Just as suddenly as it began the noise was gone, all I could hear was cursing, followed by grunts. Pressing my ear against the door, I could hear what sounded like someone being beaten. There were muffled voices, followed by yelling, the person yelling sounded like Gargoyle in pain. Fuck, they were beating him, and I couldn’t do anything to stop them. I jumped back at the sound of knocking on the door.
“Come out Lizzie, or we’ll make mincemeat pie out of your little boyfriend out here.” Shit, it was Michael! How had he found me?
“Don’t listen...umpf.” I heard Gargoyle trying to tell me to stay put, but if they really wanted to, they could bust down the bathroom door in seconds. There was no way I was going to let them continue to beat Gargoyle if I could save him though. Every fiber of my being was screaming at me to stay put, to make them come in after me if they really wanted me, but I couldn’t let someone else take a beating for me.
I clicked the lock open and was briefly aware of Gargoyle yelling at me not to, right before he was cuffed upside the head by a pistol from one of Michael’s goons. No sooner did I open the door than I was dragged out by Vinnie himself. His grip on my arms bruised, but I tried not to let on. Vinnie liked pain; he got off on it. Instead, I looked him straight in the eye glaring my hate for him.
Looking over at Gargoyle he has blood running down the side of his head, his nose is busted, and his lip is starting to swell. He manages to give me a wink, but I’m not buying his act, he’s hurt. Looking around I notice bodies on the floor, they aren’t moving, and I don’t think they ever will again. At least Gargoyle took some of the bastards out before they took him down.
“Tell your goon to get his fucking hands off me. I came out, let him go.” Michael walked over to me, pulling me from Vinnie’s grip.
“You don’t get to give me orders Lizzie, I give the orders. Remember I own you, you little gnash, I tell you who to fuck and when.” Stars danced before my eyes as he slapped me across the face, I could feel blood start to drip from my nose. Gargoyle growled, attempting to get out of the restraints they had him in. “Now as for your little boyfriend here, he doesn’t get a free pass. He touched my daughter, I can’t let that pass.” I scoffed at his insinuation he was protecting me, especially since I knew what he had planned for me.
“He’s not my boyfriend, he’s never touched me, let him go.” I can see Michael's mind working overtime, thinking about what he’s going to do to teach me some lesson he thinks I should learn. “Please, just let him go, I’ll go with you without a fight, just let him go.”
“Didn’t you hear your father, you don’t make the rules, he does, and soon I will.” Vinnie sneered in my face, causing me to back away from him before he snatched my arms again. There was no way I was going to let him touch me anymore than I had to. “Kill him”
“NO!” I tried to make it to Gargoyle; we locked eyes for a second he shook his head at me to stop.
“Look away beautiful, just look away, and it will be over before you know it. Do it you bastard, I’ll make sure to save you a place in hell right next to me.” I struggled against whoever was holding me back, I clawed and screamed at them to stop, tears streaming down my face. The gunshots rang out in the room; I stopped my fighting and watched as he slumped to the ground. Whoever was holding me let go enough for me to make it to his body.
I held his head in my lap, blood spilling from his chest, and he blinked up at me. Something inside me broke as I looked down at a man; I was responsible for his death. I shattered into a million pieces knowing it was my fault Gargoyle had been there, it was my fault he was lying here dying in my arms.
“I’m so sorry.” He reached up and squeezed my hand.
“Tell Pops he’s a lucky bastard, I would have tried to steal you from him.” He coughed and blood spilled from his lips; I knew it wouldn’t be long now. “Couldn’t these assholes have given me one to the skull; this shit is painful as fuck.” I ignored the other men in the room as I held him against me. “You know if I’d known getting shot would have landed me in your lap I might have tried that to begin with.” He coughed again, this time more blood spilled from his lips. “Fuck, my pocket, get in my...pocket. Yeah there, you wanted to know my name, everything is in there.” He looked like he was going to say more, but his breath seemed to catch, and his face contorted in pain.
