The Salvation of Daniel (The Blue Butterfly Book 2) (28 page)

“Hello, I’m Annie Shepherd,” she started. “I did have a speech all readily prepared. But you know what, it was a load of shite.” The audience laughed as Annie shrugged. “Life doesn’t come prepared with instructions or written on a piece of paper. We make it up as we go along. We take each hurdle and we jump it and carry on to the next one. If we don’t manage to get over that one, we take a few steps back and attempt it again. But we never give up. We can’t give up.”

She looked to me and Isaac and smiled. “I lost both parents as a very small child. I’m not the only one; there are others out there who have lost loved ones. I don’t look at losses, I look at what I gained because of their lives
and
their deaths.”

She smiled at everyone, her beautiful bright blue eyes smiling with her. “I often wondered as a child, and still do, what made each of us who we are, why each person would choose different options in life. Why one person deems death as the end, and another thinks of it as the start of a different journey. How one considers it acceptable, sometimes even enjoyable, to take another’s life, whilst another would actually give up their own life to let another live.”

I looked around the auditorium, smiling as Annie stole everyone, their eyes regarding her, their ears listening to her, their attention with her and only her.

“As you can gather, yes, I chose to study psychology. And I’m very proud to say I graduated with honours. But I often wonder if life had taken me on a different route, what would I be doing now?”

Her tongue slid across her bottom lip and her eyes moved to Isaac, a secret smile curling the corners of her mouth. “Would I be a killer? What would life have done to me to make me want to feel the final beat of someone’s heart in my hands?”

Isaac sighed satisfactorily beside me. “You know,” he whispered as he leant into me. “Are you sure she isn’t ours?”

I chuckled. “I’ve never known anyone like her.”

Isaac nodded.

“But as one side clashes with the other, is it in our genes what life decides for us, or is it our own choices through life that determines what we become? Does our upbringing have any impact on our adulthood? As we take on our parents features when we are born, do we also take their characteristics? If your father was a killer and your mother the most innocent and loving woman out there, what would that make you?”

“That would make you Annie Shepherd,” Isaac scoffed.

“Would you be a compassionate killer?” Annie continued. “Would you only kill the most deserving?”

“Yes, you would Annie Shepherd.” Isaac agreed.

I looked to my lap and smiled.

“Would you feel empathy for those you kill? Or do you relish in their deaths, taking into consideration what your victim has done to hurt others.”

“Well, you always kiss them goodnight, Annie Shepherd,” Isaac mumbled with a small chuckle.

“The organs of the body were genetically developed to work with one another, each connected by a matrix of cells carried respectively through our blood system. But what if, in some, each organ works against the other. What if your head told you one thing and your heart the other. Your head tells you to take this disturbed piece of shit that raped your sister or mother and blot out their existence, but your heart tells you that maybe this vile man has something genetic or psychological inside them that drowns all reasoning within them and they need someone to understand what makes them this way. What do you have then?”

“Annie Shepherd,” Isaac and I said together.

“And that’s what I will be studying and learning from as I work with the police force to determine serial killers, criminals and kidnappers, and how they work.”

“So you can fill that little black book, munchkin,” Isaac snorted.

The audience erupted into a mass of applause, every person standing, Isaac and I included.

I grinned up at her proudly. She winked at me then descended the stairs.

“That’s my girl,” Isaac puffed out proudly.

Bullet snorted. “Well, with a mixture of her parents and you two, there’s no wonder she turned out to be the deadliest assassin this planet has ever known.”

Isaac grinned proudly. “Yes, she did.”

I laughed, nudging him. “After me, darling.”

“Oh,” he nodded wildly. “Of course, my love. You know, I often wonder what she would have become if you hadn’t taken a sledgehammer to that white picket fence you wanted and returned to the dark side.”

“You think she’d have become a vet or something?”

Isaac and Bullet laughed loudly. “Annie? A vet?” Isaac barked out. “There’s a reason her codename is Butterfly, and it’s not for her closeness to nature.” I chuckled, nodding my head in agreement. “It’s her ability to blend into the background. Feed from the innocent. Her beauty attracts everyone, dragging them in and under until she wraps those delicate wings around them and snaps their necks.”

“Hey.” Annie smiled, kissing both Isaac and myself on the cheeks as she flung her arms around us.

“Brilliant speech, munchkin.” Isaac beamed at her proudly. She smiled back at him and nodded. “You ready for dinner now?”

She pursed her lips. “Do you mind if I give it a miss. The Kitchen is having a barbeque and I promised to help out.”

Isaac rolled his eyes. “Why do you help out at that homeless place? It’s your graduation.”

“Isaac,” Annie grumbled at him. “These people need someone to care, otherwise what do they have in life? We weren’t all granted opportunities in life. There would be so many homeless dying without places like The Kitchen.”

“Fine!” Isaac relented, holding his hands up in surrender, knowing it was useless to argue. “What about tomorrow, then?”

Annie lifted a brow at him. “Uhh, tomorrow we’re taking out that fucking knob that raped his neighbour’s little girl, remember?”

“Oh yeah. Breakfast then?”

“Breakfast it is,” Annie agreed with a smile.

A tall stunning blonde-haired girl came running up to Annie, slipping her arm around her and pulling her in close. “You busy later?”

“I’m free after my shift at The Kitchen.”

Blondie nodded. “See you at mine after?”

“Sure,” Annie replied. The blonde winked and wandered back into the crowd, shouting over her shoulder. “Oh, I’ve invited Simon as well, that okay?”

The smile on Annie’s lips told me everything. “Of course, the more the merrier.”

Isaac lifted a brow at me and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. “Maybe she does take after you after all.”

“Nah,” I replied. “She’s all Mae’s heart and Daniel’s head. The shepherd and the lamb.”

