Intrepid_A Vigilantes Novel

by Keri Lake

  The panic pounded through my veins, my heart echoing its pace with rapid thumps in my chest. That was the moment he’d see me in a different light. I’d no longer be his son, but an accomplice, as Fox had referred to me, to murderers. A traitor to my best friend. He’d never look at me the same.

  A tear slipped free, and more followed in an unbroken stream, until I sobbed. Every breath I inhaled splintered with my cries. “They forced me. They forced me to do it. I didn’t want to, but Fox said he’d let me go. He’d let me come home.”

  I glanced to the side, where my dad’s eyes glistened in the harsh fluorescent lights. I’d seen him cry only twice in my life—when my grandpa died, and when my mom left. A tear rolled down his weathered cheek like rain on an old cracked window pane.

  “What happened Jamie?”

  “They made me throw him into the wood chipper.” The punishing blow of those words was more than I could keep inside, and I finally let them break me, drawing my knees up to settle what felt like a hole in my gut.

  My dad shot to his feet, wrapping his arms around me, the warmth of him settling my mind, and for a moment, I just wanted to stay there, in the silence. “Oh, God, Jamie. Oh … fuck!”

  “And they filmed it. They filmed me doing it. Fox told me if I said anything to the police, he’d send them the tape.”

  “No.” Gripping my shoulders, my dad looked me in the eyes, and the anger swirling in them wasn’t for me, I could see that much. “Don’t say anything to the police. Nothing about Fox, or Gideon.” He glanced up toward the door and back to me, lowering his voice. “You keep this between me and you. Just stick to the story you told them.”

  “But, Dad, the man they arrested … he didn’t do it. They’re going to put him in prison, and he didn’t do it.”

  “I’ll figure something out.” He gave a squeeze to my shoulders, lips pressed in a line of determination. “But you don’t say anything more about this. Understand? I’ll take care of everything.”

  Relief washed over me. I’d purged my darkest secret to the only person I could trust with it. “Yeah. I understand.”

  “Just hang in there. I promise everything will be all right.”

  * * *

  I lay on my side, tucked into a ball, staring through the window to where the tree outside had gone from a vibrant orange-red to a lifeless brown. Its leaves hung like a man dangling over a cliff, holding on with his last bit of strength, before falling one-by-one out of view.

  The clear tube of whatever the hospital staff had given me cut through the scene, and I followed the path of the line to my hand, where the needle sat lodged, pumping the kind of drugs into my body that made everything feel like a dream. I twisted on the bed to find the curtain separating me from my roommate, who lay quiet. Only the flicker of his TV could be seen over top of the curtain hanging from the corner of the room, and I narrowed my eyes on the image of the burning house and the news reporter’s head bobbing beside it as she talked.

  “A man trapped inside his burning home on the east side was discovered by police early yesterday morning. Investigators say David Cross, a forty-two-year-old ironworker, was home last Thursday—Devil’s Night, as it’s known throughout the city—when it appears his house was set on fire by arsonists. Gang members are suspected, and witnesses say, a group of four individuals dressed in black were seen lurking around the man’s home earlier that evening.”

  A dream. That was all it was. A bad dream. I turned back over in my bed and stared out through the window once again. Another leaf wriggled in the wind, holding on.

  And then it let go.

  21

  Ty

  Present day …

  It was Nietzsche who said, ‘Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings—always darker, emptier and simpler.’

  If I lived on emotions alone, I wouldn’t be faced with the task of ruining the one thing alluring enough to save me. The single frayed thread somehow tethering me to a world I no longer gave a shit about. Because the hell of it was, Sera had crawled beneath my skin and set me aflame. Something about that kiss in the library had unhinged me, was all I could think about, along with the taste of her still lingering on my tongue. I craved more of it. More of her.

  And it pissed me off.