He was gone; I sat there sobbing for a while before I felt someone tug me up. I was thrown over their shoulders as they walked out of the room, leaving Gargoyles body just lying there on the floor. I was broken, Michael had succeeded, there was no more fight left in me. Even if Castor gave a shit about me before, once he found out I was the one responsible for the death of Gargoyle, he’d never want anything to do with me again. I cried until there were no more tears left to shed.
Chapter Seven
POPS
Red and blue lights greeted me as I pull into the motel where Beth and Gargoyle were staying. Panic seized my chest; I could see the men in blue walking into their room number. A cold numbness crept over my body, then they brought out the stretcher with the body covered in black. My limbs started to move before my mind caught up; I rushed over to the stretcher.
“Sir, you need to backup, this is a police investigation.” They were rolling away the stretcher toward an ambulance and the young cop held me back by my arm. I could have gotten out, but he was only doing his job, and I didn’t need to get arrested.
“Sorry, I was...just curious that’s all. What happened up there?” I try to keep my voice as calm as possible, I need answers, and can’t risk them questioning me.
“Sorry sir, I can’t reveal any details in an ongoing investigation. Wait a second, that vest, that’s what the guy was wearing. Detective Brewer!” A thousand things ran through my head thinking of all the possible scenarios that could have happened inside that motel room. I briefly thought about running, but knew I needed to know what exactly happened. I stayed put as a tall lanky man in a suit walked towards me. Standing in silence while the young cop talked with the detective about me and my cut matching the one on the “other guy”, I bit my tongue to keep from yelling at them to hurry the fuck up.
“Hello, I’m Detective Brewer and you are?” In my head I’d already throat punched this asshole six times, but reminding myself I needed his help to get answers, I tamped it down a notch.
“Name’s Castor, but everyone calls me Pops. Can you tell me what happened up there?” The detective pulled the yellow police tape up and over his body, coming closer to where I was standing.
“Unfortunately I can’t reveal much, we’re still investigating, but I’m guessing you knew at least one of the people in that room. Didn’t you?” Straight to the point, I had to give the guy points for not beating around the bush.
“Yeah, I had a man in there, but you already guessed that much. The question is what else did you find up there, or who else did you find up there?” Where was Bethy? Where was Gargoyle? Were they both in police custody? Fuck, so many questions I wanted to rattle off to this guy, but I couldn’t give him too much.
“I’d like to tell you we found rainbows and butterflies in that room, but that’s not the case. If the man we found up there is yours, we’ll need you to come identify him. Think you could do that?” He said man, not woman, fuck that could mean they got away; I almost let out a breath. Then I remembered the guy they saw was wearing one of my patches that meant it could be Gargoyle on that stretcher after all. Which would mean Bethy was out there somewhere, without protection. Needing to know if it was Gar, I told the detective I’d follow him to the morgue to identify the body if I could.
The ride to the morgue felt like it took eternity, but it was less than thirty minutes. My hands were sweaty as I got off the bike and headed inside with Brewer. We were both silent as we made our way downstairs to the coroner’s office. Deep down I knew it was Gar, but there was a part of me that prayed somehow he’d managed to get away with Bethy.
“It’s just in here. Have you ever had to do this bef
ore?” Too fucking many times to count is what I wanted to tell him, but instead I just shook my head no. He looked at me as if I was the scum of the earth. “So this happens a lot in your crew, does it?”
“No, actually this is the first death in a while for my crew, but I helped recover remains from war zones when I was active.” His attitude took a complete one eighty after hearing that, he nodded leading me into the room.
Inside there was a scrawny guy in a white lab coat, he was pushing his classes back onto his face when we walked through the door. He gave the detective a quizzical look before zooming in on me. “He’s here to see if he can identify the guy we brought in tonight, we couldn’t find anything on him.”
“Sure. Which one is he here to identify?” Looking around the room I notice five tables with bodies on them.
“The big guy, the others we’ve identified through their ID’s.” I wondered for a second if he would tell me who the other bodies were, but he seemed tight lipped about them.
