Stray (Shifters #1)(75)

But it was over. Finally, it was all over. We had him, and once we had answers, Miguel would find out how the American Prides dealt with their enemies.
A hand appeared in front of my face. Glancing up, I saw Vic’s face clearly in the moonlight. I took his hand and he hauled me to my feet. Wrapping my arms around his chest, I clung to him, glad to share my simultaneous grief and relief with someone who clearly understood. He hugged me, rocking me gently. I knew he was thinking of Sara.
“Do you want to watch?” Vic asked, lightly stroking my hair.
“Wha?” My voice came out creaky, like I had laryngitis.
He turned me around gently, slowly, and leaned down to whisper into my ear. “They’re going to do it now. Do you want to watch?”
Miguel lay on the ground, not three feet away. Marc stood next to him, his muzzle hovering over the jungle cat’s belly. Ethan sat by Miguel’s head, his open mouth inches from the criminal’s throat, where blood ran from four deep puncture wounds, one set on each side of his Adam’s apple.
“No!” I croaked, still clinging to Vic as I stared at Miguel in horror. As I watched, his body shuddered, his legs convulsing. “They can’t do it yet.” I shifted my gaze to Marc, who was already watching me. “You can’t do it yet. We have to question him. We need to know where Luiz is, and who hired them.”
Marc shook his head slowly. Deliberately.
“What? What’s wrong?” I asked, twisting to look up at Vic.
“His throat’s crushed.” Satisfaction and regret battled for control of his expression. “He can’t talk. He’ll be dead soon anyway, but he deserves to suffer before he dies. If they’re going to do it, they have to do it now. In a few minutes, it’ll be too late.”
I turned back to the man on the ground, studying his neck carefully in the moonlight. Vic was right. His throat was dented and misshapen. I wasn’t sure how he was even breathing.
Miguel stared up at me, blinking in fear, and I returned his gaze. There he was, the man who’d taken me from my home and beaten me senseless for fighting him. The man who’d killed Sara and left her disfigured and exposed for her brothers to find. The man who’d stolen Abby’s innocence and ruined her life.
Now he lay helpless in front of me, his eyes were wide with comprehension. He must have known it would end this way. There was really no other possibility.
“Do you want to watch?” Vic asked again, and Marc turned to look at me, waiting for my answer.
Sara’s face flashed in my mind, blue eyes shining at me from within my own memory. I saw Abby, bruised, violated and psychologically scarred. I nodded. I did want to watch. He deserved it. I’d earned it.
Lucas and Vic had wanted a shot at Miguel, but there wasn’t time now to beat him to death. Since neither of them had Shifted, the honor went to Marc and Ethan. They shared the kill. We all watched.
I’d grown up with the Pride. I’d eaten more fresh deer than birthday cake, but I’d never seen anything like Miguel’s death in my entire life. There wasn’t time for prolonged and excruciating, which had been the plan, so the guys settled for just plain excruciating. And disgusting.Marc roared in victory, standing over the body of his enemy. The sound was triumphant, and aggressive, and primal. It triggered instinctual longings in my own heart, and made my inner cat beg for the privilege of roaring alongside him.
When the last glorious note faded into the forest, Marc growled and swiped one claw across Miguel’s stomach.
Miguel’s spine bowed, pushing him off the ground as he gurgled and bucked against the pain. Lucas stepped on his fractured left wrist and Parker stood on his right, pinning him down. Four stripes appeared in Miguel’s shirt. Blood poured from the wounds, soaking the material almost instantly. The reddish-black rivulets ran over, flowing to nourish the dirt path with his life force.
Marc stepped back, and Ethan took a turn, crossing the fresh wounds with four stripes of his own, at a ninety-degree angle with the first four. It was disturbingly neat, yet undeniably revolting. Miguel jerked again and moaned, choking on his own blood.
Marc tore into Miguel’s stomach with his teeth, ripping away shirt and skin together. He dropped the hunk of flesh on the ground beside his victim. It reminded me, in a very surreal way, of my own aversion for chicken skin.
Ethan ripped away another chunk, dropping it on Miguel’s other side. They wouldn’t consume a single bite. They weren’t man-eaters, and Miguel wasn’t a meal. He was prey of a different sort. He was a threat eliminated.
I was okay until Marc used his teeth to tug Miguel’s intestines from his gaping stomach. But that was all I could take; I’d had enough of torture and revenge. Vic held my hair while I threw up. I heard him talking to the guys over my back. “Wrap it up. I think she needs to rest.”