  For the first time in a long time, I’d begun to feel something again, a stirring in my chest that ached every time I looked at her beautiful fucking face, a tightness in my muscles when I thought of someone else so much as touching her, and a realization of the hundreds of times a day I thought about her, that I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Some might’ve called it lust, or obsession. Except, the sickness I’d become infected with ran much deeper than the surface—like venom seeping into my brain and taking command of my body. Telling me to walk away from everything, forget the pain, screw the plan, and spare her life. Something akin to empathy, but to feel empathy, a person would have to know love.

  What the fuck did I know of love? Only times I’d come close to it, fate had stepped in with other plans.

  I lay back in bed, the darkness of the room settling over me, as the day gave way to night. I’d watched the clock for the last hour, praying I’d slip into another dimension, one where time stood still and I wasn’t tasked with the impossible mission of annihilating the only fragment left of my humanity.

  Wasn’t that the way of it, though? A person could spend their life searching for some shred of meaning, some reason to explain why they were still alive, only to find it in a woman they’d vowed to destroy. The very reason they were stuck riding a downward spiral into depravity.

  I’d found it too late. Because even if I could learn to forgive her, my demons would never forget what she’d done. They’d never silence for her, and therefore I’d never find the fucking peace and quiet I longed for, not until I made good on my promise.

  A promise that meant the worst kind of betrayal. The kind bearing the face of charm and perfection, while masking a monster.

  That was what I’d become.

  Sera may have been no stranger to dangerous men throughout her life, but none of them held a candle to the bastard acting as my conscience. Like some messed up, possessed cricket, with dead eyes and an appetite for blood and carnage.

  I’d learned from watching too many cartoons that redemption was only given when you’d proven yourself worthy, and I was too far gone for that.

  Scrolling through my phone, I landed on her number, the twitch of my cock at the sight of her name giving me the urge to twist my balls until I blacked out.

  Fucking hell, I’d fallen into some shit with her.

  My little blue fairy.

  As if Pavlov himself had conditioned me, I craved the sound of her voice, the way the corner of her lip curved up over a slightly crooked tooth when she smiled, and the twirling of her hair every time I made her nervous. The idea of her body pinned beneath me as I drove into her had me salivating like a dog.

  The hell was I thinking going after her?

  Lips tight, I clutched my swollen nuts with one hand and typed an awkward text with the other.

  ME: I’ll be there in ten.

  The three dots popped up and disappeared. Reappeared. Then disappeared again.

  SERA: Shit. I’m so sorry. I have to cancel. Something came up.

  I wished I could’ve left it that. Told her to forget she’d ever met me and wiped her face right off my phone and out of my life. Instead, I slipped back into my charm, giving another squeeze to my nut-sack.

  ME: Everything okay?

  SERA: If by okay, you mean my world crumbling at the core? Yeah, all good here.

  ME: Exam?

  SERA: I wish. I’m going to have to take a raincheck on our date. I’m at work.

  Sorry, sweetheart. Not happenin’.

  ME: So you had to work?

  SERA: Sort of. I have to run a quick errand. Just waiting for the nurse to get back so I can hop the next bus.

  ME: Bus?

  SERA: I didn’t want my da
d to see me here. Long story.

  ME: Where are you?

  SERA: West side. I take care of an older lady on the weekends.

  ME: How bout if I come and pick you up. You can run your errand then I’ll take you on that date you promised me.

  The dots appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.

  SERA: You’re relentless.

  ME: Tenacious, remember? Text me your location.

  The map that popped up showed an apartment on the west side. I’d seen her go in and out of the place a couple of the times I’d followed her around, but figured it was a friend of hers, or something, since she’d stayed overnight and another girl came and went.

  SERA: Give me an hour or so, okay? Just gotta finish up a few things.

  ME: See you in an hour.

  I exited the text app and clutched the phone so tight, the anger bubbling inside of me could’ve had me crushing it with my bare hands. Deep breaths through my nose failed to calm the rage I had no business carrying.

