Ruined (The Eternal Balance #1)(43)

I was out of the car and around the front before Sam even opened the door. “Jax?” she called. I ignored her. The best thing I could do right now was tune her out. Even if I was having second thoughts about showing her this side of my life, the demon was too far gone to care. It needed to feed. Really feed.

Now.

Sam called to me again, but her voice was far away and tinny. Ahead, Gutierrez leaned casually against the corner of the liquor store talking to a heavyset man. There was a quick exchange—a wad of bills passed off in return for a small white bag—and the other man was gone. I quickly took his place.

“Hey man,” Gutierrez said with a nod. “You wanna—”

I grabbed the corners of the bastard’s hoodie and hauled him into the shadows of the alley. Azirak roared with excitement, soaking in the man’s surprise and fear. The emotion seeped into the air around us, sinking into my skin and slipping down my throat as I breathed.

I pushed him up against the wall, pinning him there by jamming an elbow up against his throat. The first blow was about to hit when footsteps pounded the pavement at the mouth of the alley.

“Jax! What the hell are you doing?”

I inhaled again, savoring the sweet scent of the man’s fear, and without looking at Sam, said, “This is what I am.” I brought my head forward, bashing it hard against Gutierrez’s. I felt the vibration, and heard the mingled screams of both Calvin and Sam as they begged me to stop.

But it was too late. The demon had gotten a taste, and it wouldn’t let go now. Not until sated. This is what it craved. The little portions I took from random people here and there allowed me to function, but this was what the demon thrived on. True violence.

“You think that I’m worth saving?” I yanked my prey away from the wall, spinning hard and letting go. Gutierrez stumbled back, landing between two garbage pails. They clattered and fell to the ground, spilling trash all around. “You think I’m a good man?”

I hauled Gutierrez off the ground and shook him hard. “What—” the man mumbled. “What did I do to you?”

“This isn’t who you are,” Sam insisted. She inched closer, standing at the mouth of the alley. Even with the sick, delectable smell wafting all around, I still sensed her there. But it didn’t matter. There was no turning back.

As the demon fed, the poisonous emotion seeping in, a twisted feeling of euphoria filled me. A detached, weightless sensation that made me feel like I was bulletproof. I pushed Gutierrez back against the wall again, grabbing hold of a fistful of his hair. Once. Twice. Three times. I slammed his head into the brick. “Does this feel familiar?” I whispered in the man’s ear. He was barely conscious. “Do you remember doing this to that girl a few days ago?”

“Stop!” Sam screamed. A second later, she was dragging me away. Gutierrez slid down the wall and crumbled into a heap. I resisted the urge to spit on him. People like him were garbage. Gutierrez was just like me. He fed on the misery of others. His nose was bleeding. So was his head, and both his top and bottom lip were split with a nasty-looking gash, but he was still alive. Still breathing. But I’d taken what I needed. For now.

Reality would set in soon. It always did. The amped, contented feeling never lasted long. But at that moment, I reveled in the mist of my prey’s emotions. Pain. Suffering. Fear. They fed the demon and eased my pain and that was all that mattered. Those first few moments after a feed were blissful. They were the only ones that brought any semblance of peace. There was no pain and no itching hunger creeping out from the darkest corners of my subconscious. There was only satisfaction.

“The corner of Eighth and Broadway,” I heard Sam say. When I turned, she was on my cell phone. It brought the world crashing back down, and with it, the demon’s rage.

Before I could stop myself, I ripped the phone from her hands. She gasped. “What the hell—”

“What the f*ck do you think you’re doing?” I advanced, and for the first time, Sam actually looked scared. Tufts of gray rose around her shoulders and swirled above her head.

“I didn’t give my name. I had to call an ambulance. That poor guy is—”

“Is still alive,” I snapped. “And unfortunately he’ll continue to live, which is more than he deserves. And that poor guy beat some girl the other day. I’m sure he’s beaten others, too.”

“It doesn’t matter what he did, Jax. You’re not God. You’re not judge and jury. You don’t get to decide what he deserves.”

Azirak was amused by Sam’s words, and I, still feeding off the demon’s high, couldn’t help smiling. I didn’t know where the words came from, but somehow I knew they were true. “But I am. I’m this world’s judge, jury, and executioner.”

In the distance, sirens wailed, and Sam paled. She grabbed my hand, flinching for just a second. “We need to go.”

I looked down. The front of my shirt was splattered with red. Same with my forearms and hands. “I’m—” That tiny switch inside, the one that shut down my humanity and set the demon free, flipped back. Guilt flooded in and a rush of cold came over me. The broken bones, the echo of screams inside my head, the blood… This part I hated. The guilt. Not because of what I’d done—but because of how I’d felt while doing it. Invigorated and enthusiastic. I didn’t like feeding the demon. I loved it. And Sam had seen the whole thing.