It felt as if all air left my body. I couldn't breathe.
My own sweet wife, Katherine. But why? How could she allow herself to become this? How long had she been this way? I buried her…
I roared and screamed, my mind fragmenting beyond my control. Inés cried out and called to me but I couldn’t answer. I was lost in the torment of my mind. Strong arms wrapped around me and I struggled to be released but she refused to let me go. Instead, she held onto me tighter, sobbing into my chest, calling my name again and again.
“Vik, come back to me. Please, come back,”Inés sobbed and I slammed my head against the wall behind me, trying to knock sense back.
She wasn’t Katherine anymore. She was a monster. One that created the monster that was growing within me.
She made me into this.
I reminded myself of the hate that grew within since the beginning of our torture. After everything she put me through, after everything she dared to put Inés through.I gritted my teeth and used my hate as a lifeline to ground myself.
I wrapped my arms around Inés, breathing her in, telling myself that she was the only one that mattered now. She was the only one who held onto me just as tightly to survive this hell.
I took a deep breath in and out, rubbing Inés’ back, letting her know I was still here with her.
So I hadn't stopped the change. After a bar through the chest and burying her, she was still reborn into this wretched animal.I let out a maniacal laugh and Inés tensed in my arms.
Not only was I not good at keeping people alive, I sucked at keeping people dead.
“Fuck this,” I whispered. “Fuck this!” I roared.
Inés jerked her head back and looked at me curiously with apprehension.
Humanity was thrown out the window somewhere during my torture. It felt good to take her life, to take the lives of these bloodsucking scum.
Katherine was reborn but so was I. She turned me into a reaper and it was time to collect for all the wrong they had done to me—to Inés. To Angel.
I tapped Inés and she moved out of my way. Slowly I made my way to where my former life lay on the ground, with lifeless eyes. I kicked her with my boot and she didn’t move. Dejavu set in and madness flirted around the edges of my mind once again.
Looking around quietly, I made my way to her mask and goggles, crouching down to pick them both up. Turning them in my hands, I chuckled under my breath.
How simple was it to separate oneself from reality behind a curtain?
The world was going to know exactly what was bred here.
“Inés,” I called out as I straightened back up.
“Yes?” she answered hesitantly.
“It’s time for the Reaper to go home.”
ChapterFifteen
Ines
Reaper?
What the hell was going on with Vik? He kept looking around and mumbling to himself, laughing out of place. It was probably from lack of food. I was going crazy too, from hunger.
Pero, this isn’t the same and you know it Inés.
I shook the doubt in my mind as we patted down the woman’s body for extra weapons.
Vik stood up with a wide grin and machete in his hand. “Inés, take her clothes off and put them on. Especially her shoes.”
I nodded and did as he commanded, quickly divesting the dead vampire of her clothes. She was a bit taller than me but I would make it work. Once I finished lacing my boots, I ran to the corner and grabbed the jug of water, sloshing the contents as I made it back to him.
