Burn

by R. J. Lewis

  “I’m sorry–”

  “Shut up,” he sharply cut in.

  I nodded immediately. Why, yes, I’ll gladly shut up. I’ll do whatever you want, just have some fucking mercy!

  “Take your clothes off,” he demanded chillingly.

  I widened my eyes. “What–”

  “Take them off!” he shouted, the veins in his neck protruding now.

  I didn’t. I pleaded with my eyes, begging him not to do something irreversible.

  He went around the bed and grabbed me by the arm. He hauled me to his chest and shouted again into my ear. “Take! Them! Off!”

  When he let go, I hurriedly threw my top off and then my jeans. I was crying sloppily, watching him from my peripheral undo his belt. Oh, god, what was he doing? What the fuck? What the fuck? What the… My fingers trembled around the clasp of my bra. I miraculously undid it and then peeled my underwear off.

  “Lay on your stomach right now.”

  I did as I was told and lay flat with my head to my side away from him, crying harder into the sheets. I heard his jeans come off and then the sinking of the bed behind me. Pain erupted once again when he grabbed me by the hair this time and rested his full body behind mine. He twisted my hair so that my face turned as far to my right as I could go. His face came into view above my shoulder, and there was thunder in those dark eyes. It was the most frighteningly ominous look I’d ever witnessed in him before. I was staring at the man everybody had feared and I was suddenly afraid for my life. I thought this was it, I was a goner.

  He was going to kill me.

  “I will rape you, choke you to death, and burn every limb in your body if you lie to me right now,” he gruffly told me. “Is that understood?”

  My unstopping tears no longer troubled him. He looked at me not as his Birdy, but as a traitor worthy of pain. I couldn’t turn my face away when all I wanted to do was escape those eyes and sob into the sheets beneath me. However frightened I was, I was more frightened at what he might do if I didn’t answer. So I nodded my head and stuttered, “Y-yes.”

  His hand tightened and my scalp ached from the pull. “Who did you see at the park today?”

  Of course he knew. The man was omniscient; nothing escaped him.

  “No one,” I said. It was like a basic human need to protect Jaxon.

  I screamed in agony as he pulled even harder at my hair. I felt strands tear from my scalp, numbing my forehead as it stretched the skin upwards.

  “Who did you see?” His other hand went under me and around my neck. Oh, my God. He was going to do it. Oh, my God. The man I’d come to trust and love…

  “N-No one!” I hollered, staring straight into his eyes with as much hatred I could allow, no longer caring for the outcome of this fucked up game. If he was going to kill me, be done with it already! I wasn’t going to deceive Jaxon, and if that cost me my life, so fucking be it.

  “You lied to me, Sara,” he growled. “I’m going to rape and kill you. Is that what you fucking want?”

  “Then do it!” I spat out before my rational brain could tell me otherwise.

  Even in his monstrous state the surprise escaped him. He gritted his teeth and threw my head down. Air replaced where his body had been as he moved off the bed. I didn’t move. When my chest hurt, I stopped holding my breath and breathed in as much as I could. My whole body was tense and my mind muted from what had just transpired. I couldn’t process anything, and for a second I thought I’d gone mad.

  Then I heard him from somewhere behind me.

  “Is this a fuckin’ ruse, Sara?” The voice belonged to the real Remy, but it no longer comforted me. “Have you been usin’ me this entire time?”

  “No,” my lifeless voice responded.

  “Then how come you saw Jaxon at the park today?”

  It didn’t even bother me that he knew. I was dead inside. Nothing mattered.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Stop lying. If you don’t stop, I can’t protect you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  He went quiet, and at least a dozen heart beats passed by. I waited for him to grab my hair again, to choke me, rape me, do all that he threatened because I wasn’t going to budge on this. He wasn’t going to get the truth out of me.

  “Why were you in the surveillance room?”

  “I was looking for something.” This much I would come clean about. If it had nothing to do with Jaxon, I’d appease Remy.

  “What were you looking for?”

  “Something of you.”

  He exhaled in irritation. “Be specific, Sara. What were you looking for?”

  “A lie.”

  “What the fuck are you on about?”

  “You’re hiding something from me. I don’t know what it is, but it’s there, and I can see it everywhere in this room. You knew at the bunker I’d be in this room in time. So you cleaned it up, and then you removed anything incriminating.”

  He scoffed. “Wow. You’ve lost your shit. Now why would I do that, Sara?”

  “Because you’re obsessed with me,” I whispered into the sheets, not daring to turn around and look at him. I knew I’d see the look of guilt, and I wanted to spare him. But I didn’t stop there. “You wanted me to love you. You didn’t want me to know your secrets.”

  I waited with bated breath and wondered how he was going to fight this one. He could play the denial card, of course. He could refuse to come clean and I’d never get the truth out of him. Regardless of whether he came clean or not, I didn’t care. I was broken by what he just did, and the stupid in love side of me could try and argue that he was justified. That he did it because I was caught attempting to spy into the Jackal’s privacy. That it made me look highly suspicious, especially after seeing Jaxon hours prior.

