Page 38 of Death Kiss

‘…need this…’ I mumble, shaking free of Kat and grabbing Alan by his collar, dragging him to the kitchen, leaving a trail of red behind him.

Kat steps over the crimson smear, tugging her mask up onto the top of her head. Her expression makes me hesitate. Those sweet blue eyes are stricken.

Then Alan lets out a groan that pulls me right back to him. In the kitchen, I straddle him, my hand on his saggy throat.

‘Do you know what you did?’ I ask him.

‘No,’ he sobs, his face turning puce as he gasps.

‘You wouldn’t recognise me behind the mask. Not now that I’m a man, but I knew you as a boy.’

There it is. The flicker of fear.

‘You’ve got the wrong guy,’ he splutters when I give him a little more air.

‘No. I don’t.’ His cheek crunches when I land another punch. You might not remember me, but I can’t forget you. It’s been what? Fifteen years since I last saw you. Yet the way your lip would curl as you hurt me still haunts my nightmares.’

My knife feels molten in my belt until I pull it out and sink it into flesh. Alan’s scream is cathartic. It washes over my senses and pulls me into unhinged bliss.

‘Liam, please?’ Kat says to my left, but I can’t stop. The knife plunges again and again, sometimes glancing off bone, other times sinking to the hilt unimpeded. The bubbling of his blood is mesmerising, and I know I need this. They wreak havoc on the men who have left a wake of pain and trauma behind them, likely through generations.

Alan’s face contorts, but his screams fall silent. As if the pain is too great to vocalise. The rush of endorphins is almost blinding. My knife is in his stomach when I twist it.

Alan judders and twists until Kat kneels beside him, her knife to his throat and meets my eyes.

‘I want him to feel it,’ I grunt.

‘I know.’

‘He deserves to know how much it hurts to have something stuck into you again and again and again.’

Kat’s eyes grow teary, and I hate the way she’s looking at me. She knows I’m a disappointment. I couldn’t hide it for long enough.

But I’ll get her the house. Our house. And I need to feed the rage to do it. The rage is the only thing that’ll get me through the fight.

Blood spurts around my hand as I dig deep, eviscerating Alan’s insides while holding Kat’s gaze.

‘Please,’ Alan begs.

A tear drips down Kat’s face as she draws her blade swiftly across Alan’s throat.

‘No!’ I toss my knife across the linoleum and stand, pacing the floor as the pulsating in my head increases. ‘Fuck.’

Kat joins me, pushing my mask up and taking my face between her bloodied hands. ‘Come back.’

Her voice is a plea, but I’m too far gone.

‘Liam, please?’

The broken way she says it knocks something inside me.

‘What do you need?’ she asks.

‘You.’

I feed my bloodied hands into her hair and kiss her harshly, pure need driving it. And my girl melds to me, giving in to what I shouldn’t demand.

Not here.