Branded

by Wild, Clarissa

  No one who gives a shit about this family survives.

  So I’m making it a point now to stop caring.

  I’m no longer part of this family.

  All I am is Dixie … a girl who so desperately wanted something better. Something worthwhile. Something she could be proud of.

  I take a deep breath and lick my lips. The rain tastes like freshly mown grass and new beginnings.

  Maybe it’s time to finally move on.

  So I look up from the dull ground and focus on the sunlight breaking through the gray clouds. That’s when I notice him …

  A man in a black suit, holding an umbrella in one hand and a crutch in the other as he stands behind a tree beyond the graveyard. When our eyes meet, he knows I know he’s there, but he doesn’t seem to care. Maybe he wants me to see that he’s here for me.

  Always watching over me. Never too close to get in my way, but always near to remind me I’m not alone.

  And even on this bleak, shrouded day, I smile.

  He smiles back.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Brandon

  In her knee-length black dress, she walks down the gravel path, exiting the graveyard. I can’t stop looking at her. She’s just as beautiful as she was when I first met her all those years ago, if not more beautiful now that we’ve both grown up.

  Our eyes connect again, and I feel inclined to look away, but I don’t. Something about her perfect face forces me to engage. It doesn’t allow me to walk away.

  So I stand and wait as she walks to me with soft steps, almost as if she’s tentatively waiting for me to approach her too. But I stay put. It’s not my place to decide when the time is right.

  She swallows, and I do too. My body feels jittery as though I’m supposed to run or do some stupid push-ups against the tree even though I have a fucking crutch. Does it look dumb? It probably does, but I need it to be able to stand although I wish I could chuck it in the bushes right now and make it disappear.

  Damn, just looking at her smile makes me feel like a goddamn teenager again. The last time I felt this way was when she stepped into my papa’s shop for the first time and bought that awful shirt.

  God, that feels like ages ago.

  “Hey,” she murmurs when she’s in front of me.

  I clear my throat. “Hey.”

  “Are you visiting someone, or are you spying on me just for fun?” she asks, winking.

  There’s only one reason I’m here, and that’s her.

  But I don’t want to sound like a stalker even though I definitely am.

  “I’m just your friendly neighborhood bodyguard,” I jest.

  A cute, lopsided grin spreads on her lips. “Do I need a bodyguard?”

  I smirk. Touché.

  I don’t know why, but I felt compelled to be here as her father’s service ended. Like she needed me to be here so she could close that chapter once and for all without fear of losing everyone in her life. Even if she hates me, at least she still has that.

  But being next to her, side by side, while they put her dad’s body in the ground seemed a bit too close. I only wanted her to know I was there and that she wasn’t alone in her misery.

  I tug on my collar. “I came to give you this,” I say, pulling my pendant off and holding it out to her.

  She blinks a couple of times. “I can’t take that,” she says, shaking her head. “That’s your papa’s pendant, right?”

  I’m surprised she remembers. “My papa gave this to me after my ma died. In our family, it’s customary to give this to someone you want to protect,” I say, pushing it into her hand and closing her fingers over it. “I want you to keep it. Please.”

  She looks up at me with those same innocent eyes I once saw when she stood in front of me in my papa’s shop, and all I can think about is how badly I want to kiss her pain away.

  But my lips don’t have that kind of power.

  A tentative smile edges her face. “I … don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” I reply, and we both look down at the ground, unable to look each other in the eyes. There’s so much I wanna say to her, but I don’t know where and if I should even start.

  So I opt for the most important words of all. “I’m sorry.”

  I can’t say it enough. No number of apologies will ever bring any of her family members back, but it’s a start.

  Her chest rises and her nostrils flare as she takes in a breath as if she’s inhaling my words to the fullest. Then she nods a few times, licking her lips.

  She doesn’t have to say anything. I should be the one to say all the words, but there aren’t enough in the dictionary to describe how sorry I am for putting her through all that anguish.

  “I should’ve known my uncle was the culprit. I should’ve known you were speaking the truth. I should’ve—”

  She puts a finger on my lips, and says, “Don’t. Just … don’t say anything please.”

  I nod. Every word I utter fails to give her peace.

  She has every right to be angry, and I won’t even attempt to take that emotion away from her. Nothing I do or say will erase what I’ve done.

  So I grab her hand and press a soft kiss to the top before turning around and walking off with my umbrella held high while my head slumps. Not because of sadness or despair. It’s the guilt that weighs me down. The shame that drags me away from her.

  If I cannot provide her comfort, I will give her someone to blame.

  An enemy she can hate for the rest of her life.

  At least then I may be of some use to her after all.

  “Wait!” she suddenly yells. “When will I see you again?”

  I don’t know the answer to that question.

  The only thing I know is that I still have some things to take care of. Some people to punish for ruining both my family and hers. People my uncle associated himself with.

  People whose names I have tattooed on my skin.

  Still, I can’t help but smile at the sound of her voice ringing in my ears.

  I will keep it in my heart as I walk off, knowing she’ll be all right.

  Even if we never meet again.