  I should’ve been gathering up my supplies—the duct tape I’d place over her mouth to muffle the cries, the rope to bind her hands, the blindfold to shield her eyes from seeing what a fucking bastard I’d turned out to be. I had no desire to pack those things, so I scrolled through pics, the majority of which were of Sera. Walking to class. Having coffee at a café. Studying with her hand lodged in her long blonde-and-blue hair.

  I hated her for what she’d become to me. An obsession I couldn’t shake. As much as it sickened me to look at her, it excited me, too.

  I stared at the picture, eyeing the small bit of cleavage peeking up from the tight black shirt she wore. Made me think of the way her tits bounced when she walked, sticking out over her small waist, and those legs that went on forever. I imagined her toned thighs wrapped around my back, with her face tipped in ecstasy.

  Fuck, her moans’d probably sound like music. She’d be tight, too. So goddamn tight, I’d have to bite down on my tongue to keep from railing into her, splitting her right open. I’d told myself she’d be a quick and easy hate fuck, but I couldn’t imagine hating a single second of fucking her.

  A mental image of Sera’s face caught up in climax, and the imagined sounds of her screams, coiled around my spine, sending goosebumps across my skin. Those screams morphed into horrific cries of terror inside my head, with that look of ecstasy quickly swapped for the horror she’d be forced to witness. Just like I’d been forced to do all those years ago. I’d make her bear witness to her own father’s death. The blood and butchery would destroy her; the same way it’d destroyed me.

  I focused on her face, still lit up on my screen.

  It’d be the last time I could stand to look at her. The last time I’d see her face through the eyes of someone who still had a heart, instead of the empty vessel I’d become after it was all said and done.

  I sat up in bed and flipped on the light beside me, catching sight of the boy staring at me from across the room. My stomach roiled with an unfounded sense of anger, as his presence only reminded me of the task ahead.

  “This is what you wanted.” I snarled, as the rage exploded to the surface. “Isn’t it? Isn’t this what you wanted?”

  The boy stood silently watching me, those lifeless eyes failing to reveal a damn thing.

  “She has to pay for what she did, doesn’t she? They’ll all pay. Isn’t that what you told me?” I slammed my knuckles into the wooden floor beside me, my whole body shaking as I slumped forward, as my mind battled my heart.

  She’s not what she seems. You were wrong about her.

  Four years of therapy. Nightmares. Hallucinations.

  You could still have a future. You could forgive her.

  The screams. The headaches. The promise.

  I took deep breaths, clicking off the phone, and tossed it onto the bed.

  Couldn’t stand to look at her. Couldn’t stand to breathe. Everything I wanted, everything I’d fantasized about, was wrapped up in the woman whose name had long paved the path for vengeance.

  Staring down at my hands, I wondered if I had the strength, if I could stomach watching my hands squeeze the life out of her. As the blinding rage behind my eyes distorted them, I thumped both heels of my palms against my temples.

  “She’s the reason. It was her.” I rubbed my hands across my skull, grinding the shit out of my teeth. “I do this … I don’t ever want to see you again. Hear? You leave me the fuck alone!” Swiping up a bottle of whiskey beside the bed, I chucked it across the room, where it shattered against the wall.

  The boy was no longer there.

  A howl of rage bellowed from my chest, sending tremors through my body.

  The phone chimed, and I stared down at it for a moment, before lifting it to find a text across the screen.

  I’ll be ready in fifteen.

  * * *

  I brought the bike to a rolling stop outside of the apartment building Sera had texted the address for earlier. The world seemed heavier, darker than usual, and brimming with ugliness. The constant throb in my chest was the punishing beat of my heart, reminding me of the bastard who kept it caged. How would I survive the night with her, knowing how it’d all end?

  Then again, how could someone so good pretend not to see the evil staring back at her every day? An argument my conscience threw at me every time I questioned myself.

  As I killed the engine and removed my helmet, another text chimed.

  Need help. Stat!

