I got him over to the safe and then realized I was an idiot.
The safe was behind the typical picture frame. The picture frame was bolted to the wall at the top and had to be held to the side when opening the safe. If I had my shifter powers, I’d be able to hold up Alistair and the picture frame with ease. But since I didn’t, I didn’t see how it was possible to do it.
I was actually going to have to cut his hand and eyeball off.
Holy shit.
There was no time for me to come up with a different plan. My hands trembled as I grabbed from the wall one of the long swords Alistair had decorated the room with. It was supposed to belong to some ancient conqueror of China… Was it the Huns? The sword was heavy in my arms, and I worried for a second, imagining having to hack my way through Alistair’s wrist instead of the clean swipes I always saw other members of the pack accomplish.
Giving myself an internal pep talk, I brought the sword up as high as I could manage and then sliced it down on Alistair’s wrist.
Blood spewed everywhere, but the cut went clean through. Evidently, Alistair had made sure the sword stayed very sharp. That attention to detail, along with the money I knew was in the safe, were really Alistair’s only redeeming qualities I could think of in the moment.
I didn’t feel bad about slicing his wrist off at all.
It was a testament to how strong the powder was that Alistair didn’t move at all during any of this. He laid there peacefully, even as blood poured out of the wound.
The next part was going to be the really bad part though. I was just going to have to stop myself from puking, or at least aim it over Alistair’s body.
I needed a small knife. I started out of the room, sliding a little bit in the blood that coated the previously pristine white floor. I ran to the kitchen and got a small steak knife and then made my way back, checking the living room as I went to make sure it was still as quiet as I’d left it.
Everyone was still sleeping peacefully.
I made it back to the office. “Ok, you can do this,” I coached myself as I lifted Alistair’s right eyelid. His eye stared at me blankly.
I cut that son of a bitch’s eye out then, and I managed to only puke once…right on his face.
I set the disgusting eyeball and Alistair’s right hand on the desk beside the wall and then lifted the painting to the side.
Why did it have to be so heavy?
The safe looked like something from a Bond movie but I’d seen Alistair get into it enough to know how it worked. I pressed a few buttons and then grabbed Alistair’s hand and pressed it to the scanner, signing in relief when it accepted his print. I belatedly realized that I could have just chopped his thumb off, but considering everything Alistair had done to me and taken from me, he could deal with more pain.
Next up was the eyeball. I held down the urge to retch once again as I touched it and held it up to the scanner, hoping I hadn’t damaged the retina at all while I was tearing the eyeball out.
When it worked and the safe door popped open, I almost cried.
Alistair had stacks of cash in the safe, and I quickly grabbed five of the stacks, carefully avoiding the ones with a green dot on the band that held the cash together. Those had a tracker on them. Alistair was suspicious and thought everyone had an eye on his cash. He would periodically put trackers on his expensive items. This included his collection of jewels, artwork, antiques, weaponry…and his cash.
I’d picked today because he’d just gotten this cash this morning from whatever drug sale he’d recently completed, and Nelly had conveniently not gotten to placing the trackers yet.
She was an angel.
And Alistair was going to make her pay for that.
Shaking that dark thought off, I took the money and then ran to my bedroom to grab the bag I’d stashed in the back of the closet under a pile of dirty clothes. Throwing the money in there, I readied myself to leave. There was a bus leaving in thirty minutes that would take me to a town an hour away from here where Nelly said there was a car salesman that was well-versed in quiet, under the table transactions.
I was almost there.
As I rushed to leave, my footsteps faltered outside the office where my mate still lay sleeping.
I couldn’t resist taking one last look at him.
I stood over his body, just staring at him. My brain raged for me to kill him, to take the sword and hack off his head. I knew Alistair kept silver bullets in the safe, just in case a rogue pack of shifters ever attacked. It was all right there, the keys to end it all.
But I couldn’t do it.
Alistair was beautiful, even now dressed in blood and the last few years of pain, agony, and disappointment. His hair was matted with blood and puke currently, but it was usually a perfect shade of sable brown flecked with streaks of gold. He had a gaping hole where his eye had been, but the grisly sight couldn’t make me forget how brilliant of a green they normally were. I’d been enamored with them…with him from the start.
I’d loved him. I’d thought he was my hero.
And even though the truth of him was forever etched in my soul, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill him.
I may have been a coward for walking away and leaving him there.
But it would be like killing myself to take his life right now.
And I was already dead enough inside.
I tore myself away from the memory and sat up in bed, my whole body trembling. Pain ripped through me as I tried to push the image of Alistair away. It wasn’t getting easier. Did he feel this too? Like he was a half a person? Or was his heart already so destroyed that the agony was nothing to him?
I put my face in my hands and tried not to weep with frustration.
After Alistair had revealed himself, I’d spent a lot of time raging at the universe for how unfair it was that this was my fate. But eventually, I’d come to accept I wasn’t the master of my universe. The moon goddess was in charge, and for some reason, she had decided this path for me.
It helped, telling myself that I wasn’t in control.
So I was a little out of sorts sitting here in my bed, realizing that for the first time in a very long time…I did have some control of my destiny.
I didn’t know what I thought about that.
Determined to get as much done as possible today since I would be starting work later on, I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed in a pair of cut-off shorts and an artfully ripped T-shirt I’d found in the bargain bin at Target before my money had been stolen. It read ‘Savage’…which had seemed funny to me at the time, considering I’d just cut a man’s eyeball out, but I wasn’t sure how appropriate it was for a place like this.
It was all I had though until I found a laundromat and a second-hand store…and got some money. So it would have to do.
Carrie was working the front desk when I walked into the lobby. She waved me over before I could slip out. Reaching under the counter, she pulled out a selection of pastries and donuts and a paper cup filled with coffee. “You need to eat something, young lady. I noticed you eyeing the chocolate donuts yesterday, so I hid some away for you today.”
My heart did that thing again…where it felt. Chocolate donuts on lazy Sunday mornings had been my mom’s and my thing. Although I’d tried to get rid of anything that reminded me of her, my love for chocolate donuts hadn’t been easily eradicated.
“Thank you,” I said, doing that awkward throat clearing thing which was fast becoming a necessity in this place.