by Chloe Walsh
Altered,
A Carter Kids Novel,
Book Six,
By Chloe Walsh
Copyright:
The right of Chloe Walsh to be identified as the Author of the work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system – without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form or binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Altered,
Carter Kids #6,
First published, December 2017
All rights reserved. ©
Cover photo licensed from Shutterstock Inc.
Cover designed by Red Rebel Clover.
Edited by Aleesha Davis.
Proofreading by: Brooke Bowen Hebert
Disclaimer:
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
The author acknowledges all songs titles, song lyrics, film titles, film characters, trademarked statuses, brands, mentioned in this book are the property of, and belong to, their respective owners. The publication/ use of these trademarks is not authorized/ associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Chloe Walsh is in no way affiliated with any of the brands, songs, musicians or artists mentioned in this book.
All rights reserved ©
Table of Contents:
Copyright
Disclaimer
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Other books by Chloe Walsh
Acknowledgments
Playlists
About the Author
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my diehard readers in Chloe's Clovers.
Ride or die, girls.
#CloversForLife
Chapter One
Lucky
May 13th
When I opened the door of Thirteenth Street tonight, I had unintentionally opened the door of my past. The anger that had consumed me when I saw that rat-bastard with his jeans around his ankles, and Hope's legs forced open was like none I'd ever felt before.
At first, I thought I was in the middle of the same ongoing nightmare that had hounded me for thirteen years.
The one where I walked in on my girlfriend two seconds too late.
The one where I walked in on her bleeding out on the floor.
The one where I took a life for the first time, then cradled Hayley in my arms while I waited for the cops to come and take me away.
The one where I was too late.
Always too late.
But this wasn’t a nightmare.
This was real.
And the woman lying on the floor wasn’t Hayley.
It was Hope.
Everything that happened after that, once my brain made the connection and separated the past from the present, was on raw, primal instinct.
A red haze swept through my heart, throwing me into a rage-induced frenzy.
Blood thirsty, my heart demanded revenge on the man pressing himself between my woman's legs.
Unable to form a coherent thought, I allowed my body to take over as I ripped him away from her, my black heart demanding justice, demanding this bastard suffer for touching her.
My fists moved of their own accord as I pummeled into him until all that was left of his face was a bloody mass of flesh.
Her choked sobs only fed the beast inside of me.
The blood on her naked body pushed me closer to the brink of insanity.
The sound of bone crunching and splitting beneath my hands gave me no release.
It wasn’t enough.
Not enough by half.
That was when I noticed the knife, laying on the floor at her feet, splattered in her blood.
Without a word, I got to my feet, claimed the knife, and angled it in my hand, poised to kill.
Kneeling beside him, I waited for some sign of life.
He needed to see me.
I needed the bastard to know it was me.
When his eyelids fluttered open, assuring me that he was still conscious, I began to slit him, temple to jaw.
Slowly.
Relishing in the way he screamed out and begged for mercy, I continued to gut him, taking my time, making it count, making him suffer.
Unsatisfied, I grabbed his cock and lowered my knife, eyes locked on the coward's the entire time.
I waited until he gurgled out the word "please" and then cut down in one swift move before tossing the lifeless stump on his face.
Fucking rape her now, bastard.
Blood sprayed everywhere, drenching my face
and hands, assuring me that I had severed his vitality.
Good.
I hoped like hell it hurt.
The sound of Hope screaming was the only thing that brought me back to the present.
I flinched when I noticed her cowering in the corner, just a few feet from me, naked and trembling. The need to go to her overrode all other emotions inside of me and I finished him off with one final slash to his throat.
I was shaking when I stood up and tossed the knife away, but it wasn’t from regret or fear or any human emotion.
I was shaking because I wasn’t sated.
Because it wasn’t enough for me.
Death was too fucking good for him.
I watched Hope scramble to her feet and just like that, the heart I had been so sure was frozen in my chest, burst back to life, hammering violently against my ribcage.
All thoughts of violence and notions of revenge evaporated at the sight of her terrified face as she gaped at me in fear.
She was afraid.
Of me.
Pain seared through me, gutting my heart open, and leaving me vulnerable to the one person on this earth with the ability to break me.
Because I loved her.
I was so damn deeply in love with this woman that I was suffocating under the insufferable weight of my feelings.
Blood was flowing freely down her left cheek, causing panic to lace through my body.
Without a word, I stepped over the lifeless body at my feet and grabbed the towel hanging off the draining board before cautiously approaching Hope.
As gently as possible, I pressed the towel to her slashed face, cringing inside when she flinched at the contact.
I didn’t want to scare her, but I needed to stop the bleeding.
I needed to fix her.
Unable to speak, but needing to do something – fucking anything – I ripped off my hoodie and began to dress her. I couldn’t stand the sight of her trembling, and if I had to look at her battered, naked body a second longer, I was going to lose what little was left of my self-control.
"Oh god," she cried out, breaking the horrifying silence that had settled over us. "Oh god!" She looked up at my face then to the body as a sob racked through her. "Oh god, Hunter," she repeated hoarsely. Knotting her hands in my shirt, Hope pulled me close to her and whispered, "What have we done?"
And that's when it happened; the moment my life altered irrevocably.
The woman I had just committed the most heinous of crimes in front of wasn’t pushing me away.
She wasn’t running for the hills.
Hope Carter had witnessed first-hand how dark I could go, and she was pulling me closer.
It didn’t matter what happened from here on out, I would always belong to her.
Fucking always.
"It's okay," I promised, wrapping her up in my arms, dying a little more inside every time a sob tore from her. "Shh." Holding her tighter than I probably should have, I continued to whisper promises in her ear, telling her everything she needed to hear. "Everything is going to be okay."