“And the exquisite blue butterfly.”

The End

Turn over for a sneak peak at

The Beginning of

Connie and Isaac

Book 3 in the Blue Butterfly Series

Coming Spring 2015

Prologue

Isaac

February 2004. Aged 19.

PULLING MY COAT further around me, I turned up the heating dial, shivering against the ice that formed on the inside of the car window, never mind the outside. The music coming from the speakers was quiet and I wanted nothing more than to blast it higher to drown out my thoughts.

I tapped the steering wheel to the beat, shifting my glance to the upstairs window of the house I was watching. Light still glowed from behind the thin curtains, the shadow of a figure moving around.

I needed to wait until they were asleep, make this easier. For some reason, amongst others, this job felt different. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Although the targets didn’t sit well with me, it wasn’t just that that was grieving me. Yet, here I sat, waiting to do what I did best.

The shadow in the window appeared to be dancing. I smiled, watching the figure move to what I presumed to be an upbeat tune. The way her hand rested to her mouth I knew she currently had hold of a hairbrush, singing for her life to whichever song her preferences had her listening to.

I grabbed my ringing phone from the passenger seat beside me, rolling my eyes at the number displayed on the screen.

“Yep.”

“Hey. You back tonight? The place is flooded with pussy, man. Your father’s decided to hold a party for some unknown reason.”

I couldn’t hold back the growl. I knew the exact reason for his party. “No. I’m out.”

“What?” Joel scoffed. “Pussy, Isaac, lots and lots of glorious pussy. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

I rubbed at my face, suddenly tired. My eyes flicked back to the house and I sighed. “I dunno. It’s this fucking job. Doesn’t feel right.”

Joel was silent for a moment. “It’s just a job, man. In, kill, out. That’s it, that’s all it ever is.”

“They’re thirteen, Joel. I mean shit, they’re kids.”

“Since when did you develop a conscience?” he mumbled, but I knew he understood.

“Since I got sent to do the dirty jobs.”

“You gonna nail ‘em first?”

“What the fuck?” I spat, my lip curling in disgust. “Thirteen, Joel. Thir-teen!”

“Fresh pussy.” I stared gobsmacked at the pattern the ice had formed on the window, tracing the developing web with my gaze as Joel jabbered on. “And hell, if I know girls nowadays, you might not even be their first.”

“You sick fuck!” I shook my head, wondering what the hell I saw in Joel as a friend at times. “You’re gonna regret saying that when I get back.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled. “Becca’s here.”

“Yeah? Go fuck her then, she’ll more than oblige.” I ended the call, throwing my phone back on the seat.

Glancing back at the house I murmured a groan when I saw the upper light extinguish. “Fuck!”

I climbed from the car, looking around to make sure I wasn’t being watched, and walked around the back of the house, scaling the high gate and dropping to the ground on the other side, my feet skidding slightly on the frosty ground. My brow quirked at the large fountain standing proud in the centre of the garden, masses of bushes doing half my job for me and blocking me from neighbouring eyes.

My feet dragged along the floor, my heart someplace else. Shit, they were teenage girls. This was never right. What the fuck was my father playing at? I knew he was an evil bastard but kids? He’d recently started to take kids in, training them into Phantoms but I’d never been given an order to kill any. And even worse, who the hell had given the order? Which depraved fuck relished in the slaughter of a child?

Tracing the length of the wire from the alarm system, I slipped the blade from my pocket and severed the line before picking up a stone from beside the door. Smashing the small window, I reached in and twisted the key, unlocking the door. Christ! Did this family have no regards for security, especially leaving their teenage daughters home alone for the night? Someone, anyone come break in. Hmm, I couldn’t help the small tilt of my lips at my own humour.

It was dark inside, the door leading into a large square kitchen that was only lit by a small ray of moonlight slipping between the blinds. I didn’t bother to observe anything, there was no point, and this should be easy enough. I didn’t need to be aware of available exits, or objects that may be needed in the loss of my weapons.

Moving silently through the hallway that lead off the kitchen I placed a foot on the bottom step to go up to the bedroom. A noise to a slightly open door on the left had me stilling, my eyes narrowing, my head tilting as I listened harder.

“I’ve told you no, Lee. I’m not doing it.” Her soft female voice seemed to curl inside me; the unique pitch was soothing, even though she sounded frustrated. “She’s my sister,” she continued, “and even I’m not that cruel.”

I walked silently over to the door and pushed it open a little more. She was sitting on a couch, bent over, painting her nails a sickly red as she held a phone to her ear. Her long black hair fell in front of her face, hiding me from her view as she slid the brush slowly up each nail, dipping it into the pot occasionally to recoat it.

She giggled into the phone. “No,” she breathed, her soft whisper making me wince at how it made me feel. My brow lifted at her obvious flirting to something Lee had said to her. The sound of her laughter made me smile. She was so contrary, flirting one second, then giggling like a small child the next. I knew this girl had no idea of the effect she had over boys but she would find that seduction and teasing were two different things and would one day get her into trouble. Then again, after tonight she’d never… yeah.

“No, Mae’s in bed and my parents are in France, some conference of my mother’s.”

I shook my head, pissed off with how her parents had left them alone at such a young age.

“No you can’t!” She gasped. “I’m going to bed now.” She sighed and shook her head but smiled to herself. “Goodnight, Lee.”

She terminated the call and flung the phone onto the couch beside her. Her head tilted as she studied her toe decorating. “Oh, they’ll do,” she murmured to herself as her head lifted and she stared towards the TV.

I took a step further into the room, the thick carpet silencing my feet. I frowned when she stilled slightly but she didn’t look up. Taking another step, I bit my lower lip when she reached for the phone again, obviously about to make another call.