“They usually wait ‘til I clean up the body a little before this, but there hasn’t been time for that. Hope you aren’t squeamish.” I glared at him, he retreated several steps toward a metal table with a sheet-covered body on it.
When he pulled back the sheet, I felt my eyes start to burn. This was my fault; I put him on duty alone. I knew what kind of assholes were after Bethy, and I left him without backup. Bowing my head over his body, I ground my knuckles into the metal.
“I take it he’s your guy then. Do you know why he was there at the motel?” Yeah I did, and I needed to find her immediately. That’s when my brain finally caught up to the rest of me; they’d said Gar didn’t have any identification with him that meant he’d given his wallet to Bethy. I remembered back over the years to how many times the man lost his wallet; he’d leave it at a girl’s house, strip joint. Hell, even in the fucking bathroom. He set the damn thing up with a low-jack of sorts, a tracking device allowing him to pinpoint where it was within like ten feet or something.
“He put up one hell of a fight, just so you know. Whoever did this to him, he made them pay a hefty price before they took him out. Those other four bodies, they’re all from him. Hell one guy looks like he was thrown all the way through the wall into the next room. I didn’t know it was possible to put someone through a wall, until today.” I can’t help but smile at Brewer’s surprise, my boy Gargoyle was one tough dude.
“You’re sure he didn’t have his wallet on him when you found him? Not even in the motel somewhere?” Brewer looked at me like I’d grown two heads, but I had hope. If he’d given it to her, I could find her quicker.
“Yeah, I’m sure. However, we did find the identification for a woman in the motel room. You wouldn’t know anything about her, would you?” My faint hope that she’d gotten away dissipated into dust. I mulled over telling him about Bethy, but I was in too much of a hurry to answer more questions.
“Probably some hooker he picked up or damsel in distress, he was always playing the hero.” By the look in his eyes, Brewer didn’t believe a word I was saying.
“Looks like this damsel in distress got him killed, or killed him herself, we haven’t decided which. Wanna give me your buddies name so we can continue our investigation?” I almost blurted out it was my fault he was dead, not Bethy’s. It was all my fault, and Gar paid the price for my stupidity with his life.
“Starshine Moon Fitzstein, his parents were hippies, what can I say. He’s been Gargoyle since I met him ages ago.” I was one of the few people who knew his real name, he didn’t let that shit out to just anyone. Hell, I didn’t even think his exes knew his real name for that matter. Not that I could blame the guy.
“You can deliver his body to Morgan's Funeral Home in Xander, once you’re finished with your autopsy. We’ll take care of the services for him; he doesn’t have any other family. You’re going to find whoever did this to my guy, right?” I gave Brewer my sternest look hoping he bought my act, because I was going to be the one to find whoever did this and make him wish he was never born.
“That’s our goal, yes, but we need to find the woman who was in the room with him. Do you know a Beth Diaz?” Shaking my head, I made my way unhurriedly around Brewer towards the exit. “Castor, Pops wait, if you know this woman and she’s involved somehow, you need to cooperate with us to find her. If she’s responsible for his murder let us bring her to justice, don’t try to do this on your own.” Turning around, I got in his face just close enough so he could tell I was close to losing my shit. Through gritted teeth, I responded to his accusations.
“She didn’t do this to him! I can’t explain how I know that, but you gotta believe me when I say she didn’t do this. She couldn’t have.” I didn’t give him a chance to ask me anymore questions before I was out the door and heading for my bike.
BETH
My brain is finally catching up. Through the haze of my despair I realize I’m on the back of Vinnie’s bike. I feel like I’m going to be sick to my stomach thinking of Gargoyle struggling to breathe, all because of me. I clutch his wallet for dear life, wishing with everything in me that it could somehow bring him back to life. A feeling of being lost washes over me, there’s no escape route, and even if there was I’m not sure I’d take it anymore. I deserve everything coming to me; I deserve to suffer for what happened to Gargoyle.
