Chapter 10: Chapter Ten

Ryder followed the assassin at a leisurely pace, chuckling darkly at the way he ran full on, not even glancing back to see if Ryder was behind him.

Ryder couldn’t fault him for that, as he knew if he were human and saw what the man had seen, he would also be running for his life.

Ryder matched his pace easily but made no attempt to catch up as his prey ran further away from the public view, which was utterly stupid on his part.

Chuckling under his breath, he chased the scared human away from the busy communal area and into the quieter, run-down residential area, all while he strode casually behind him, his hands in the pocket of his jeans.

Ryder was still in no hurry to catch up, leaving the same hundred-yard gap between them, no matter how fast the assassin ran.

His wolf, though still silent and sulky about Ryder’s attitude earlier, seemed to be more interested in the chase than actually catching the prey.

The assassin ducked around corners and jumped fences, doing everything he could to shake Ryder away, but it was all futile.

Now that he had him in his sights and his wolf had caught his scent, there was no way he was letting him go.

A frown creased his eyebrows, as a moment later, his target disappeared out of his sight when he reached an intersection.

Closing his eyes, he let his wolf out to play, trying to locate his target with scent alone.

Bingo! His eyes snapped open, as he took the right turn, prowling towards the abandoned children’s park, which hadn’t been open for ages.

Even though it was pitch dark outside, and there was no available lighting in the area, Ryder strolled the park as if it was daylight, using his enhanced vision to walk through it.

Up ahead of him, he caught a glimpse of his target sprinting down a row of old barbecue stands, and heading towards a frozen fun house, which now looked like a haunted house, since it had been abandoned.

Silent and deadly, Ryder launched himself over a series of decrepit markers and increased his speed, wanting to get this done and over with.

His wolf was still unhappy with him, and the chase had begun to lose its edge now that he had almost caught his prey.

The silent and abandoned park was the perfect place to torture and extract information from his target. It was also the perfect place for teenage gang-wannabes to hide out or have one of their infamous parties, so he wanted to be out and back at the pack house before he got spotted.

Deeper into the fun house the assassin ran, ducking and weaving between obstacles and grotesquely aged mannequins, hoping to have shaken his pursuer, but Ryder was still on his tail.

“I can smell you, human,” Ryder uttered, no longer caring about remaining silent. He wanted his target to know that he was after him, wanted him to know that he was being hunted, just like he had hunted Ryder earlier. “I can smell your fear.”

Ryder’s voice echoed through the fun house, his footfalls no longer quiet as he ducked under another set of displaced horror mannequins.

The assassin swallowed a scream of terror that clawed at his throat, thinking that it was Ryder who had gotten to him when something moved directly ahead of him in the shadows.

A sigh of relief escaped him when a spring-loaded clown popped out in his face instead of the monster who was after him.

But his relief was short-lived, as Ryder took a path that led him directly in front him.

He never even saw Ryder coming, neither did he stand a chance, too busy looking for him over his shoulder until he ran straight into Ryder’s knife as he burst through the false wall.

The impact reverberated up Ryder’s arm, but he held on, bracing against the man’s momentum, as he twisted the knife deeper into his stomach, eliciting a sharp cry of pain and a gurgle of blood dripping down his lips as he slipped down to his feet, while fumbling through the dark to remove the offensive weapon.

It was poetic justice at best, Ryder thought, the assassin dying by his own weapon, at the hands of the mark he had been contracted to kill.

“You fucked up, human,” Ryder declared, as if the knife through his gut and the fact that Ryder had come after him didn’t drive the point home already. “You shouldn’t have taken the hit.”

A moan of pain was the only response Ryder got. And without a second thought, Ryder pulled out the knife, ignoring the loud squelching noise it made as it released from the man’s gut and the grunt of pain that he released.

“Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice, human,” he stated, as he discarded the weapon. “Either way, you are going to die, and you will answer my questions. So, what’s it going to be?”

Though he needed to keep it quick because the last thing he needed was for some nosey teenager or gang-wannabe to intervene, because then he would have to kill them. But, he didn’t want it to come to that, as he had avoided that sort of altercation with humans unless if necessary. And he didn’t want to deal with the fallout of the death of some gangster, especially if it would lead to war between the gangs.

Blood Moon pack didn’t need that kind of war to be laid at its doors, even if it were with humans. His pack needed order and stability to thrive, not chaos and slavery as his father and his inner circle seem to think.

“Now, I’ll keep this brief,” Ryder announced, leaning against a wall casually, his eyes trained on the moaning man on the floor. “I know someone hired you to take me out, and I know that someone didn’t offer you full details on who or what I am, otherwise you would know that this little mission of yours was plain suicidal.

“What I do want to know is who could be stupid enough to think sending a low-tier assassin after me would get the job done? What’s the name of your employer?”

The assassin wheezed, as he let out a laugh, no longer scared about his life because he knew that if Ryder didn’t finish him off now, he would slowly die because of blood loss and the gaping wound on his stomach.

His life was forfeit, as Ryder had pointed out. But, if he was going to die, then the name of his employer was going to die with him.

He was no snitch. If he was dying, then so be it. The monster was not getting anything from him. So, he rolled his head back to meet the eyes of the man he had been sent after, keeping his lips clamped tight together and his gaze steady, even though he couldn’t see him clearly.

If he was going out, he was going out with his honor as an assassin-for-hire, without giving his attacker the name he so desperately wanted.

“Very well, then,” Ryder uttered, as he straightened his posture. He knew that look very well. The man wasn’t talking, and Ryder was done wasting his time.

He made quick work of cutting his tongue out, using the knife he had discarded, then worked on stitching his lips shut.

The assassin ultimately drowned in his own blood, which was a dramatic and horrible way to die, but it worked in sending a message.

When he was done, he placed a call to Zayden to get his cleanup crew to pick up the body and dispose it somewhere the assassin’s employer was likely to see it.

And then, without a backward glance, he strolled out of the fun house with a pep in his step, as if he hadn’t just killed someone.