Queen of Shadows Read Online Free Page B

snarl.
    She threw herself backward into the man and knocked him off balance, then twisted her body toward him, clawing at his face. She felt something mushy beneath her thumb and shoved her nail into it, eliciting a scream from Gordon as he fought her off. She fell sideways, reaching out to grab the knife foolishly by the blade; it sliced into her palm, but she won it free, rolling up onto her knees in time to see Gordon scream again, his hands covering his eye, blood gushing from beneath his fingers.
    She had his eyeball under her nails.
    The other men, panicked, started toward her, but the sight of her covered in blood, half naked, brandishing the knife at them while their leader scrabbled at his punctured eye, gave them pause.
    “Kill the fucking bitch!” Gordon shrieked. “Kill her!”
    Other weapons came out. More knives, but no guns. Small-time thugs used to lording their power over vulnerable women. They’d found a perfect victim in her—small, frail, alone, and weak. She hadn’t even fought. They had assaulted women as a team for years, leaving bodies here and there in Dumpsters and trash cans. No one had ever reported them to the police—because they chose women no one would ever miss, who could be used up, killed, and thrown away. Like her.
    She could feel what they were feeling—Fear. Anger. Hatred. But mostly fear. They didn’t know what to do, but there was no way she could fight them all, even if she weren’t injured and cornered. They were going to kill her.
    But she wasn’t going to make it easy for them. Not again.
    When they came toward her, all attacking at once, she stepped back, and her entire being screamed, “NO!”
    The sheer force of her emotions flew outward, hitting them all like sledgehammers, and as one they were knocked backward by it, knives skittering across the concrete. She lashed out again and again, beating them with her agony the way they had with their fists, violating them with her violation. They were screaming, writhing. She didn’t stop.
    She stood over them in the now-pouring rain, blood oozing down her thighs, her hands fisted at her sides, and ground her emotions into them like putting out a cigarette in someone’s arm. She made them feel the fear and pain of every woman they’d raped and killed, imagining their last thoughts. The women had mothers, daughters, boyfriends waiting at home who would never see them again. They had hopes and fears and possibilities that Miranda had never had. These pathetic little men had taken all of that away. Their hatred for women had made them bold.
    One of them was begging for his life. She stared down at him, and he flinched from her eyes, eyes no one had seen in months. He had a wife, kids. Please. He offered her anything she wanted if she’d just let him go.
    She stared, feeling nothing. “No.”
    She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew what to do. The mind was tethered to the body, and she imagined reaching in and snapping the cord as if she were snapping his neck.
    He stopped begging.
    Now the others started. Even Gordon, who lay in a pool of his own blood not far from the pool of hers, where he had thrust his thick, blunt penis into her body over and over again, then watched and jerked off while the others did the same, begged for mercy.
    Had the other women begged? Yes, most of them had. They hadn’t fought, but they had appealed to hearts that were little more than lumps of rotten wood. Women always went for the emotions. Men went for fists. That was how the world worked.
    Snap. Snap. Glassy eyes fixed on the walls. Struggling limbs put to rest. Those rotten hearts that felt nothing but contempt for those they destroyed shuddered into stillness.
    She turned on Gordon.
    She didn’t hear his words, was unmoved by his begging, even when he crawled to her feet and sobbed. How many others were there? How many for Gordon? At least a dozen over the years; she could feel it. A dozen women’s voices cried out to her as if