Chapter 197

I didn't blink, afraid of missing any moment between the two of them. I didn't like Van Doren near any of my friends, and Kayleen would regret any action the next day for the same reason.

"Behave," he whispered.

"Oh, you don't like bad girls? That's why you want Penelope?"

"He doesn't want Penelope. If you touch her..." I snarled.

"You don't have the right to judge me."

Cole seemed to say that in an intimate way. But not to me.

He never looked at me, only at Kayleen.

Doubts ruled my mind.

"Yeah, true." Cullbert patted Van Doren's leg. "Judging would be ugly from my..."

My best friend toppled to the side like she was on a carousel. Her face was flushed, the sweat on her forehead made it shine. Her laughter echoed over the music, and before she hit the ground, Cole managed to catch her.

"I'll take her outside. She needs some air," he informed.

"I'll go with you," I said, preparing to stand.

"Don't worry. We'll be back in two seconds." Cole didn't give me room to refuse. "I'm not going to eat her. Relax."

"I can't relax when I know what you're capable of," I mentioned, clenching my fist.

"Not with her."

Van Doren helped my friend to her feet, holding her by the arm and leading her through the crowd until they disappeared from my view.

"I'm going, Asher," I declared, but I was pulled back before I could get off the seat.

"I bet three thousand he won't touch her," he whispered in my ear. "But I bet double that one day he will. And she'll want it too."

I pushed Hawthorn away immediately as his laugh pierced the air.

"You're a pervert."

"Pervert? I've been called a lot of things. Bourgeois, bastard, criminal, freak, even a hot slut because of my ass. But pervert? I’ll have to add that to the list."

"You see all of this as a joke, don't you? You’re not afraid of the consequences and look at the world as entertainment."

"We all have a role in this theater. If you prefer to sit your ass down and watch, it's your fault. I prefer to make it happen. If I want to pretend to be a damn god, I will. I control my life, Gray."

Asher sipped his whiskey, the aroma dripping in the air with its strong flavor. His face mirrored how much he savored the drink, and how his bone structure, resembling a mountain, was not only physical. Asher was a rock inside as well.

"You destroy lives," I snarled.

"I eliminate them so the world is more interesting." His sarcasm made my stomach turn. "Come here. I’ll tell you something you're going to like."

There was no sign of caution in his voice. His clear eyes, blonde hair, and almost perfect demeanor made him more than attractive. Sometimes Asher could be mistaken for a god.

There was no doubt why he was so arrogant and inflated with his ego.

"Have you ever thought about how many people passed through your life and were, after all, corrupted? We've all stolen. We've made a bad joke. We've wished ill on someone. It's part of human essence. But kill? Abuse? Condemn the innocent? We never think that our friend, our mother, that cousin we love is capable of doing something like that. But they are." His finger pointed at several people in the bar, landing on men and women of different appearances, unrelated to each other. "You are." A note of silence echoed in my mind. "All it takes is pulling the trigger of a gun. Just grab a knife and stab it into someone's chest. It's not hard."

His fingers rested on my shoulder, and his hot breath reacted on my eardrums.

My muscles tensed, afraid of where this conversation was going.

"But what stops someone from doing it?" Asher asked. "Do you know?"

I didn't take long to answer because, although I'd already felt the pressure of my fingers pulling that trigger and waiting for someone's death to come, I still believed in something the five guys no longer had.

"Humanity."

Asher laughed.

"Wrong answer, princess." I glared at him. "The fear of death."

My fingers unfurled, still scrutinizing him, confused.

"You're drunk."

"Do you think that if we didn't know what death is, we would have the courage to do whatever we wanted?" He continued, spilling what, for him, was philosophy. "People are well-behaved, good citizens, and completely boring because they don’t know what comes after life. They don’t pull the trigger because they’re afraid of the greatest punishment of all: death. We move to make our lives good, so we can die one day without regrets. But what if we knew that, in the end, death is not as dark and painful as it seems? The world would be chaos."

His voice penetrated my mind like needles. They pricked, hurt, but opened fractures that let his thoughts intertwine with mine.

"I’ve seen death, Emilia. I smelled it. I felt its pain. I felt it in my hands." He continued, his voice dripping like poison. "I saw my sister get cut in half. I heard her sharp voice. I heard her last gasps. She looked at me as she saw her life end. Her flesh being sold like that of an animal. People chewed her up, fed on what was once a seven-year-old child. I saw it."

My eyes were filling with water.

My breath was agonizing. It hurt to move my ribs with every gasp, as if they touched each other and crushed.

It was disturbing. A stinging punishment for my ears to hear the casual tone in Asher’s recounting of an act beyond common imagination. Yet, as much as he masked it with an insensitive tone, his pain was felt in the way his fingers twisted on my shoulder and the years of hunting he'd endured against the Factory.

If it still hurt, there was resentment. And that was the feeling driving him toward vengeance.

"From that day on, I wasn’t afraid. I am who I am because I’m not afraid of death. None of us are because we’ve had the pleasure of seeing it. Just like you, right?" My chest tightened. "You saw your dead parents. You saw Dante kill your heart. That's why you can now. You saw it, and you're no longer afraid."

He stepped away, leaving me exposed to the cold. The music echoed like a horror soundtrack, making room for more and more cruel thoughts to take over me.

I was paralyzed. Terrified. Doubting my own humanity.

"We’re not afraid of death. We dominate life through it. That’s why life is entertainment to me. Because my greatest challenge has already happened. I've seen everything that was possible." His final smile was dark. "Including, if you think killing Dante will be a punishment for him, you’re very wrong. If you can, he’ll thank you."

I didn't know how to respond, nor did I want to think too much, knowing I would search for my insane side.

Asher took another slow sip of his whiskey, scanning the club corners as if hunting for someone else to entertain himself with. He was a first-rate womanizer.

However, Hawthorn had scars just like the other Faceless Faces. I didn’t know exactly what had happened on the day of the kidnapping, but I imagined he had sowed the perverse and cruel side of each one.

Especially Dante's, and the pleasure he took in seeing his victims die.