Rose was shocked, completely, utterly shocked. She had never seen such fierceness and coldness in executing a man. The violence the woman she was now following had been different from the one Rose had witnessed so far. It had been cold and just. There hadn’t been screaming or bragging on the tall woman’s part. She had killed the bastard as soon as she had gotten a whiff of what had happened between them.

Rose shivered, thinking of the man who had invaded her house after the apocalypse, claiming to be her boyfriend.

“So, Jaji-boy, still ready to be diplomatic and all?” Epagogia asked with a grin.

Apparently, the situation in Blacksoil had been much more twisted than what Jacob had thought. So many men had targeted single and married women. They had killed husbands if husbands had been present. Otherwise, they just settled in their house, saying they would need as many new children as possible to face this apocalypse.

To make things worse, the vice-mayor had been the one who murdered the mayor, who had started opposing these monsters.

Jacob had seen many horrors, but this was going to make his personal list of the most twisted things he had seen among humans. Not the top of the list, not even close, but even making his list spoke louder than words.

Rose had told them everything, and now she and Martin were showing them where each of these men resided.

“Are some of them outside hunting or anything like that?” Jacob asked.

“They usually do that in the morning. But, then, they use the afternoon for the… baby-making,” Rose said with a knot in her throat.

“Let’s get Juliet and the others,” Jacob said with anger in his voice. At first, he had thought there had been abuse from Rose’s husband, which was so commonplace in the apocalypse that Jacob had barely reacted; he would have still solved that problem, but with sadness, and not anger, in his heart.

But now, things were different. The degeneracy in this town called for anger.

A lot of anger.

…

Juliet saw Jacob coming toward her while she was speaking to the vice-mayor. The man told her that they mostly had the situation under control and that most of their people didn’t really want to move to St. Peter since they loved Blacksoil so much. However, they were at the door of his house since he had refused to let them in, making some weird excuse.

Jacob strolled over with a woman and a child behind him and Epagogia. Juliet felt an insane amount of anger through the Ancestral Bond, and in a second, she shared Jacob’s feelings for the vice-mayor.

Juliet’s attitude did a 180-degree turn, and one of her arms exploded with flames.

“What happening?” the man suddenly shrieked. He knew that the freaks from St. Peter were incredibly strong and that they had no hopes of fighting them. But so far, they had managed beautifully to keep their ruse and exploit the privilege of being in charge of the city.

“Keep him alive for the moment,” Jacob pointed toward the man and told Epagogia. Then he stepped over to Juliet and the others.

…

“And that’s what happened,” Jacob saw the disgusted expressions of everyone, a mix of anger and pure despise.

“We need to kill those bastards!” Maria, Francis’s mom, said.

“Yes, you all will help apprehend and execute these people on the spot,” Jacob’s voice was icy. He knew this would create a lot of trauma among the newbies and kids who had never seen blood, but it was a necessary step for their growth. They needed people able to kill without flinching when necessary.

“What?” Frank looked confused.

“We will catch the bastards for you. Then, if we have enough of them, each one of you will have to kill one. There is no place for pity here. It will be your initiation to the apocalypse and the wars that will come our way, your baptism in blood. And remember, this is just the first horror you will witness in your life,” Jacob’s words rattled the crowd.

“Wow, Jaji-boy, I didn’t know you had something like this in you,” Epagogia whispered to him from the side, amused.

Juliet stared at Jacob, who had clearly thought this decision through enough to take it.

“I don’t want to kill people,” one of the students who had followed Juliet said.

Jacob went up to him and unsheathed his sword.

“Well, everyone’s going to. And you are the first,” Jacob handed him the sharp artifact.

THIS FILTHY KID’S HANDS ARE NOT WORTHY OF THIS KEVIN’S HILT. IMMEDIATELY REMOVE ME FROM—

Jacob ignored the sword and pushed it in the kid’s hands.

“Put that idiot on his knees,” Jacob had just decided they didn’t need to consult a monster. People would start making a person out of the monster he was if they heard him talk long enough.

“What’s your name?” he asked the kid who was trembling so hard he threatened to drop the sword on his own feet.

“I don’t want to kill that person!” the kid cried.

“Yes! Yes! I didn’t do—”

Epagogia put her hand over the man’s mouth.

“It’s not your choice to take. You have rapers and murderers in front of you. So you either kill,” Jacob said while slowly moving a hand to the neck of the kid, “or get killed.”