by Ryan Casey
Because this wasn’t her fight. It wasn’t his fight either.
It was all just some big standoff that’d spiralled out of control.
And now the conclusion seemed… inevitable.
“You lie there, and you take your beating,” James said. “You lie there, and you don’t say a thing. Let’s see how you feel when your old mum’s getting a bit of the same treatment, hmm?”
“James,” somebody shouted. Some discontent. A few people turning, clearly deciding this wasn’t for them. Like this was going too far.
But they weren’t the majority.
There were still so many people still not saying a thing.
Like silence was the best option.
James was clearly the hard man of the estate. The bloke you didn’t disagree with.
And the residual fear of what he might do if you didn’t agree with him or fall in line with him was palpable.
James ignored the weak protestations from the crowd. He grabbed Moira by her hair. Yanked her head back and kept on glaring into Nathan’s eyes. “Aren’t you gonna beg now?” he said. “Aren’t you gonna fight?”
Nathan just stared up at James, stared up into his eyes. He looked terrified. Beaten. Bruised.
But at the same time, there was a composure to him.
A calmness to him.
“Take me if you have to,” Moira said. “Take me. Just not my son. Not my boy.”
And then James did something that sparked a chorus of winces.
He smacked Moira across the face and knocked her to the road.
Nathan threw himself at James right away. Punched at him and scratched at him.
And James seemed to like that. He seemed to like that he’d squeezed some emotion out of Nathan. Like he’d got a kick out of it, even amid his own personal trauma.
He simply put his hands on Nathan’s shoulders. Squeezed them tight.
“That’s it,” he said. “That’s what I like to see. A bit of emotion. A bit of fight.”
And then he threw Nathan to the ground.
He walked over to Nathan.
Stepped right over him.
Looked down at him as he lay there on the road beneath him.
Nathan rolled around.
Looked back up at James, blood trailing down his face. “Take me. Not my mother. Take me.”
“Nathan, no,” Moira wailed.
“Take me. Because I killed your son. I’m the one who killed him. Not her. She hasn’t done a thing.”
James crouched over him.
Grabbed his hair.
“And that’s the thing,” James said. “The fact you’re begging for her so much, the fact you’re so desperate for her to live… you know what that does to me, don’t you?”
He yanked Nathan even closer.
“You know what it makes me want to do to her. Because of how it’ll make you feel. Right?”
Nathan stared back at him.
Fear in his wide eyes.
Not saying a word.
James smiled. “Yeah. I thought so.”
He threw him to the road.
Walked over to Moira.
Nathan scrambled to his feet as James grabbed Moira by the hair.
“I murdered him!” Nathan shouted.
The shout echoed around the estate.
James stopped.
Turned around.
Everything totally silent.
“What?”
Nathan kneeled right there. Tears rolling down his face. “I murdered your son. I could’ve saved him. I probably should have saved him. But instead… I killed him. I could have done something. I could have helped. But I didn’t. And I don’t regret it. I don’t regret it one bit. Because he deserved it. The little shit deserved it. For what he did to my dad.”
Gasps of horror amidst the crowd.
People who looked on the fence before now suddenly seemed angrier. More incensed.
And James just stood there, staring down at Nathan.
Nathan staring back up at him.
“I murdered the little shit, and he got what he deserved.”
James stood there. Shouts erupted. A few people started running forward towards Nathan. Angry people. And nobody was stopping them anymore. Nobody was restraining them.
“I murdered him, and he got what he deserved. The little shit got what he deserved while he was wailing in agony. Crying out for you.”
And that’s the thing that flipped the switch in James.
He let go of Moira, and he launched himself at Nathan.
He pushed him down to the road, and he punched him.
Again and again and again.
Punched his face as blood splattered up.
As the sound of his skull cracking cut through the echoing silence.
And as an angry mob descended on him, Max saw the way Nathan looked into his eyes.
Saw the way, just before his eyes swelled over completely, he looked at Max as if he meant this.
As if this was all part of the plan.
As if his sacrifice was to cause chaos, to give everyone else a chance.
He saw this look in his eyes.
And then Nathan disappeared under the angry mob.
All Max heard was shouting.
All he heard was the crack of heavy boots against Nathan’s body.
All he heard was Moira’s screaming.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Frank pulled back his foot and went to bury it into the murderous bastard, Nathan’s, skull, and then he froze.
He wasn’t sure what stopped him. This fucker had killed James’ son. And the people he was with had murdered his son, Sam. They deserved everything that was coming their way. Every fucking thing.
And yet looking down at the bloodied body of the man on the road, looking at the way his eye had swollen over all purple, at the way his cracked teeth lay on the road in a puddle of blood beside him… something just stopped Frank.
Because it didn’t feel right.
This didn’t feel right.
None of it felt right.
