“Call her a freak again,” Jaxon says, all too calmly.
I turn back to my brother and fall to my ass in shock.
Jaxon straddles Mickey’s stomach and slashes the sourdough across his neck. I didn’t realize how sharp the crust was until now.
Mickey screams and grapples at his throat. Jaxonbludgeons Mickey’s face with the bread and tosses it aside to punch him repeatedly. My stomach churns at the meaty sounds of muscles and tissue being ripped apart amid Mickey’s guttural and wet noises.
“Jaxon,” I whisper.
Shadows hang over my brother’s vacant eyes as he bashes Mickey’s face in until blood pools beneath his head.
I crawl to him and wrap my arms around his shoulders and bury my face in his arm. “Big brother,” I whisper.
Jaxon freezes. I don’t let go of him, too afraid that if I do, he’ll black out again and keep hitting a dead body. He turns and draws me into his chest. Relief fills not only him, but me as well. I’m always afraid he’ll get lost in his mind and won’t ever come back to me. His fingers burrow in my hair as he cradles the nape of my neck.
“Are you with me?” I mumble.
“Yes.” His chest vibrates with the growled word.
“What have you done?”
He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “The Reckoning is until eight.”
Meaning the laws don’t touch him . . . touch us.
Jaxon shifts, and I lean away from him. He helps me stand, tucks his soft cock back into his sweats, then brings the blood-splattered sourdough to the counter.
My eyebrows furrow as he grabs a bread knife. “What are you doing? You’re not eating that, are you?”
He slices off a barely bloody piece on the end and takes a huge bite out of it. His eyes slide closed as he savors the taste, like he’s eating an aphrodisiac and not just bread. I cringe as he slowly chews, then swallows.
“I got you earlier,” he says, his voice huskier.
“What?”
He opens his eyes and nods toward my arm. “I cut you with the sourdough.”
I glance down and notice the cut along my bicep. Slowly, I look at him, just as he bites into the bloody slice, his eyes dark and full of a hunger that no food can sate as he stares at me.
“Are you... ?” I grab my stomach as nausea hits me hard. “Are you eating the sourdough with my blood on it?”
Jaxon blinks, then smirks as he takes another bite. “You’ve always tasted amazing, sis.”
I stumble against the counter and lean on it to keep myself standing. Jaxon pops the rest of the slice into his mouth and dusts off his hands. He checks Mickey’s dead body, then the time, and grabs the gun that’s several feet away from the corpse. He squeezes the trigger and unloads the rest of the clip into Mickey.
I yell and cover my ears as the noise rings in my eardrums until they threaten to burst.
“What the hell?” I shriek.
“Making sure he’s dead.”
“Well, is he?”
Jaxon looks at me with a deadpan stare. “He is now.”
ONE YEAR LATER
Istand a foot away from Mom and Dad’s headstone. Jaxon lingers behind me, not interested in saying goodbye to them. If I don’t give my farewells, I’ll feel awful for the rest of my life.