And I meant it.
Everything would be okay.
For her.
I would make sure of it.
"You killed him," Hope repeated over and over again, clinging to my body like it was her lifeline. "You killed him for me."
"I love you," was all I could say in this moment. "There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you."
I held her until she grew quiet, but the sounds of her feeble protests and desperate pleas for mercy were still racing around in my mind.
Like a torturous fucking memory on slow repeat, the sound of her begging that bastard for mercy was ringing in my ears, pushing me closer to the line between my sanity and the monster within.
Unsure of my next move, I inhaled a calming breath.
Touching her seemed to be the only thing keeping me sane.
Running my hands all over her, making sure she was in one piece, still breathing.
She swayed against me, body bruised and broken, but still in one piece.
Fuck!
Why had this happened?
Why her?
What if I hadn't come here?
We needed a plan.
A fucking plan.
I couldn't think.
I needed to get her to the hospital.
I needed to think.
I couldn’t fucking think straight.
I was good under pressure.
This was what I did; I cleaned shit up.
So why the fuck couldn’t I think right now?
Goddammit to hell.
My pulse was racing, heart hammering in my chest, adrenalin shooting through my veins.
What the fuck was the matter with me?
Her.
Her.
Fucking her.
I couldn’t see straight.
My feelings for her were clouding my survival instincts.
I'd made mistakes.
I'd left a trail.
God fucking dammit!
The smell of blood was thick and blanketing us both.
What the fuck did I do now?
She needed to get out of here.
Keep her safe, was my only thought.
She needed a doctor.
She needed…something I couldn’t give to her.
Which was exactly why I had to turn myself in.
"Wait – don’t leave me," she cried out when I stepped out of her embrace.
Unable to look her in the eyes, I shoved my hand into my jeans pocket and grabbed my phone.
Taking myself away from her would be the hardest thing I'd ever do, but this wasn’t about me. This was about Hope.
I had no fucking clue how to handle this.
She was a woman.
What had happened to her?
She needed to be heard.
I wasn’t selfish enough to protect myself by forcing her silence.
Hell fucking no…
"Hunter, please!" she cried out, tone laced with desperation. "Don’t leave me."
"I'm not going anywhere," I forced myself to say in as soothing tone I could muster, even though I was lying through my teeth. "I just need to make a call."
"Who are you calling?"
"The cops, Hope," I admitted, "and an ambulance."
"The cops?" She shook her head. "They'll arrest you."
"I know."
"Hang it up," she ordered, tone shaky but eyes full of…determination. "Hang up the fucking phone, Hunter!" Stalking towards me, she smacked my cell out of my hand.
"Hope, I have to call them, sweetheart."
"No. No!" she hissed, shaking her head. "Don’t leave me," she whispered, voice small and weak. Wrapping her hand around my forearm, she clutched on tightly. "Please. Stay here with me."
"What do you want me to do here, Hope?" Raking my hands through my hair, I exhaled a ragged breath. "There's a body in there, sweetheart, with my prints all over it, and you need to see a doctor. Your face..." I cut myself off, needing a goddamn minute to form the words and verbalize my worst nightmare. "Goddammit, Hope, that piece of shit raped–"
"He didn’t," she blurted out, saving me from finishing the sentence. "You stopped him, Hunter. You saved me!"
I couldn’t speak.
I didn’t trust myself right now.
The relief flooding through my body was making it hard to catch my breath.
You stopped him…
But what if she was lying to me?
What if he did rape her?
Fuck, she needed to be in the hospital, not here in the center of a crime scene.
Hope moved then.
Knotting her fingers in my shirt, she looked up at me and said, "That man was sent here to kill me! If it weren't for you, he would have." She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. "And you are not going back to prison for saving my life."
"What are you saying?"
She looked into my eyes and I could feel it, right down into the
darkest part of me, the pull between us.
She was seeing me, the worst fucking parts of me, and she wasn’t leaving.
Her feet were firmly on the ground.
Her hand was wrapped tightly in mine, eyes locked on me.
She was here.
She was staying.
And then she blew my world to pieces with eight words, "I'm saying we get rid of the body."
"Hope." Struggling to find the words to express just how deeply she had affected me with that offer, I whispered, "No, baby." I couldn’t do that to her. I wasn’t putting this on her, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to taint her light with my darkness. "No."
"No?" She gaped at me like I had suddenly started spouting a foreign language. "What do you mean no?"
"I'm not taking you down with me," I stated calmly. Goddammit, didn’t she see I was trying to protect her here? I was trying to keep her safe from this world she had no part of. And there she was, muddying the waters. "No fucking way."
"You're not going to prison," she hissed, tears streaming down her face. "I won't let you do this… I won't let you leave me."
"Hope –"
"No, Hunter," she screamed, growing hysterical again, eyes flashing with fear and determination. "No!"
I felt her release my hand moments before she jerked out of my embrace and dove for the knife on the floor.
"Don’t fucking touch that, baby," I strangled out, watching in despair as she infiltrated herself deeper into my world. "Goddammit, Hope!"
"Now you have no choice," she warned, voice trembling as she mixed her fingerprints with mine – as she corrupted the evidence. "We're in this together."
Dropping the knife, she barreled into my arms. "Together," she sobbed, pressing her blood-stained face to my chest. "Promise me that we'll stick together!"
"I promise," I croaked out, letting my heart get the better of my common sense. I wrapped her up in my arms and exhaled a shuddering breath. She was here. Living. Breathing. In my arms. "Shh, baby," I coaxed, trying to soothe her. "I've got you."
****
Chapter Two
Jordan
Several hours had passed since Hope ran out, and I had tried calling her countless times. Every one of those calls had gone straight to voicemail.
Something was wrong.
