massive window, I lean it snugly against it and then take a step back.
I inhale deeply, gather every ounce of wrath, use it as fuel, and kick out my leg with all my strength. The cabinet splinters the glass, spiderwebs fissuring across the entire window. Growling, I kick out once more, and with a loud crack, the cabinet goes flying through it.
Tiny shards cut into my skin, but I hardly notice, just as the deafening crash from the cabinet barreling into the ground doesn’t register, either.
I’m already making my way back down to the second floor, where the doctor lies dead, donning gloves and a mask from his supplies. The smell stabs at my nostrils and eyes; the N95 doing nothing to filter out the smell.
Snapping on two layers of gloves, I grab the corpse by the collar of his shirt and drag him back up to his studio, where the sick fuck used to take patients and rape them while unconscious.
Regardless of his extracurricular activities, the doctor was clearly involved in the skin trade, which means this won’t only send a message to the Society, but it will also send a message to every trafficker who has had the misfortune of stepping foot inside this place.
They will know that Z knows.
Vomit swirls in my stomach from the pungent odor, threatening to rise up my throat as I drag the dead body to the window. I grab the last bottle of alcohol and dump the entire contents all over him.
Holding my breath, I grab the rope made out of bed sheets, tie one end around his torso beneath his arms, and the other end to his bed frame.
Then, I throw him out of the fucking window. The legs of the frame scream against the cement floor as it drags a few feet before holding tight.
Satisfied, I tear off the gloves and mask, pull out another cigarette and light it up, inhaling deeply as I sit on the edge of the bed. I hold the lighter to one of the drapes on the floor, the material bursting into flames and quickly spreading.
And then I enjoy my cigarette while my wrath comes to life before my eyes.
It’s both loud and silent in my brain, filled with white noise that drowns out any coherent thoughts. I feel everything and nothing at all, and I’ve never been more dangerous.
Never been more lethal.
I laugh and enjoy watching this place fucking burn. So many awful things happened here. So many victims—so many women and children were brought through for a temporary fix just to be taken somewhere and broken all over again.
Slowly, I stand and make my way out of the room. My body physically registers the heat, sweat beading on my forehead and down the back of my neck. Smoke fills my lungs and the flames singe at my skin.
Yet, I can’t feel a goddamn thing.