Prisoner of Night (The Black Dagger Brotherhood #16.5)(16)

“You’re wrong,” Ahmare blurted.

“About what?” The Shadow started flipping the gun again, like she had to do something to stave off boredom. “Do tell, on the outside chance I can learn something new about you. But you should know that I catch liars like fish in a stocked pond. And I like to eat them.”

“It wasn’t a gun. There was no gunpowder.”

Those eyes flicked over. Before the Shadow could interrupt, Ahmare found herself speaking in a direct voice.

“And I don’t know what I’ll see or smell when I close my eyes because I killed him just after nightfall tonight.”

She thought of Chalen wanting to know what it had felt like. When she had denied him the story, failed to fulfill his greed, it had been an act of defiance in a situation she had no leverage over.

Now, she spoke through a tight throat to prove herself.

And not to the Shadow.

“I spent the night before watching the human,” she said. “He lived with two other males, but he worked alone, outside of town in a trailer in the woods. I tracked him to his lab. He made meth, I guess. What else could he be doing with all those filthy tubs and chemicals?”

“What did you use,” the Shadow said. “If not a gun, then what.”

Ahmare reached to her hip. “This knife. Chalen wanted proof he was dead.”

“What did you cut off?”

“His head.” Ahmare licked her lips with a dry tongue in hopes of getting the syllables unstuck from the sides and roof of her mouth. “I was waiting for him out at the trailer. I spent most of the day practicing in my mind how it would all happen, but nothing went like I thought it would. He had cleared the field around the trailer to get a clean shot at anyone who came on the property—so I had to lay flat on top of the roof, on the far side of the slight tilt. It was hot. The asphalt shingles were like a griddle from being in the sun all day and my palms were sweaty. Maybe that was the fear, too, although I’m not sure what I was more worried about. That he would show up or that he wouldn’t.”

Everything was so crystal clear, the memories like the glare of chrome, making her eyes and her head hurt even though this was all just a tape played backward, a book’s passage being read instead of written.

“I dematerialized behind him after he got out of his car. I don’t know how I did it. My plan had been to slit his throat before he knew I was there, but he sensed me immediately and wheeled around. His eyes were wide and glassy—he was clearly high and that’s the only reason I got the job done. He was sloppy with his defenses. I was sloppy with the attack. I stabbed at air instead of his chest because he jerked to the left, and then I sliced his shoulder. He went for his gun. I caught him in the forearm . . .”

She closed her eyes. Reopened them immediately. “I dropped the knife. It just popped out of my hand because of the sweat. As it turned out, that was how I took him down. My hands functioned better when there was nothing in them. I punched him in the side of the head. Then I broke his nose. There was blood everywhere. I kicked him in the groin. As soon as he fell facedown on the ground, I got on his back and I didn’t let him up. My body . . . it knew what to do.”

Ahmare looked at the Shadow. “I watched me submit him. I know that sounds weird, but I swear, I was standing five feet away from myself when I got his throat in the crook of my elbow and started strangling him.” She moved her arm into that position, pulling up her sleeve, clasping her wrist, and making like she was pulling back. Then she released the hold on herself and looked at where she had just gripped. “I have bruises right here.”

She turned her arm around so the Shadow could see the purple and blue marks. “When I was driving down here, my wrist ached and I couldn’t figure out why. But I have my own handprint in my flesh.”

Dimly, she was aware that the Shadow wasn’t tossing the gun anymore.

“I think he was still alive when I rolled off of him.” Ahmare put her arm behind her back, hiding her wrist like that could erase what she’d done. “I mean, he was breathing or at least seemed to be, but he was limp and both of his pupils were fixed and dilated when I turned him over. I sat back in the dusty dirt and caught my breath. Something told me I had to decide what I was going to do then, which was nuts. I had already decided what I had to do. I had spent all day thinking about the steps I needed to take. Yet I hesitated.”

She curled her nose. “He smelled bad. His blood was flowing down the lower part of his face and all over his T-shirt, and it was like rotten eggs, all sulfur and rot from the drugs. I told myself he wasn’t going to survive long anyway. I told myself that he sold shit to kids that, even though they were only humans, didn’t need that kind of thing anywhere near them. I told myself . . . that he was the reason my brother was in Chalen’s custody. That what the two of them stole from the conqueror was this male’s fault, not Ahlan’s.

“None of that seemed to matter when it came down to it. I still don’t think I had a right to take his life. A person’s heartbeat is their own property. Even thieves and murderers get that gift from the Creator. And I knew . . .” She touched her sternum. “I knew, deep in here, that if I killed him, I was no better than he was. I was the drug dealer to children. I was a corrupter, too.”

“So what made you follow through on it?” the Shadow prompted.