Rest. Yeah, that’s what I need. More like shock therapy. I needed to forget the last two days. Have them wiped from my memory altogether. There wasn’t room in my brain next to the complete works of Shakespeare for Marc’s top five ways to torture your enemy before finally letting him die. I didn’t want to have dreams of my boyfriend disemboweling anyone, even Miguel.
“Get me out of here,” I whispered.
“What?” Vic leaned toward my face, his gaze still focused on the spectacle behind me.
My fist clenched around a handful of his shirt. “You heard me. Get me out of here. Now.”
“Faythe…”
I stood up straight, wiping vomit from my mouth with the front of Carissa’s shirt as I looked into Vic’s face. His eyes begged me to let him stay. He was crying, and pleading with me not to make him leave until Miguel exhaled his last tortured breath.
“Just put your head on my shoulder and close your eyes,” he said, trying to draw me into his arms. I stepped back, refusing. Behind me I heard more gurgling and a slick, sliding sound I had no desire to identify. 
“Why would you want to watch this?” I asked Vic, swallowing the bile rising in my throat.
He looked at me with unbearable pain and confusion, as if I shouldn’t need to ask. “Because this is what he did to her. He violated her in life, then he mutilated her in death. Now he’s paying.”
Oh. I couldn’t argue his point, but neither could I watch.
Parker took my arm. “Come on, Faythe, I’ll take you inside.”
I met his eyes and saw in them what I wanted to see in Marc’s but knew I would never find. Parker didn’t want to watch it either. He didn’t want any part of it.
He steered me past Brian, who stood watching in fascination, then around Miguel and the cats, and helped me over the chain-link fence, just to be polite. Ethan had flattened an entire section of it, so I only had to walk across a length of mangled metal. Parker stayed to my left the whole time, keeping his body between me and the sight I would never forget, no matter how hard I tried.
Inside, I took a shower in the downstairs bathroom. I stayed in until the water ran cold, trying to scrub away every last molecule of Miguel’s scent. When that was gone, I tried to wash away my memories. But they were sticky little bastards, clinging to me like an emotional odor, no matter how many times I lathered and rinsed.
When I finally stepped out of the shower, Parker was waiting with the clothes he and Abby had bought that morning. I couldn’t believe it was even the same day, but a glance at the clock showed me that no matter how long each minute as Miguel’s hostage had felt, time continued to tick by at its normal rate. Time was the great constant, eternally measuring my life in the ticks of a hundred second hands, the tocks of a thousand pendulums. It portioned my life into good times and bad times, the former too short, and the latter too long.
And now it told me that less than two hours had passed since we’d pulled into the Taylors’ driveway. It was ten-thirty. I’d showered for nearly half an hour.
Parker and I sat at the bar in the kitchen, drinking Mrs. Taylor’s gourmet coffee, with imported French cream. It was the middle of June, and I was wearing full-length jeans, but I couldn’t stop shaking. I’d added a purple neck and four fresh puncture marks to my assortment of bumps and bruises. I felt about as attractive as Frankenstein’s monster. And almost as well loved.
“Shouldn’t they be done by now?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to hear the answer.
“They are,” Parker said. “They’re cleaning up.”
“Oh.” That made sense. I wondered how one went about cleaning up a disemboweled body but was afraid that if I asked, he’d actually tell me. I didn’t want to know that badly. But there was something else I did want to know. “Was it Anthony?” I asked, cradling the mug in my hands for warmth.
Parker’s eyebrows arched into matching question marks and he opened his mouth, clearly intending to ask what I meant. Then he took a good look at my face and decided I deserved better. He knew what I meant.
“Yeah, it was.” He stared down into his coffee, as if hoping to read the future from a cup of tea dregs. “Anthony’s gone, and so is Sean. Marc filled me in while you were showering.” Parker told me what he knew, and—true gentleman that he was—he gave me the G-rated version out of respect for my exhaustion and encroaching shock.
They’d come at us from the north, Sean on four legs and Miguel on two. Sean pounced on Anthony from a nearby tree branch, knocking him to the ground. Anthony only had time to make a single sound before he died, but without his dying cry as warning, Marc might not have known he was in danger until it was too late.Marc took Sean out in silence, utilizing years of training and experience. But his effort was wasted on Sean, who made no move to defend himself. By all appearances, he was ready to die, and Marc believed Sean attacked Anthony mostly to secure his own fate. Marc was going after Miguel when I came between them, blocking Marc’s pounce and nearly getting myself killed.