Ruined

Chapter Nineteen

Jax

The demon raged inside. When I saw the target pass by, a man in his late thirties sporting dark sweatpants and a bright-blue hoodie, I was tempted to ignore him. Despite the reason I’d brought Sam out here. Despite of what common sense was telling me. Despite the pain I was in…

The definition of stupid was doing something even though you knew the outcome would be unpleasant. I’d kissed Sam twice since coming back to town. Each time it happened, things got worse. The demon seemed hungrier. Angrier. The pain was sharper. Still, I was almost willing to ignore it all and continue kissing her—even though Calvin Gutierrez had just walked by.

In the dark hours of the early morning, I’d stopped here to feed the demon, sure I could find some poor bastard deserving a good ass-kicking. What I found was Calvin Gutierrez beating the shit out of some girl in the alley behind the liquor store on Eighth. I would have gone for him then, but I’d hesitated and the opportunity was lost. But I hadn’t forgotten about him. A little digging and some Internet research, and I had all the information needed to nail the bastard.

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 fuck 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.

She tugged on my arm and I followed, lost in a haze. The movement of my legs and the warmth of her touch barely registered, along with the feel of her hand slipping into my front pocket in search of the keys. Like a child, I allowed her to stuff me into the passenger seat, and was vaguely aware of the squealing sound the tires made against the pavement as she peeled away from the curb.

We drove for several miles. I wasn’t paying attention to the direction. North. South. It didn’t matter. I was too busy staring at my hands. Hands that were covered in blood and to blame for the pain and suffering of so many. I’d lost count. Until February in my eighteenth year, I’d kept a running total. The number of poor bastards who had been unfortunate enough to wander into my path. They were the horrible and the violent. Sick and twisted… But they were humans whom, as Sam pointed out, I had no right to judge.

“Pull over,” I said, looking up from my bloodstained hands.

“Pull over? Where?”

“Now,” I snapped. The sound rattled around in the small space, making Sam flinch. The car listed hard to the left and stopped a few seconds later. I couldn’t get out fast enough. Air. I needed air. I stumbled several feet from the door, doubling over and bracing myself against a nearby pine tree. My pulse thundered as the blood rushed through my veins.

Sam came around the front. “Jax?”

“I liked it, Sammy,” I said with as much control as I could muster. Turning to face her now wasn’t an option. “It made me happy. I took more pleasure than you can possible imagine from making him bleed.”

She didn’t answer right away, and when she did, her tone wasn’t sharp or disgusted like it should have been. It was soothing. Forgiving. “Funny. You don’t look very happy right now.”

I straightened and pushed off the tree. A single step and I sank to my knees.

The blood on my hands would wash away but I would always see it. Each time I closed my eyes, the world turned red. How many nights had I sat in roach-infested motels, staring at a blade and wishing to hell that I had the strength to end it all? Most committed suicide long before they reached their twenties. They’d done the honorable thing. Spared the world from their particular flavor of madness and horror.

I was a fucking coward.

Too afraid to leave this life behind for fear of what the next held. After everything I’d done, there was no eternal peace waiting on the other side. “When I left, I made a choice to continue living—even though I knew what that would mean for others. You were right. I’m selfish, and this is the price I have to pay. There’s no happiness out there for me, Sammy. No redemption. Only endless blood and violence.”

Sam didn’t say a word as she came around to stand in front of me. The sun was going down and the broken beam of light that shone through the trees was so bright, that it illuminated the outline of her body, making her look like angel.

An angel standing over the devil awaiting judgment.

“I don’t believe that, Jax. I don’t believe that there’s anyone who can’t be saved.” She pulled me close, cradling my head against her belly. “You can be saved. I can save you.”

“This asshole behind us is getting on my nerves,” Sam mumbled.

It was starting to get dark and we were almost back to town. She’d been complaining about the car behind us for the past ten minutes. I glanced over my shoulder. “Pull to the side and let him pass.”

“I’m going over the speed limit. There’s no reason for him to be on my ass.”

I checked the speedometer—she was going almost seventy—and peered into the passenger’s side mirror, squinting against the glare from the other car’s headlights. It was too close to see the plate number, but it looked like a New York plate. I was about to suggest turning at the intersection ahead when the car lurched forward.

“What the hell?” Sam cried. “Did he just hit us?”

This time when I glanced into the side-view mirror, I saw the car swerve around to the left. The engine revved and the car shot forward. “Shit. What the fuck is it with you and cars?” I was never getting into a vehicle with this girl again.

She never got the chance to respond. The other car hit us again, this time on the driver’s side. The car veered uncontrollably to the right. Dirt and gravel kicked up, spraying everywhere. I turned to check on her as soon as we stopped moving, but my door swung open.

“Out,” a deep voice commanded.

A demon’s voice.

My demon was surprisingly quiet. Normally when I was in danger, it grew active and unsettled, flashing its two cents in the form of gory, unwanted pictures. This time however, it had nothing to say. Typical. The fucking thing was in the way until I actually needed it. I did as instructed and Sam followed suit on the driver’s side of the car as three demons watched.