  Still.

  It didn’t matter. He hurt me. He hurt me so badly and it was killing the heart he’d replaced in me.

  His answer came in the form of the door slamming shut.

  Jaxon

  Shit’s gone down fast. What the fuck were you thinking seeing her? I don’t know how Remy knows – maybe he’s just assuming because she came out of that fucking forest looking like hell. Now there’s screams coming from their bedroom. She was caught in the fucking surveillance room snooping around the safes, and Prez is pissed the fuck off.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “What the fuck have I done?” he whispered. It was a stupid move seeing her, but fuck, he couldn’t help himself. Ever since that night he saw her crying…

  He’d been numb the last few months, but now all he could do was feel – and he felt fucking everything. He wanted her back. He was going to have her the fuck back even if it killed him.

  He went through his contact list and dialled a number.

  “Hello,” said Lucinda on the other end.

  “Mom,” he paused, and shut his eyes.

  “Are you alright?” she asked, soothingly.

  “I need you to leave.”

  Silence.

  “Mom?”

  “Leave? What are you intending on doing?”

  “Things are going to go down, Mom, and I need you out of Gosnells right the fuck now.”

  “Does this have something to do with Sara?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I actually pick up her goddamn calls?”

  “No. Now pack your shit.”

  “I’m not going anywhere! I’ve got Janet Morrie’s bushy hair to do tomorrow and then I have six other appointments to get–”

  “Mom, this isn’t a fucking request. It’s a demand. You’re leaving. You’ll come back when I tell you to.”

  He hung up and tapped the phone against his chin.

  Thinking.

  And thinking.

  He finally went back into the bar. There he took a seat on the stool and circled a beer in his hands.

  “The men agree,” said Damien, joining him. “They’re with you, bro. Go do it.”

  Jaxon c
losely watched the Scorpions socializing around him. They were laughing, arms wrapped around their ladies, but their usual rowdiness was gone and replaced with cautious looks in his direction.

  Finley was playing poker, smirking as usual, completely oblivious of the change in the air from the men around him.

  “We got your back. We’ll take care of it,” Damien promised.

  Yeah, maybe they would… but he wasn’t going to hope for anything.

  *****

  He did what he was told.

  And Finley fucking loved him.

  At first it was small errands: delivering drugs, taking in orders from inmates who wanted their own supply, negotiating with the shady prison guards being compensated by Scorpions outside the walls, beating on men who didn’t pay up their debts…

  Fairly easy shit.

  Until now.

  One thing the prison was impossible to come by was weapons. You’d smuggle them in somehow, but they were always found. Every routine inspection was carried out by higher ranked officers rather than the easily bribed prison guards, ensuring that the place was weapon-free. And when a prison was weapon-free, that meant one thing: you made your own fucking weapon. Out of anything you could. And the shit some of them made… It was both pathetic and impressive.

  “You do this, Jaxon,” Finley had solemnly said with a cool, fixed gaze, “and whatever you want, it’s yours.”

  He made it sound like it was a choice.

  It wasn’t.

  He was given the weapon, and it was the saddest looking thing he’d ever seen: a melted toothbrush with a pointed tip. He concealed it up his sleeve and walked around the yard, circling the one man that’d exhausted Finley’s patience and had been copped with a death wish. The middle-aged man, covered head to toe in tattoos, was smoking a cigarette beside his own gang, completely unaware that his life was hanging in the balance.

  Jaxon was on auto pilot, circling him like a shark would circle its pray, and waited for the opportunity to strike. It felt like forever before the man abandoned his group to head to the toilets. Jaxon shot Finley a glance, and Finley gave him one single nod.

  Jaxon took off after him. He couldn’t help the shaking in his arms as the man disappeared inside the toilets.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Fuck, he didn’t want to do this.

  He stepped inside, heart ramming inside his chest, and approached the man at the urinal with his back to him. Jaxon watched, trying his fucking hardest not to fold under the pressure. He wanted to get out of here. He needed protection. He needed the chance to find her.

  Then he just… did it.

  He couldn’t even remember what happened in detail. It was as if his brain shut off, unaccepting its reality.

  All he remembered was putting his arm around the guy’s neck… and then… and then he was looking down at the man on the floor and at the toothbrush plunged straight into his heart. He felt pain in his arms and glanced down at them; at the scratches and the red bruises forming all over them, having no fucking recollection of the struggle the man had put him through. He absorbed what he’d done for half a minute before turning away with a horrified shudder.

  Just as the guard promised, there was a clean uniform in one of the stalls. Not wanting to see what his hands had been capable of, Jaxon rapidly changed into it. Sure, the man had been convicted of multiple murders and nobody would miss him, but that didn’t make what he just did right. He didn’t have time to sort his emotions out in this fucked up toilet stall. He had to appear like the indifferent errand boy or else this had all been for nothing.

  He left the toilets and was hurrying back to Finley, trying to calm his shattered mind from the shock of what he’d done. His whole body was shaking, and his adrenaline was still soaring high. He walked and walked and then he heard it… the sound of a man crying nearby. He stopped abruptly and followed the sounds to the corner of the yard where a thin and tall man sat, covered head to toe in bruises with his hands over his inch long hair.