He looked at the mob of people. There were about fifteen of them beating the shit out of Nathan. The rest of the people on the estate stood back and looked on with wide eyes. Like they weren’t up for this, like they didn’t approve of it, but at the same time weren’t sure what to do about it, either. Like they didn’t want to step in.
Because this mob was angry. Real angry.
But Frank felt frozen in time right now. Like everything was just completely standing still.
And despite all his bubbling grief, despite how horrible he felt, how shitty he felt, despite everything, there was something inside him that wanted to step in.
To stop all of this.
Because everything he’d heard, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, told him that this really was all just one big accident.
A situation that had escalated completely out of control.
He watched as this mob kicked and punched Nathan. He watched as blood splattered out from his broken nose. He saw the way he held his broken, snapped arms up to his face, shaky, half-hearted. He saw it all, and as weird as it sounded, he saw his son on the floor before him. Sam.
Because this boy was someone else’s son.
His mother cried out beside him.
Tried to fight her way through the mob to get to her boy.
“Stop. Please! Please!”
But she just couldn’t break through.
Frank lowered his foot and put it on the floor.
Heart racing.
Sweat dripping down his face.
His head spinning.
Countless thoughts whirling around his mind.
Thoughts he couldn’t make sense of.
He knew one thing.
Just one thing.
This didn’t feel right.
“Stop,” Frank said.
But it didn’t get through.
Not even close.
Frank saw Cody’s shithead dad
, James, pummelling Nathan into the ground with his fists. He looked possessed. Like there was no getting through to him right now at all.
“Stop this, James,” Frank shouted. “Stop this. Now!”
He lunged towards James.
Grabbed his back and dragged him away from Nathan’s body.
James spun around in an instant.
Looked at Frank with those rabid, bloodshot eyes. “Keep your hands off me.”
“This isn’t the way, James. This isn’t the—”
A crack against his face.
A stinging thump, sending him hurtling to the road.
Head spinning.
A taste of blood on his lips.
He opened his eyes. Rolled onto his back. Saw James staring down at him, still with that look of rage in his eyes.
“You never try to stand in my way again, Frank. Ever. You ungrateful piece of shit. This isn’t just for my boy. It’s for our boys. Don’t you ever forget that.”
He turned around and walked back towards Nathan.
“It’s not about our boys for you, though, is it?”
James stopped.
He turned back around.
Looked down at Frank, lying there on the road.
“You what?”
Frank spat out a long, phlegmy string of blood. “It was never about Cody for you. It never was. He was never your priority. You never gave a shit about him when he was alive. So now’s a rich time to start giving a shit about him.”
James just stood there. Not saying a single word. Blood dripping from his fists. Staring down at Frank.
Frank sat up. Looked right at James, fully prepared for whatever might come next. Fully braced for whatever beating came his way. Ready for some pain.
Because maybe that’s what he needed.
Maybe the pain would help him process what’d happened to Sam.
Or maybe he was just losing his mind.
“You never gave a shit about Cody,” Frank repeated. “Everyone around here knows that. Just nobody dared say it because of who you were. Because of the links you had. Because of the drugs. But that’s all gone now. It’s all gone. You let Cody live like he ran the place, and he got our kids into shit, too. And that’s on you, James. That’s on you. Not these people. It’s on you.”
A silence fell across the estate. Nathan lay spluttering and beaten in the middle of the road. His mother was by his side now, crying, moving her hands over his body but unsure where to touch.
And the other people from the estate. Benny. Haz. People he recognised. People he knew. People whose barbecues he’d been to. People he’d drank at the pub with over Christmas just days before.
They were all standing around this beaten body.
All looking around at Frank.
And at James.
And with bated breath, all of them were waiting.
“This isn’t right,” Frank said, spitting out another phlegmy lump of blood. “This isn’t right, and you know it. All of you know it.”
He looked over at the girl, the one who’d supposedly killed Kelly. Standing there with a knife to her throat. Struggling to break free.
But staring at him.
Staring at him like he was the last beacon of hope.
And then there was the bloke. The one who looked sick. Really fucking sick. Pale. Covered in sweat.
He crouched on his knees over by a delivery van. Hands behind his back. A couple of tough nuts from the pub behind him, making sure he didn’t go anywhere.
Also staring at him.
James looked around. He looked at the people from the estate. The violent mob.
And then he looked at the rest of the crowd. The silent majority. The ones looking on like they wanted to step in. Like they wanted to stop this.
He looked at them all, and for a moment, just for a moment, Frank thought the tables might be turning.
He thought they might just be shifting.
And then James looked right into Frank’s eyes, and his nostrils twitched. “If that’s how you feel…”
He turned around, and he walked back over to Nathan.
He pulled back his boot, and he kicked him in the skull.
So hard Frank heard a crack.
