HeartBeat

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Ava

My heart thrums inside my chest, a steady tune. I walk into the house, next to a stiff, Conner Scott. My focus sharpens, and I flex my fingers.

I grab his arm tightly, when he stops walking, probably thinking that he was safe enough closer to the door.

I drag him towards an empty bedroom and shove him inside. I shut the door, flipping the lock for good measure. If I was being a logical and civilized human, I wouldn't be in a room with a locked door, with a university teacher who taught me. Unlike him I accounted for the music, which was a few volumes higher, and with that and how far we've come into the house, it was likely no one would here his screams.

Conner Scott turns towards me, raising a placating hand, his eyes wide with fear.

"Your either extremely brave or extremely fucking stupid." I shake my head, almost as if I pitied him.

"I think it's the latter." I say, with a tilted head.

With my eyes on my prey, I watch as he backs up slowly, and averts his eyes. Traits of submission. He treated me like the predator my DNA was likely highlighting to him during all those long hours in his lab.

It was too late.

With a speed that the suppressors allowed, I gripped his throat, and I don't hesitate to squeeze. His face almost immediately reddens. Air cut off completely as I squeeze.

"I gave you something not many have ever gotten from me." I squeeze tighter, my finger digging into his skin for a moment, before ripping my hand away, not so gently, but still mindful that I can't leave an imprinted mark.

I take his sleeved fore arms next, and I grip, feeling the bones grind. Conner Scott cries out.

"My mercy. Conner Scott, you were given my mercy but that was a mistake. I should have handed you your daughter's arm and kept her alive in a very dark and cold place where she could beg for you to just do what I ask, so she'll stop feeling pain. I should have cut off your fucking toes. An ear. But I behaved like the civilized human I'm not, and you betrayed the little trust I gave you."

"Please." Conner Scott chokes, his eyes watering.

"You spend hours. Hours at a time learning about what I am. Yet you still found yourself betraying me." I clench my teeth, restraining my rage.

I let his arms go, watching him crumble at me feet. I needed him to be able to finish his work, he can't do that with broken arms, but my muscles bunch, my body set to violence.

I growl low in the back of my throat as I pace, my eyes fixed on the man on the floor.

"I would kill you. Rip you apart. I should." I walk forward and clutch his head, my hands filled with his hair, and I wrench his head back, so he looks up at me.

"But, as stupid as you are, you'll take it wouldn't you. To you your pain is temporary. You're a self-sacrificing man, Conner Scott, admirable, and usable. You need not your own pain, but someone else. Someone you love, and care for."

"No." He barks. I narrow my eyes, tightening my hands. "

I freeze. Worry worming its way into my chest. I clench my jaw, so hard, that I'm surprised when it still functions as a mouthpiece.

"How clever." I stage whisper.

Yes. Chase Montgomery is a weakness now. He makes me vulnerable in all the ways I don't have time for. In all the ways I have never known. But I can't let him go. I won't. Yet worry niggles my inside, ripping at pieces of me, and fraying the edges of my rage, I was so close to letting loose. I don't want to let him go, but if word returns to him about who I am, what I am, I might find myself being the one released.