“Yep. The only thing I can’t hide is the sound, but the mountains will cloak it for me. No one will know where I am unless they are right next to me, and even then, they won’t live long enough to do anything about it,” he murmurs as he adjusts the elevation dial again.
“Good. I’ll handle the shitheads on the cliff. You handle any that get too close to the family,” I order, and I want to kick myself.
Again.
I don’t lead him anymore. I’m not in charge of anyone’s security, let alone Evangeline’s, and my chest aches from her loss. Well, and the fact that my skin is still growing back from her blistering shove. I rub my hand over my sternum, only hurting myself more when I hit body armor.
Fuck.
Pissing her off wasn’t part of the plan. Hurting her is the absolute last thing I ever wanted to do.
Guess I should have told her why. Why I was waiting. Not because of her – never because of her.
But who really accepts the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ shit? That’s right. No one.
I should have told her all of it. I should have made her understand. I hope I’ll live long enough to do just that.
“Will do,” he says as he pulls his eye from the scope and grins at my gaff. Ian has hope. Hope I’ll come back and everything will be as it was.
I guess I still have hope, too.
“You think they’ll actually do it? Start this war?” he asks, showing his youth. He has been on the right side for so long, he has forgotten how the other side thinks.
I give him a long look telling him everything he needs to know. Yes. They will start this war, maybe not today or tomorrow, but…
War is coming.
I don’t want this for her. I don’t want this darkness in her light.
I feel it clawing at my back, and the worry chokes my throat. The worry for Evangeline. The worry for all we have built and the peace we have so tentatively held onto. It is coming to an end, and I can kill and slash and fight, but I can’t protect her like I used to. I can’t be there every second.
And it’s my own fault.
I try and fail to swallow against the lump of bitter guilt. Escaping the roof, I travel back to a hidden crevasse, waiting for the beginning of this little war.
It was almost unbearable to watch Evangeline tear up as she sent her parents on, and even worse, I couldn’t hear her voice from up here. More so, I wasn’t there with them to send my friends – my family – to their peace. My chest burns again, but I refuse to rub away the ache. Instead, I ball my fists, cracking my knuckles in the process, and get ready for the shit to hit the fan.
I’ve tested my weapons more than once, making sure the blades are sharp, my armor is secure. I don’t need to go through it all again, but my hands ache to do something. I can’t stand another moment of inaction. I adjust my favorite ivory-hilted Kukris, the blades secured in an inverted holster crisscrossed behind my back.
I have never been one to lie in wait. Usually, when people are sent to me, it is because they needed killing. More often than not, the people who needed killing, needed it done to send a message.
Delicacy is not my forte, but I understand why I need to wait for them to make the first move – sniper rifles and all. If this group of stupid soon-to-be-dead fucks decides the fight’s not worth it, I can’t just rip into them – no matter how much I want to. I have to have a reason… even if that reason might blow my whole plan to hell and back.
It isn’t long before they give me one.
Three men ruin their fancy tuxes as they lie in the dirt to line up their shots. Time to move. I use the skills I honed early in my childhood and make my way slowly but surely through the throng, picking off the outliers like a big cat stalking prey.
To call my past dysfunctional is like slapping a coat of paint on a condemned house, using a pretty word won’t make it any better.
Fuck.
Dysfunctional would be a step up.
Then again, anything would be a step up from where I came from.
The first ones give me no trouble, quickly snuffing out their flames with my knife. I suppose it's hard to hear me over the sound of the rifle or, perhaps, no one expected there to be a real fight at a funeral.
Go figure.
No one notices when the early ones go, poor bastards, and I move on to the shitheads that are doing the actual harm. Popping in and out like a ghost, I steal them away before their buddies even know what hit them. I don’t bother to consume them now; I’ll wait until I’m done for that.
The next round is slightly more tiresome than the first. I guess when most of your friends are missing, you start to notice, but really, how effective can you be in a tuxedo?
My cockiness bites me in the ass, then, when a little weasel in an expensive suit stabs me in the back. He misjudges my armor and hits Kevlar instead of the lung he was aiming for, the bastard. He slashes again, hitting my forearm as I go to block him, but he doesn’t get to keep his weapon. I snatch it from him as easily as if I was taking it from a child. He appears apologetic, and he’s so young, I’d probably let him live if it weren’t for the blood running down my back.
The dark side starts their recruiting early, I see.
I kill him quickly, painlessly, and it hurts me to do so. I hate killing young ones – the ones just barely past maturity. While not the worst soul I’ve ever seen, he still had time to turn it around. Well, if he weren’t on the wrong side of a war, he would have.
This will just have to be another score on my soul added to the mountain of scars from a past I can’t change. Really, what’s one more?
In that second of self-pity, I lose my grip on the upper hand when three men attack me at once, stabbing and slicing with their talons like a pack of raptors. Fear trickles into my brain, and I try to beat it back, but…
It’s funny, but I’m not afraid of death. Not for death or hell. In this life, I did what I did, and I can’t change it. I always did what I thought was right, and if it makes me evil, then so be it. No, the fear I feel is for her, my Angel. Because she deserves so much better in this life than this. Than me.
It is not to say I don’t fight back. I do.
With every breath in me, I fight.
For her. For her smile and laugh and light. I fight. To my very last breath, I will, and even when I die, I’ll fight some more.
For her. For that smile, that laugh, that light.
As I dirty my soul, taking more and more life, killing the men who try to snuff out my flame, the thunder of the fifty-cal makes its presence known, earning me precious seconds that will save my fucking hide.
I stab. I slash. I kill, and as I rip my blade against the last throat of the last of what is left of the Wraiths on top of the cliff, I feel a warring sense of disgust for myself and a little satisfaction at a job well done.
No one saw me. I was sure of it. Well, no one who could live to tell the tale, anyway. It is the satisfaction that kills me a little more each day. I shouldn’t be proud of this. I shouldn’t feel a sense of accomplishment at stomping out life.
Even if the souls I took were on the expressway straight to hell. And they were, believe me. I don’t kill innocents.
Never again, you mean, my mind snidely whispers, reminding me of mistakes from a previous life.
I look to the gritty, rocky shore of the river, and feel the cold slap of regret.
I’m an asshole. A lousy good-for-nothing steaming pile of shit. I know this. But I didn’t think she did until I see her face scanning the blackness for me in the dark of the gorge.
I should have shown my face. I should have fought beside her instead of taking out these motherfuckers from the shadows up here.
But it would blow my cover, and before I can fix the shit I started – eliminate the threat to her life – I have to walk right into the snake pit. And those slimy bastards don’t need to know my only weakness.
Her.
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About the Author
Annie Anderson is a military wife and United States Air Force veteran. Originally from Dallas, Texas, she is a southern girl at heart, but has lived all over the US and abroad. As soon as the military stops moving her family around, she’ll settle on a state, but for now she enjoys being a nomad with her husband, two daughters, and old man of a dog.
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In her past lives, Annie has been a lifeguard, retail manager, dental lab technician, accountant, and now she writes fast-paced paranormal thrillers with some serious heat.
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Also by Annie Anderson
ASHES TO ASHES SERIES
SCATTERED ASHES
FALLING ASHES
RISING ASHES
ASHES TO ASHES VOLUME ONE
SMOLDERING ASHES
ASHES TO MEMORIES
Falling Ashes Page 17