Mercenary by Michelle Horst

OLIVIA
I’ve always been a healer, a saver of lives, until the day my life is taken from me. A drunk driver destroyed my life and got away with a slap on the wrist.
Where children used to be happy to see me, they now run from me.
I want him to pay, to suffer just like I’m suffering. I want him dead.
I used to be scared of my neighbor. But since the switch in me is flipped and I’ve become this monster, I’m drawn to him like a moth is drawn to a flame. He’ll burn me – just like the flame will turn the moth into nothing but ashes – and I’m okay with that as long as I get my revenge.

MASON
I deal in death. Killer. Assassin. Mercenary. I go by many names.
I miss the smell of baking that used to come from her apartment. I see the hate festering in her eyes, killing the light that shone so bright. It lit the darkness in me.
I used to be a killer until that car hit her. It woke something in me, a need to save her.
How does a wolf save a lamb without the darkness in him devouring the little light that’s left in her?