  * * *

  A few days later

  I open the back of my truck, which I finally got back, and show Chase my shiny new prize that I found. A muzzled, tied up screaming man. Or more specifically … one of the men my uncle called to kill Dixie’s brothers. With my uncle’s phone in my pocket, he wasn’t hard to track down. All it took was a few calls, pretending to be another client, and then surprising him somewhere off the road. And here we are.

  “I’m so fucking glad you called me up for some fun,” Chase says with a big smile on his face as he grabs the huge black bag lying next to the man. “Now this I can help with.”

  “You sure are excited,” I say as I check the surroundings to make sure we’re alone.

  “It’s been too long,” Chase says.

  “All clear,” I say, and we hoist the man out of the truck.

  He squirms and screams for help, but no one will come for him here. We’re at a remote warehouse, one of my favorite locations to take care of … people like him. I don’t want to call him human because he’s far from being one. All this man does is take the worst of the worst jobs. Instead of killing people who actually deserve it, he just takes the ones that pay out the best.

  He’s one half of the two responsible for murdering Dixie’s brothers, and I’m about to hold him accountable for this sin.

  As we drag him inside and strap him to a chair in the middle, his gag somehow gets loose.

  “Don’t fucking do this! Please!”

  I smack him in the face, and yell back, “Don’t you fucking talk to me.”

  He spits out blood in my face. “Like you’re so innocent …”

  I punch him again for good measure. But damn, does it hurt my knuckles, so I better not do that again.

  “Don’t rough him up too much,” Chase says, throw
ing the black bag on the floor. The cling-clang sound it makes has the man’s attention. “Otherwise, there’s nothing left to have fun with.”

  When Chase pulls out a pair of bolt cutters, the man’s eyes widen, and he begins to screech.

  “Please, no! Fuck, no! I’ll do anything. Just tell me what to do.”

  I bend over and grab his chin. “Nothing. You’ve already done too much.” My smile makes him cower in fear.

  Chase approaches him with the bolt cutters and a vicious grin on his face. “Who’ll do the honors?”

  “You do it. I don’t think I have the patience to wait this one out,” I say, and I step away. “I just wanna murder him.”

  “Aww, but we gotta have some fun first,” he says as he grabs the man’s feet and pulls off his shoes and socks. “Which toe shall we take first?”

  “Please! Don’t!” the man begs, and I turn around to face the wall. I can’t look at this piece of garbage without wanting to rip his eyes out for what he did to Dixie. “I’ll give you anything. Money. Cars. Women. My fucking house. Anything, you can have it.”

  I don’t want anything he’s got to offer … except his blood.

  Chase doesn’t say a word and neither do I. Instead, all I hear is the man’s scream.

  And fuck me, does it feel good.

  “Why? Why?” the man asks, his voice shaky as his blood spills on the floor.

  “Why?” I repeat, marching toward him and grabbing him by the throat. “Remember those two boys at that farm in Springhaven?” I ask.

  He shakes his head, snot dripping down his lips.

  Of course, he doesn’t. He’s probably killed dozens more like them. As if they were meaningless lives. Today, he’ll learn his lesson.

  Chase cuts off another toe, and I watch his eyes as they roll into the back of his head from the pain. The yowl that escapes his mouth is as delicious as I imagined it to be.

  “The one you stabbed to death? Sliced the other’s throat? They were innocent … and they were young. Too young to die.”

  “No, I don’t know. I’m sorry, please. Whatever I did.”

  Chase cuts off another one, and the cries that come from his throat are like a song to me. I can’t stop watching the way his lip curls up and his fingernails dig into the chair he’s strapped to.

  “Remember me? I’m the boy you forced to help kill those twins that night.” I push my index finger against his chest. “Because of you, my life was destroyed.”

  He swallows, his eyes red and stained with tears. “Okay, yes, yes, I remember.”

  I’m looking right at him, but I don’t believe any of the shit he’s saying.

  So I close my eyes and sigh while Chase cuts off another one of his toes.

  This goes on and on until he has none left.

  When they’re all gone, the man soils himself. “Please, just kill me,” he pleads.

  I guess he could only ever dish out the pain … not take it.

  I smile and suck in a deep breath as I watch him go deeper into despair, that same place I once crawled out from.

  “No, I think we’ll have more fun with you. After all, you deserve it for bringing so much pain into the world.”

  And Chase grabs his hands and begins to cut his fingers off too.

  We keep going until everything is gone. Well, Chase is. I’m enjoying the sight while smoking a cigarette lit with my very own Zippo. The same one that was the catalyst for nearly every shitty thing that ever happened to me. But I could never throw this thing away, despite hating it so much. It came from a good place; my papa’s shop. He held it in his hands once, and I can’t help but feel some kind of peace whenever I stare at the gleaming metal. It’s as much a part of me as I am a part of it.

  “I think he’s finished,” Chase says when the man is nearly passed out. He fishes a canister from the bag. “You wanna do the honors?”

  “Hell yes,” I reply, and I dump the oil all over the man.

