Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 145088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
“I just don’t… feel anything about it. Maybe a bit of a rush, but I’m pretty sure I should react differently. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s not like I’m some psycho killer who gets off on this. But I also don’t… not like it, if that makes sense?”
It so fucking did, even though Hammer hadn’t really encountered this kind of sensitivity in people who approached the world with the good humor and openness Dex did. Being in the business he was in, Hammer had known men who seemed unbothered by any atrocity, but none of them have been this… joyful or pleasant to be around.
“I feel the same way. Do you think that is weird?” he asked and switched on the grinder, pushing on the cut forearm so it wouldn’t get stuck in the machine.
Dex turned to him, with childish curiosity on his face. “I don’t know. But I’ve never told anyone the extent of it. I even lied to you before, when you asked me if I broke someone’s bones.” He licked his lips and lowered his voice. “I’ve killed someone before. I had the opportunity, it just made sense, but I wasn’t sorry about it. Frank never kills but he could have gotten Shane to do it, but… I wanted to find out what it’s like to take someone’s life."
Hammer looked back, forgetting the grinder as he took in Dex’s youthful features. “Before today?” he asked, and when Dex nodded, he added, “what happened?”
Dex leaned against the steel table, but wouldn’t meet Hammer’s eyes. “It wasn’t long after I got myself roped into Frank’s business of helping evidence disappear. The hot guy from your club brought this ginger dude with no teeth, but when I took him to be buried in cement, it turned out he was not yet gone. He didn’t exactly wake up either, you know. He wasn’t… coherent, but I could hear him wheezing, and I knew he was meant to be dead. I got this rush of adrenaline, but I wasn’t scared, so I grabbed a shovel, and stabbed it into his neck as hard as I could. I’m pretty sure I severed his spine, there was this flood of blood, and then it was over. He was dead. I didn’t even have a nightmare after it, or nothing.”
Hammer listened, growing hotter by the second, but not with lust. It was as if he’d found an unpolished diamond in a bucket of coal and was now worried about the implications of this unexpected luck. On the surface, Dex couldn’t have been more different from him, but at the very core, their spirits were similar.
“Didn’t know Ryker had fucked up that kill. Good thinking though. The fucker stole from us, but death itself was punishment enough. No point in making him suffer,” Hammer said and pushed another batch of meat and bone into the grinder.
Dex circled the table to watch Hammer work. “I’m just… wow, it feels good to tell someone. Even the freakiest guys I’ve been with wouldn’t be able to handle this. Well, unless they were full-on psycho, you know? And until today, I haven’t killed anyone else. I don’t seek it out, but I also know that if shit goes down, I won’t hesitate. How about you? Did you not feel remorse the first time?” His brown eyes twinkled with interest, as if he were a curious little boy asking a string of why questions, yet Hammer saw him in a different light now. Not only due to the killing, but also the fuck. He wasn’t sure where that landed them just yet.
“No. That motherfucker deserved everything that happened. It was after I left juvie and started hitchhiking all over the country. Fucker pushed a lot of booze at me, and I, being a dumb kid, didn’t think it was suspicious. Woke up to him feeling me up. Stabbed him and buried the body. I have never even checked if they found him or if he’s considered missing,” Hammer said, meeting Dex’s gaze. “I was a really angry kid. Don’t know what would have happened if I haven’t stumbled upon the club. I like violence, but they gave it a purpose.”
And now the men who meant more than his birth family had so easily given up on him because of an accusation thrown by Ryker.
It fucking stung.
Dex’s cleaver descended on the decapitated corpse’s thigh in a series of vicious chops until the femur was cut in half. “Did a part of you enjoy the… process?”
“Fuck yeah,” Hammer said, feeling the echo of the righteous anger and satisfaction that accompanied his first kill. “Feels good when they deserve it.”
A smile ghosted across Dex’s lips when he walked over and handed Hammer a chunk of the leg. “Yes, no moral qualms. Just like today. They were attacking, and I could just go for it. I was so pumped, and kinda… proud you saw me get each of them with a single bullet.”