For the first time in months, doubt crept into his mind. Could he stop? Could he walk away from the contract, knowing that Charmaine's salvation hung in the balance? Or would it be worse to finish it, to take one more life and know that he had fully become the thing he once despised?
The thought made him sick. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the images of the bodies, the blood, the look on Charmaine's face when she saw him standing over that corpse. Her revulsion had cut him deeper than any knife.
But still, the demon's words echoed in his mind, seductive and insistent. One more. Just one more, and it will all be over.
Charles pushed himself off the wall, his mind clouded with conflicting thoughts. He knew he couldn't stop now. Not after everything. He had sacrificed too much to back out. Charmaine's disgust, her anger—none of that mattered if he could save her in the end.