One of them stepped forward. It was one of the demons who’d been at the cliff. Not the one who’d sent her over, but the one I downed first. It ignored me and turned to Sam. “You weren’t supposed to be a problem anymore—yet, here you are.”

“Well, that’s me,” she said with an uneasy grin. “Trouble.”

Another one, shorter than the first, chuckled. It stepped forward, grabbing Sam’s chin and licking its lips. “Aren’t you delicious?”

There was no thought involved. There was Sam, and there was the bastard’s hands on her. I leaped forward with the intention of snapping every bone in the thing’s arm, but instead of the satisfying sound of crunching and an agonized howl, I got a mouthful of dirt. The demon standing to my left had swept the back of my knees. “Stay down,” it growled. “Or we’ll destroy her while you watch.”

I could take one for sure—probably two—but three? It was possible. There was too great a risk of Sam getting hurt in the cross fire. Gritting my teeth, I remained on the ground, but stayed ready to act.

The one from the cliff chuckled. It stepped around the car and came to stand in front of me. “I owe you,” it said. “You attacked me when I was weak. Before I’d fed.”

“We could feed from her,” the third said. It stepped forward, long black coat swishing as it moved, and ran a finger along Sam’s arm, from shoulder to elbow. The demon brought the finger to its nose and inhaled. “I bet she’d be mighty tasty. Smell that fear. Just a touch of resilience and a boatload of sex. That’s my kind of meal.”

The short one snorted in disgust. It wrinkled its nose and stepped away. “She’s demon touched. She’s already been tasted. I prefer my food fresh.”

“I don’t know. Looks like she’d leave a bad taste.” the one standing behind me chuckled. “I’m not picky, though.”

The one from the cliff growled. His stance and the way the others kept looking back to him, almost as if for approval, meant he was the one in charge. “She’s not to be touched.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” the reprimanded demon griped. “She’s as good as dead. Zenak insists she’s trouble for his boy. Stupid to waste such a perfectly fine meal.”

Trouble for his boy… I’d heard of demon hierarchy, but had no idea how it worked. These demons must report to the demon that attacked Sam.

“But she’s full of such decadent emotions,” the one behind me said. “We could each take one little taste. It wouldn’t kill her. Not if we were careful.”

The short one let out a snort. “You? Careful? That’s rich.”

“This coming from the demon who plays with his food for weeks before chowing down good and proper.”

Listening to them talk about Sam seemed to wake my own demon. The thing inside stirred, spewing scene after scene of carnage. One by one they would fall by my hand. Broken, bloody, and cold. And while I hated to agree with anything it wanted, this time we were in sync. The only problem was Sam. How to get her out without her getting cut down in the cross fire.

Azirak flashed more images, growing impatient. Me bringing swift death to everything my fingers touched. Showered in their blood and grinning like a kid at the candy store, I stood over their corpses, breathing deeply as their life force slipped into the ether.

No. Not me. Azirak. The demon wanted me to hand over control. There was no trust between us, but I had enough common sense to recognize the situation for what it was. With Azirak in control, I’d have more of an edge.

Still, I was worried about Sam. The demon, sensing my hesitation, flashed an image of her face surrounded my soft light flowers. Happy.

I thought back to the way it’d pushed me to kiss her. How it spoke to her in the woods at the bottom of the cliff. It wasn’t intrigued by Sam.

It cared about her.

My hesitation dissipated. I let myself fade, giving the demon the reins. The transition was smoother than usual. Like simply stepping aside on a crowded sidewalk to make room for someone else. For the first time, I felt everything as though I was still in control. The movement beneath my feet as the demon started to react. The electric sense of excitement bubbling in my chest. Maybe because, for the first time, we wanted the same thing. We were the same instrument in a task we both believed in.

I became a vessel of destruction. And even though it was still bound by the limitations of a human body, the swath of chaos Azirak cut was nothing short of devastating. It flew across the hood of the car, mowing down first the demon that laid its hand on Sam’s arm. The enemy bared its teeth, hunched and ready to pounce, but Azirak was much too fast. A powerful uppercut to the jaw and the thing flew backward. My own body followed the momentum of the blow and we landed together in a heap. Fingers I vaguely recognized reached for an enemy throat. The skin tore easily, flecks of red exploding in every direction. The entire thing took no more than five seconds. Six at best.

Time for the next.

By the time Azirak tore through them, all three were dead, nothing more than piles of skin and gore, and Sam had fallen to her knees. Her eyes were wide and fixed on the first demon to go down. The one that had touched her.

At the sight of her, the demon relinquished control and I fell to my knees in front of her. “Sammy? Can you hear me?”

She nodded, silent. I reached across to take her hand, moving slowly because I was afraid to spook her. When my fingers wrapped around hers, she blinked and turned. “We’re okay,” she said. Her voice was shaky, and she was crying.

“We’re okay,” I confirmed, helping her off the dew-wet grass. “Let’s get you home.”