Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(74)

“Kill him,” Cruz shouts.

The governor shields his face, but my fist is as unstoppable as a f*cking freight train. I haul him off the bed and hold him against the wall with one hand and punch the f*ck out of his face with the other. Over and over, my fist connects with his bloody jaw, his bloody lip. His head jerks.

I feel my stitches ripping open, wound on fire. I don’t care.

I can hear my guys, encouraging me to kill him, and I hear the love in their voices as I hit him, fist on fire, knuckles slick and hungry.

But then I remember Abby, and my arm slows. What the f*ck? I should’ve never brought her. She thinks I’m a caveman, less than human.

She’s right.

I pause. Shaking.

The governor looks at me with those blue eyes, the bright squinch he used to get when his emotions were supposedly hurt, like when you didn’t act right or seemed to be rejecting him.

The look is like a f*cking bolt of chaos in me, and suddenly I’m back at it, hitting him, smashing out his teeth. I can never get enough of hurting him. He took everything good from us. Everything that could make us good men. Everything that could make me worthy of a girl like Abby.

The sounds change and evolve. I need to crush every bit of him with my fist. He took everything.

“Grayson!” Abby.

“Get her out of here!” I hit him again.

“No!” She grabs the back of my shirt. “Stop it. Don’t let him win like this.”

I stop moving. It’s a f*cking miracle that I can, but I’m a rabid animal, and I don’t want her to get bit. “Go,” I pant. “You can’t be here.”

“Grayson,” she says. I can feel the guys waiting for my cue, waiting to see if I really want her gone after dragging her here. It feels like a test. Revenge or failure. Them or her.

I’m shaking, holding Dorman to the wall while he stares at me with those bright, hurt eyes, blood pouring from every hole in his face, including a few that I made.

“You’re better than this,” she says from behind me. “You’re a good man, Grayson.”

I turn toward her, hauling him around with me to face her, holding half-conscious Dorman up by his shirt between us. His head bobs forward, chin to his chest.

I let her look at me, knowing I’m covered with his blood. It won’t be the first time I’m coated with his fluids, and it feels like a dark, desperate glory, like hate, like war paint. Like oblivion.

I don’t know what anything is anymore, but I can tell from her eyes that she’s frightened as f*ck, and she should be.

“I’m not better than this,” I growl. I drive my knee right up into his face. It’s a f*cking piston and there’s a sickening crack. He lets out a guttural cry. That would be his nose.

“No!” Abby’s sobbing.

“I’m not a good man. I’m not even human.”

“You’re wrong, Grayson. You can’t kill him.”

“You can’t change your mind!” I say. “You said you were with me. You said you were strong enough.”

“I am strong enough,” she says. “Strong enough to tell you no. Strong enough to know you’re better than this. Strong enough to motherf*cking love you.”

It’s too much, that last, and too much that I can never have. I knee him in the chest and feel the crack of a rib. He coughs, and it doesn’t sound normal. He’s broken. Because I’m f*cking breaking him. I’m tearing him apart with my bare hands. “Get her the hell out.”

The guys spring into action as I fling him onto the bed and pound him some more. They’re taking her out—I can hear her fight them. I used to love how strong she was, how much of a fighter she was, but she can’t fight me. Can’t fight me and win, anyway.

I can hear her voice down the hall. I hit him again, even more pissed now. He’s moaning. He’s really hurt, but I can’t stop myself.

I don’t know how many more times I hit him, but there’s this one point where I’m changing angles and I catch him looking up at me with those f*cking eyes, but they’re different now.

I pause, fist cocked, with this weird feeling in my gut. They’re not those fakey hurt-feelings eyes. They’re not those what are we in the mood for? eyes.

They’re human eyes. Half-dead, yeah, but human. Suffering.

And I’m f*cking shaking.

Because for a wild second, I see through his eyes to a hurt little boy, and I don’t know if the hurt little boy is me or if it’s him.

I’m shaking. I might throw up. And just like that all the killing energy drains out of me.

I roll off him and lie on the bed, panting, listening to Dorman’s uneasy breath. Broken-nose breath. Maybe punctured-lung breath. Probably both.

Stone flops down on the other side of me and puts his hand on my heart like he always did.

Calder comes up, looming over me and the governor. “Want me to finish him?”

“We have an hour left at least.” Stone says. “He’s not going anywhere. It’s Grayson’s call. Whatever you say.”

Meaning who kills him. It goes without saying he needs to die. The dragon needs to be slain.

But I’m not so sure now. I can’t shake that look in his eyes. He’d never seen us as human; that was his crime. But I’d never seen him as human either. I’d never seen a lot of people as human. “Is Nate with her?” I ask.