  Nothing but painful sounding groans comes from his mouth as I throw the canister back into the bag and then open my Zippo.

  “Got any last words?” I ask.

  Slumped over, he shakes his head, completely defeated. As he should be since his miserable, cruel life is coming to an equally cruel end.

  “Enjoy hell,” I growl, and I light the line I drew with the oil on fire, setting the man ablaze.

  Chase nods at me and picks up the black bag, tucking everything away again. “Good seeing you again, Brandon,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I say as we both walk out the warehouse.

  “Always happy to help,” he replies, smiling like a motherfucker.

  Boy, am I glad I found a friend like him.

  If you could call it that.

  Maybe a mutually beneficial partnership is more appropriate.

  “Call me when you find another one,” Chase says as he gets into his own car.

  “I will,” I reply as he shuts the door and drives off.

  I definitely will.

  Two down, one more to go …

  And then I can finally put it all behind me with a burning crescendo.

  Chapter Forty

  Dixie

  A few months later

  I haven’t seen Brandon since that day at the graveyard. I don’t know where he’s gone or what he’s doing, but I feel like he’s still watching over me somedays. Like he’s spying on me from the corner or from the shop down the street.

  I don’t know why, but I smile every time I think about it, knowing he’s out there somewhere, alive and well. Somehow, it gives me peace of mind. Maybe it’s for the best that we haven’t talked in a while. It’s given me some time to think about what I really value and want in my life.

  Like the farm. I finally took it upon myself to transform what was left of the farmhouse into an actual workplace. Now I can craft my gadgets there instead of in that dirty old shed. And I’ve even set up a cash register, shelves, and an actual sign outside that says Dixie’s Gadgets & Goodies. I’ll be selling all the good stuff here from homemade lamps to handcrafted decorations for around the house. I’ve already gotten a few happy customers, so I’m confident I can turn this into a profitable business with the help of a bit of word of mouth and some smartly planted advertisements around the town.

  I was never a real farmer girl to begin with, so this was the perfect way to turn over a new leaf and start something fresh.

  The house isn’t finished yet, though. Refurnishing and redoing the inside is taking up a lot of my time, but I want it to be perfect because the property belongs to me now. It’s the only good thing my dad left me, and I’m gonna damn well enjoy it for as long as it’ll last me.

  A girl all alone on her family’s farm. Who would’ve thought?

  And to think, months ago I had bombed a goddamn hotel and got taken by a very handsome but very brutal man who couldn’t keep his hands off me. It’s still mindboggling to me that I went through all that and came back alive. And that I’m not in jail.

  Somehow, neither Brandon nor I were even on the police’s radar. The only person they were after was Josiah Locklear, who went down as a drug-selling mafia lord who killed my dad and got blamed for the deaths of my brothers too.

  I’m truly surprised they didn’t arrest me for that bomb, though. I guess my outfit concealed my identity perfectly. That, and I’m lucky the next hotel owner wrote off the incident as a gas explosion. I don’t think they wanted to deal with the mess Josiah left, which means I’m off the hook. Lucky me.

  For the first time in my life, it feels as though I can finally do whatever I damn well please, and it feels good.

  With a big smile on my face and carrying a paper bag filled with groceries for the day, I make my way through town. For some reason, people seem much happier now. That, or I’m just noticing it more. I’m noticing a whole lot more things now that there’s no pressure for me to move on with my life.

  Like for example, the fact that a man in a black suit with long black hair jus
t stepped out of the local tattoo shop and makes a hasty retreat.

  It pushes all my buttons. All of them.

  And after dropping off my groceries in the back of my car, I immediately head back to the tattoo shop. If it is who I think it is, I need to know what he’s doing there.

  I walk into the tattoo shop and go up to the cashier’s desk. “Hey … can I ask who that man was just now?”

  A pierced-up guy with green hair stops drawing on a paper and looks up at me. “Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t tell you,” he says. “First, I’m not allowed. And second, he never actually said his name.”

  “What did he come here for? A new tattoo?” I ask, frowning.

  He shrugs. “He just had a bunch of names tatted on his back and wanted another one. Oh, and he had one removed too. Weird dude, if you ask me.”

  “Did he tell you where he was going?”

  “Nah. Sorry, I can’t help you out. Unless you want a tat of course.” He winks. “I’d be happy to give you one at a discount.”

  “No, but thanks,” I reply, smiling awkwardly before leaving the shop again.

  It was definitely Brandon. No question about it. No one else I know has long black hair and names tattooed on his back. It had to be him. But why was he there? And what’s he planning to do?

  I still remember seeing those names on his back as if it was yesterday. My name was there too, which frightened the shit out of me because I knew it was a hit list. Brandon even admitted it was. So if he added another name on his back, does that mean he made more enemies?

  And what is he planning on doing about it?

  Will he keep killing until no one’s left and then come after me last? To erase all his connections to the past and be free of his guilt?

  I swallow away the lump in my throat. I’m not afraid of him anymore. The thought of dying used to rile me up like nothing else. It made me fight harder than ever, but now? All I want is peace.