  The way those words bulleted down my spine and had me hopping off the bike like I’d been burned was almost laughable, given the circumstances, but I seemed unable to stop myself. The moment the buzzer signaled access, I jogged through the front entrance, looking up the staircase at the apartment doors around me.

  Sera peeked out of the one closest to the top of the stairs, her hair down around her shoulders, against the thin white T-shirt hugging every fine curve.

  So fucking beautiful it physically hurt my chest to look at her.

  “Hey there. Mind giving me a hand?” She smiled down at me, the innocence behind her eyes sending a message of betrayal like a kick to the gut.

  Frustration consumed me as I climbed the stairs, and she led me into the small apartment. I’d already resigned myself to altering the plan. Had convinced my stubborn mind that the fatal blueprint laid out for the night wasn’t possible.

  I was weak. Physically incapable of ending her that way, so I planned to end it another way. By killing my complacency instead. Letting her go and making her regret the day she met me.

  “Her transport sling is broken, and I don’t want to leave her in the wheelchair. Lilia should be here in ten minutes, but if something happened to her before then, I’d probably kill myself,” she prattled on ahead of me, while we crossed the room to the bedroom.

  Inside, a woman sat with her back to me, her short auburn locks, speckled in just a few stray grays, told me she wasn’t quite as old as I imagined. Classic rock droned on in the background, a song I recognized as one of my dad’s favorites. Still The Same by Bob Seger.

  “I just need you to help me lift her up onto the bed.” Sera bent forward and stroked the woman’s face with a loving hand. “I want to introduce you to someone,” she said softly to her.

  I rounded the wheelchair where she sat, and froze the moment the woman’s face came into view. The room spun around in my periphery, knocking me off balance. I grabbed the back of the chair behind me to steady myself, as I fought the pulsing waves of shock beating through my muscles, numbing them. It’d been ten years since I’d last seen the woman. The night Eli and I took off to the Packard Plant without even telling her we’d left.

  “Ty?” Sera’s voice yanked me out of my trance, and I realized by the upswing of her brows that I’d missed what she said before. “This is Jo.”

  No. The snap inside my head echoed down my ear canal, the first seam of my tightly knit plan coming apart.

  “You … work for her?” I didn’t even know I’d asked
the question aloud, until Sera answered, “Yes. I take care of her.”

  Snap. Snap. The slow unraveling left my mind scrambling for the loose ends in a desperate bid to hang on to my wits, because shit was about to come apart.

  Jo’s head wobbled unsteady, as she twisted in her chair and peered up at me. Her brows flickered for a moment, but her eyes showed no sign of recognition. Why would she? I was a boy when she last saw me. Fresh-faced and innocent.

  “Can you grab the other side of her? I just want to lift her into the bed.”

  Sera’s voice grounded me, when I felt like my world had shifted off axis. Another snap crackled against my skull, as my head fused together the parts I’d missed over the last ten years, welding them to the loose ends and changing the shape of everything I’d spent months forging and hammering out.

  I’d made a point to avoid Jo, but somehow had forgotten about her, too. After what’d happened, I couldn’t face her, couldn’t bring myself to tell her the horrific way I’d disposed of her son in order to save my own life. Even if she’d have forgiven me, I’d never forgiven myself for it. Everything I was—every good thing I’d acquired from my father, his smarts, integrity and righteousness—had fallen into that wood chipper alongside Eli. That one single moment turned an innocent boy into a monster.

  Not that it’d matter, if I had told her. An innocent man had taken the fall, and the cops had been paid off to look the other way, so anything I’d said made no difference. Of course, I didn’t find that out until later, and fortunately for him, the lead investigator had already died of a heart attack two years prior, or he’d have made my list, too.

  I was a fourteen-year-old kid who’d just lost his father, scared shitless and alone. The real monsters were still out there, and I was positive they were watching me. And maybe they’d been watching Jo, too.

  At the time, I’d done what I thought would keep her safe—mentally and physically.