Frank stood up. Head spinning. Nathan’s mum crying, the blow of the boot echoing around the estate.
“Stop!” Frank shouted. “St…”
It all happened so fast.
James turning around.
Pulling a knife out of nowhere.
Then burying it into Frank’s chest.
Frank felt the pain, more like an aching at first. An aching that turned into a burning. A burning pain that grew more and more intense, more and more excruciating by the second.
A pain that seemed to drain the life right from his body.
James stared into his eyes. Frank couldn’t hear properly, not anymore. Just the gasps. The gasps all around. The wide eyes of people he’d drank with. People he’d celebrated birthdays with. People he’d sent Christmas cards to.
All of them looking on.
James held the knife into his chest.
Pushed it harder, as warm blood trickled down Frank’s body.
“You shouldn’t have said those things,” James said. “Really. You shouldn’t. I didn’t want to do this. I liked you. But you should never say the things you said.”
Frank opened his mouth.
Went to say something.
Went to speak.
Blood oozed out of his mouth, stopped him saying a thing.
And it’s how James looked at him then that sent a shiver down his spine.
The smile.
The delight.
The sadistic pleasure Frank knew this bastard had in him all along.
And then it shifted. In a flash, a sympathetic look returned to his face.
A performance. That’s what it was. A performance, and nothing else.
“Goodbye, Frank,” James said. “I’ll be sure to avenge our sons. Because you weren’t strong enough to.”
He yanked the blade out of Frank’s chest.
Dizziness.
Weakness.
Agonising pain everywhere.
And as much as Frank wanted to stay on his feet, as much as he wanted to stand his ground, he couldn’t.
He fell to his knees.
Then his body collapsed to the floor, his face hitting the tarmac.
And as he lay there, drifting in thoughts and riddled with pain, as everything grew fuzzy and out of focus, like drifting off to sleep, Frank heard James’ words cut through the haze.
“Now to deal with the rest of you,” he said.
Then, everything faded to black.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Aoife stared at the scene before her and tried to comprehend everything she’d just witnessed.
The knife pressed into her neck but a little looser now. She could feel the arm of the bloke behind her shaking. Hear him muttering things under his breath, cursing. Like he’d been rattled by what he’d seen, too. By what he’d witnessed.
And she got it. She felt it. Because she felt the same way.
She looked at the blood on the road. The blood seeping out from Nathan’s battered, bruised, twitching body. And then she looked at Moira, lying on him, crying. She looked at this entire scene of misery, and she couldn’t even comprehend it anymore. She couldn’t even focus on anything anymore.
Anything other than the emptiness.
Anything other than the whispers.
Anything other than the blood.
She saw Nathan, and she felt herself crying. Because he was a good person. A good man. And he didn’t deserve that. He’d tried to help Cody, and then he’d been tipped over the edge.
This had all got out of hand. So out of hand.
And then there was Moira. She felt so sorry for her. She’d lost everything, all in one day.
And the scariest thing?
The hardest thing to swallow and digest?
I
t felt like there was still more to come.
It felt like this horror day wasn’t over.
Not yet.
She looked at the other man lying on the road. Sam’s dad. Saw the blood pooling out from his chest. Saw the people gathered around him. Some people by his side, checking his vitals. There was an air of shock about the place. A sense that the whole community was split. Torn.
Torn between what James had done and torn on whether to do something about it.
James stood there in the middle of the street. Blood dripping from his fists. From his knife.
And he was looking over at Aoife.
Rage in his eyes.
“Now to deal with the rest of you,” he said.
He started walking towards Aoife, then. Blood dripping from the knife as he got closer. And Aoife tried to break free of the grip of the man behind her. Tried to shake herself free. She couldn’t just accept her fate. Couldn’t just give up. She had to stand up. She had to fight.
“Please,” she said, shaking. And she hated begging. Hated feeling so weak. Hated feeling so reliant on others. But right now, she wasn’t sure she had any other choice. “This isn’t right. You heard Frank. This—this isn’t right.”
The man kept hold of her.
James kept walking towards her.
And in the distance, just over James’ shoulder, she saw Max.
Trying to move towards her.
Trying to help her.
But the people behind him just holding him down.
Stopping him going anywhere.
“Please,” Aoife said. “This isn’t right. This has gone too far. There has to be another way. Please.”
But the next thing she knew, James was standing right in front of her.
She could smell the sweat and the blood radiating from him. She could see red in his eyes.
And despite all the trauma, despite all he’d lost and all he’d done… was there a hint of a smirk?
And what did that mean for her?
What kind of man were they dealing with here?
“There’s no point struggling, love,” James said, stepping right up to her. Staring right into her eyes. “Your people crossed ours. I wanted to handle this diplomatically. All of us did. But it’s too late for that now.”