The bite of the wind blowing through my shirt brings me out of my stupor, clearly no one thought to grab my jacket. My teeth begin to chatter; it seemed like the temp was dropping by the mile, either that or we were heading north. Frankly, I didn’t care where we were headed, I was prepared for whatever they had to dish out at this point, I did need to pee though. Seeing a gas station’s lights up ahead, I tapped Vinnie’s shoulder and pointed to the gas station, he shook his head until I scream in his ear that I would pee on his leather seat if he didn’t stop. The whole group, five bikes total, swerved into the gas station parking lot.
“Why are we stopping?” Michael asked as soon as they cut the engines.
“The cunt needs to take a piss, threatened to pee on my bike if I didn’t stop. Come on; let’s get this over with so we can keep moving. We have a schedule to keep.” I didn’t give a shit about his precious schedule; I just need to relieve myself before my bladder broke.
“Fine by me, I’ll be right back.” I didn’t make it two feet before Vinnie was grabbing me by my arm.
“Whoa, you aren’t going anywhere without at least one of us. Don’t need you trying to take off, trying to call that boyfriend of yours.” Throwing him daggers, I needed to pee too badly to argue.
“Fine, lead the way.” The store clerk gave us a funny look when we entered, but soon went back to whatever he was watching on his television set when he realized we were heading to the bathroom. I pulled away from Vinnie as we approached the door, grabbing the handle quickly before closing the door in his face. I stuck my tongue out at the door, it was childish, but it felt good.
I was just getting my pants down, when Vinnie banged on the door telling me I had five minutes or he was breaking down the door and coming in to get me. As I sat there I held Gargoyles wallet in my hands, he said his real name was in there. Briefly, I thought it would be in bad taste to look inside a dead man's wallet, but he clearly wanted me to know who he really was.
Slowly, I opened the leather; it was one of those rectangular bi-fold chain deals complete with the chain he used to attach it to his belt loop. It looked like there used to be a stamped image on it years ago, but it was so worn down I couldn’t make out what it was. I snorted, laughing when the first thing I found was a magnum size condom with the words “in case of emergency break open” written on it. Jumping at the sound of Vinnie banging on the door to let me know my time was up, I almost dropped it on the floor. I yelled back that I was almost finished; I folded the wallet back up, without looking at Gargoyle’s driver license, and washed my hands. Glancing at myself in the mirror, I cringed at the sight that greeted me. Tearstains marred
my cheeks, my eyes red and puffy from crying, and blood stained my shirt.
Something snapped inside me looking down at Gargoyle’s blood on my shirt, a man who gave his life for me, and I was about to give that life to these fuck nuts without even a fight. How could I do that to his memory? Even if Castor wasn’t coming anymore, I could still save myself from whatever it was they had planned for me. Determination set in, I was going to survive this shit, and when I did I was going to have justice for Gargoyle.
Stepping out of the bathroom, Vinnie instantly grabs my elbow; I gave him the death glare in response. Whatever happened, whether I lived or died, one thing was certain in my mind, Vinnie wasn’t going to make it. He would never lay a finger on me, I was going to make sure, regardless of whatever else happened from this moment forward, I would end him.
“About damn time, thought I was going to have to come in there after you, and you know how much I hate dealing with female shit. Hurry the fuck up before you make us late.” I was curious what they could possibly be late for, what was the big hurry to get me to wherever we were going? There was a reason they came looking for me, even though they knew I was on my way to them.
“What’s the hurry Vinnie, you got a hot date lined up or something?” He fisted my hair while twisting my nipple when we got to his bike.
“Something like that cupcake, I don’t want to be late for my own wedding, and neither do you.” I bit my tongue to keep from yelling out from the pain, but when he said wedding, I almost passed out. There was no fucking way in hell I was marrying that sick fucking bastard, no way, I’d die first. “I see the prospect doesn’t appeal to you, well too fucking bad bitch. There was a promise made, and it’s going to be kept, or there will be hell to pay.”
I was too confused to make any sense out of what he was saying; everything in me screamed there was no fucking way in hell Vinnie was marrying me. Wrenching free of his hold and losing some of my hair in the process, I stomped over to Michael.
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