I dropped the bloody monkey head and retracted the club with the nail. By the time I turned around to find Alora, the broken jaw guy had her wrapped up from behind. His lip was hanging sideways and the eye on that side was red from an internal injury.
"Don't!" he said. He could barely pronounce the word due to his broken jaw. His grip on Alora was tightly restraining her weak body, but he wasn't strangling her. Perhaps he still had hopes of taking her alive. Maybe he would get a big reward from the gang leader for being the one that brought her in.
"Let her go and I'll let you live," I said calmly.
My friend was petrified as he tightened his grip and shook his head no. He was scared, too. Just not believing that he had a chance to live if he followed my instructions. He thought that his only opportunity to survive this battle was to hold onto Alora. If he killed her, his hopes would be gone. So that gave me some time to think.
I took three heavy breaths. Each time, I felt my body getting colder. On the third, I saw the frost in my exhaled breath. I was far from harnessing this new power of mine properly, but in a fight like this I had plenty of margin for error.
As fast as I could muster, I swung the club low to high behind me in a circle, then down forward. Both Peggies in front of me panicked. The thug tried his best to dodge the blow and pull my girl into the path of my weapon. But I had aimed for his far side shoulder. He ended up placing his head in the path of the club instead.
The nail struck the top of his skull and continued inside. The club holding it didn't stop there. It pushed through the existing crack and split his head in two. It was fucking disgusting. Worse than a horror movie kill. And it was me that did that. I didn't want to, but I felt like I had to do it. And the chilled super strength that I had gained from the shadow monster gave me the ability.
Alora was crying in fear. That was understandable. She had blood and pieces of brain on the side of her face. What wasn't appreciated was the way she was staring at me. She was simply in shock.
The last dead guy didn't release his grip, so I had to pry his bleeding corpse off of her trembling body. Once freed, she scurried to the far corner by the dead blackhawk and shuddered in fear.
"It's over," I told her. "I'm not going to hurt you. Do you understand?"
She was nodding, so that was a good sign. I figured that she just hadn't seen graphic violence like this before. Killing the predator in the tall grass was one thing. Seeing me split open members of her people was quite another.
"I had to kill them, right?"
She nodded again. I could see her composure returning, but her body still trembled. She was too weak to stop it. I needed to get her something to eat.
"Can you eat parts of that bird without cooking it and not get sick?"
She nodded again, so I gestured for her to go at it. I couldn't watch, though. That was kind of weird. I just slaughtered three men in a horrific manner, but I couldn't watch on as a starving girl ate a raw bird.
I felt the warmth returning to my body. For the first time, it hurt. Not terribly bad, but there was pain like a numb extremity receiving fresh blood. It hurt almost enough to make me want to bring the icy chill back. Almost. However, I felt like I might go mad with violence if I did. I could only invite the cold bloodedness when it was desperately needed. Getting used to this much violence was something that I had to avoid.
I'm not a killer. I was a military man once. A security guard many times. But not an outright murderer. Lin and Nancy didn't love a killer either. I needed to remain the man that they fell in love with, at all costs. Even if it meant locking away this newfound superpower.
I could then hear two things that were disconcerting. First was the sound of Alora ripping feathers and snapping tiny bones behind me, then feasting on the raw meat. Second was the barely perceptible sound of more Peggies coming our way.
Fuck! Did I have to do this all over again? Could I bring myself to slaughter more members of this intelligent species?
Chapter Sixteen
I spotted at least five of the jungle thugs, but the way they were talking and gesturing I believed there were many more. Despite being a gang, they were not all that close together. Some were straying in pairs to investigate potential hiding spots. They were certainly looking for someone. I had to assume that was still Alora and not me.
Once they got a little closer, I could see that two of the men in front were diligently searching the ground for clues. Trackers. They probably saw clear indication that their three friends had come to our pathetic tree. There was some discussion among them as they approached our raised hiding spot. Then they looked right at me.
I didn't see any reaction to indicate that they actually saw me. I was peeking through a small gap in the wall which enabled me to remain mostly concealed. I debated on whether or not to remain completely still or take some kind of action to discourage them from coming up in search of Alora.
From what I had seen so far there was no sensible reason to think
