Page 161 of Sinister Legacy

I pause, my fingers curling in toward my palm. Something stops me from removing the sack.

“I know you’re scared,” King says behind me. He’s closer now, his presence heating my back. “I won’t let you fall to the darkness. I’ll never let you get lost.”

“Do you promise?”

His soft lips brush up against my ear as he reaches around me and grips the brown fabric. “Have I ever lied to you?”

“No,” I admit, placing my hand over his big one. “Never.”

We lift the burlap sack together, and King discards it on the floor. I inhale a sharp breath, staring into the eyes of the gagged man in front of me.

The same man who asked in an emotionless tone if my father had any last words, while my world crumbled around me for the second time.

Recognition instantly flickers in his gray, round eyes that are too big for his perspiring face.

King’s steady presence behind me prevents my knees from quaking as I stare my own nightmare in the eye. He places the cold metal in my palm, and I cut myself on the blade when I close my hand around the knife. His lips return to my ear, his tongue darting out to taste my earlobe. He sucks it between his teeth before whispering, “After you have slayed your final demon, I’m gonna go down on my knees, while you’re covered head-to-toe in blood, and propose. And you’re going to say yes. You’re going to make me the happiest fucking man on earth. And no one,absolutely no one,will ever hurt you again. Not in the past. And certainly not in the future. Do you hear me, baby?”

“Yes,” I whisper, feeling the stirrings of evil inside me as a smile slowly lifts the left side of my lips. “I hear you.”

To the man in front of me, he echoes the words that tore my heart to shreds ten years ago. “Any last words you would like to say?” He shifts behind me, and then I hear the click and whir of his Polaroid camera. Removing the picture, he waves it in the air before reaching out to remove the gag.

The man in front of me splutters and coughs. Fiery, fearful, and defiant eyes glare up at me. “You’re nothing but a disgusting fucking monster, just like your father! You won’t get away with this. You’ll get the needle just like he—”

“That’s enough of that bullshit,” King says, sounding bored as he forces the gag back inside the ex-warden’s mouth. “Mr. Righteous. How many killings have you overseen as part of your job throughout your career? I think it’s safe to say you have overseen more killings than my girl here has carried out in her entire life. Unlike you, she represses her killing urges. So who is the biggest monster?” His voice rises until he screams, “So who deserves the fucking needle, huh?! You! You fucking twisted dick!” Snatching the knife from me, he rams the blade into the warden’s thigh, inches away from his femoral artery. Blood rushes to the surface, pooling around the protruding black handle. “I don’t give a shit what you do. Right or wrong. But you don’t fuck with my girl and steal her fucking father away from her—monster or no monster—and live to become an old man. The day you forced me to hold my future wife while she cried herself to sleep for weeks was the day you signed your own fucking death warrant, so stop crying like a fucking baby.”

Pressing my lips together to stop myself from laughing, I place my palm over his racing heart. “Babe, calm down. I’ll take it from here. Just… I don’t know… Do what you do best.” I gesture to the camera in his hand while his eyes spit fire at the wailing man in front of us. “Take some pictures or something.”

King finally tears his stormy eyes away from the warden and pins me to the spot with his dark, intense gaze.

“I’ll be fine,” I reassure him, stroking his stubbly cheek as he breathes like a provoked bull. “He can’t hurt me anymore.”

With a snort, he walks toward a nearby couch, pointing an accusing finger at the warden. “Spit the gag out and shout bullshit at my woman one more time, and I’ll cut out your tongue and shove it up your ass.”

This time I do laugh, clamping my hand over my mouth.

“What?” he barks, flopping down onto the moth-eaten couch, his booted foot resting on the edge of the dusty coffee table.

I lower my hand, clearing my throat. “You’re just kind of cute when you get worked up, is all.”

He levels me with a glare and sweeps his arm over to the screaming warden, who’s about to make his chair tumble over with all of his squirming. “He insulted you! I’m not gonna let that shit fly.”

“Do you want to kill him instead of me? Purge some of that anger?”

“If this is where you start discussing the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath, I swear I will throw shit.” He looks around the barren room as if he’ll find something except for the coffee table to toss.

“Well, sociopaths struggle to control their impulses.”

He levels his glare at me again, and I have to admit that it arouses me when he gets hot-headed.

“Do you want to kill him?” I offer again, my tone laced with sugar and all things sweet.

Kicking up his other foot on the table and crossing them at the ankles, he spreads his arms out over the back of the couch. “This is your show, baby. I’ll just watch.”

“Feeling calmer?” I tease, bending forward and curling my fingers around the handle embedded in the warden’s thigh.

“Not in a million fucking years. Not until he’s in pieces and you’re over here, covered in blood and riding my dick. Or better yet, I’ll fuck you face down in it over there.” Lifting his chin, he indicates the sheet-covered floor by my feet, which will soon be swimming with blood.

“I love your filthy mouth. Now be a good boy and shut it while I play.” I look the man in front of me in the eye and let my smile unfurl. “It’s nice to meet you again under such interesting circumstances. If you didn’t know, I’m Jimmy Hill’s daughter. Tonight, I’m your prison’s warden, and I’ll be overseeing your execution.” Walking my fingers up the blade of the knife, I let the darkness inside me seep through my pores and shadow my soul. The angel on my shoulder is nowhere to be seen now. Not when the devil is coming out to play.

“I want to play a little game that I like to call….” In a swift move, I pull the knife out and stab him in the arm, relishing in his bulging eyes and the sweat that breaks out across his forehead. “…scream for me.”

The End