Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 33166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
I push the blade further into his flesh. “I asked you if she was beautiful, Seamus.”
Seamus screams before panting illegible words. “I. Said. She’s. Hot.”
“I don’t like you calling her that.”
“Fine, ugly!” he bellows.
“Stick out your tongue,” I demand.
“What? No.”
Frustration takes over. I place the blade of the chef’s knife between my teeth, plug his nose with one hand, and grip the tip of his tongue with the other, yanking it out of his mouth. I release his nostrils, allowing him to breathe. “When I was younger, I spoke back to someone out of turn and had an entire bar of Ivory soap shoved into my mouth. They forced me to let the soap disintegrate completely before I could spit it out. It was an atrocious incident. I was nine, but I’ll tell you, I never dared to talk back again. If you’d had the same experience, would you have learned some manners?”
Seamus thrashes his head as he squirms in a futile effort to get away from me. A strangled gasp escapes his throat as he utters unintelligible words. “I dot now hat you re alking out?”
“Earlier today, you ran into a young woman, and instead of saying sorry, you berated her by demanding she watch where she was going. That wouldn’t have been so offensive to me, but then you added one tiny word, and that insult forced me to do this.” I slam the blade down on Seamus’s tongue and slice it off, allowing it to fall into the palm of my hand. “Who’s the bitch now, Seamus?”
Seamus’s screams resemble those of a wild animal rather than a human male.
“You behaved like an animal, and I’ve now ensured that you sound like one.”
Seamus’s body goes limp, tumbling onto the cold cement.
“Oh, Seamus, dear boy. It looks like your body is desperately trying to compensate for the blood loss.” I glance down at him, flapping like a fish about to vacate this mortal coil. “I fear you might be going into shock very soon.” Bending, I smile as I meet his terrified eyes. “I’m torn here. “Should I let nature take its course, or should I put you out of your misery?”
A painful whimper pours from Seamus.
“I don’t understand. Guess I’ll decide for you.” I press the blade of the knife into his throat and slice through his jugular, watching with fascination until the light abandons Seamus’s eyes.
10
ATLAS
Sex after violence, or violence after sex. That seems to be the motivation for Callum for the last two years. His personal therapy to rid himself of the pain.
I stand in the shadows while he performs the ritual to banish his demons. A ritual that doesn’t cleanse but increases his terror. A ritual that I never muster the desire to end. It unleashes desires that frighten and excite me. I both loath and admire this side of myself. The knowledge that I’m a monster, my father’s son, disgusts me. Yet the power I feel from knowing I am capable of loving even in the darkest of spaces allows me to have some sort of notion that I’m capable of empathy.
Callum laughs as he stabs the dead man’s body. A sick joy fills his expression as blood splatters his face. He looks like a madman—possessed, tormented, and deranged. Wild gray eyes burn bright behind the mask of blood, now dried to rust with streaks of crimson.
“We’re going to leave her alone, Callum. That’s what you said, wasn’t it? Leave her alone so she can live her life, and we can finally be free.”
Callum’s lips curl up, his predatory teeth glimmering in the moonlight cast through the small window. “He deserved it.”
“Did he?” I step toward him. “He was an asshole without manners.” I glance at the pool of blood, the severed tongue, and the brutally maimed body.
Callum ignores my question as he stabs into the deceased man’s body, expanding his wounds to a gaping hole. “No one is rude to her and gets to live.”
I watch in fascination as Callum unzips his pants and unleashes his hard cock. He’s always aroused from violence. Sex is rarely tender anymore. It’s a destructive force that navigates how we physically love.
Callum shoves his cock into the stab wound.
“Oh, fuck,” he moans. “That’s so fuckin’ wet.”
I wish I could say his actions disgust me, but they don’t. I am my father’s son, after all. That sick, twisted DNA runs through my veins. Instead of stopping the depravity and helping Callum cure the disease that’s infested his being, I fuel the illness. Standing before him, I watch with disgusting lust, taking in his thick cock penetrating the dead man’s flesh, lubricating himself with blood.
Callum’s head snaps back from the slap inflicted by my palm. “Open up.”
“I love how you try to be the sane one. The good one. But you’re a little freak just like me, Atlas.”