  Jaxon recognized him immediately. He was the fish he’d seen many times before getting dragged to the toilets. And now he was sobbing shamelessly like his world had collapsed – and he was doing it out in the bloody open of all fucking places!

  “Are you a fucking idiot?” Jaxon snapped.

  The startled man looked up. “Please don’t… don’t…” He put his arms up, shielding himself from him.

  “I’m not going to fucking hit you,” Jaxon retorted. “You wipe that shit off your face now. You cry like a pussy and you’re going to be dead before the week is out.”

  “What the fuck do I care? They’ve fucked me up already.” The man bitterly wiped his hands across his face.

  Jaxon noticed the stiffness in his body. Too in pain to sit upright properly, he copped it good.

  “Who fucked you?”

  The man didn’t respond.

  Jaxon sighed and looked around. He really should just fucking leave this fish. The last thing he needed was to give a shit about him.

  “Tell me who it was and I promise they’ll never touch you again,” Jaxon said.

  The man looked up at him in surprise. “You’re not going to hurt me?”

  Jaxon frowned. That’s all he’d done in this fucking piece of shit place: hurt people and then himself. And now look at the blood on his hands.

  “No, I’m not gonna hurt you. What’s your name?”

  “Dean.”

  “What are you in here for?”

  “I took the fall for a drug bust. They guarantee if I make it out of here, I’m part of them. But that’s a big fucking ‘if’ now.” The man’s anger shone as he plucked out pieces of grass from the ground.

  Jaxon pitied him. He had a pretty face, but no muscle anywhere on his body. Easy target for the mongrels around them.

  Maybe he did it to appease his guilt, or maybe he was trying to keep intact what little moral value he still had. The words fell out of him. “No one’s going to touch you again. You have my protection.”

  “And what do you want in return?” The man looked warily up at him.

  What did Jaxon want more than anything? Other than the girl who’d stolen his heart?

  “Your trust… and some favours when the time comes.”

  Fifteen

  Still naked, I curled into a ball with the covers around me. I stared at a chipped corner of the night table as if it was telling me the answers of the universe. A hysterical laugh escaped my lips as I pondered the events of my life. You couldn’t write this shit down.

  Just as quickly, I bit down on my lip and fought the tears. Why was I always so damn weak? Why did I have to cry this much? I didn’t want to be this emotional. I didn’t want to feel, period. Feeling meant bad things. What is it with emotions, anyway? Loving someone gives them the power to hurt you. I hurt and have been hurt back in the process. Was this some sick form of karma? Was five years away from Jaxon, miserable and aching, not enough of a punishment for what I did to him? Now I had to love another man and suffer this on top of it all?

  Despite my flair for melodrama, I didn’t want to die. I tried to think about how I could walk out of this undetected. My stupidity would have only been a push for the Jackals to be extra attentive in the surveillance room. Barge might have gotten a scolding about it, and now that they were aware of what I’d done, they were probably going to be all over me. Walking out of here undetected was out of the question.

  I couldn’t even pick up the phone and call the police. I’d seen enough police officers stopping by just out front of the perimeters to collect their extra income on the side. Money to buy their silence. The Jackals were set up, rolling (more like scuba diving) in cash, and owned everyone. In all the months I was here, I’d never seen any illegal activity within these walls. They knew what they were doing to a tee.

  My body tightened at the sound of the door opening. I dreaded to think who it was. It could have been anyone wanting to teach me some manners after my stunt. O
r maybe it was Remy again ready to take care of that promise he made. I was still nude, so at least he’d spare me a screeching at that.

  I heard footsteps making their way around the bed. I watched Remy stop in front of me, looking down at me with a much more subdued look than before. Still, he was emotionless. He took a seat facing me at the edge of the bed. Idiot me couldn’t help but admire him. He was a thing of beauty to me.

  One that had threatened to choke, rape and kill me. Fucking lovely.

  “There’s one secret I’ve kept from you,” he began after our stare off. “You’re perceptive. I always knew that, but the room’s never changed. I never did anything to it knowing you were comin’ here. In fact, I didn’t even want you to leave that bunker at all. Not for a very long time.”

  He absentmindedly raked his hand over his hair and looked around the room. Remy wasn’t his usual confident self. He was uneasy and that made me tense.

  “I made mistakes. With you, this was my biggest one.” He produced a black jewellery box from his other hand. He held it out and motioned for me to take it. Confused, I did, all the while eyeing him curiously. “Well, open it then.”

  Tucking the sheets tightly around my torso, I sat up until my back was against the headboard. I spun the box around, unsure of whether the truth awaiting me was what I wanted after all. Ignorance is bliss, right?

  But my body’s autopilot went on. I didn’t want to hear myself think about shit. I just needed to get this done. I opened it and froze. I looked up at Remy, and then back down at the box. Then I gulped away the thick shockwave in my being and pulled out the bracelet. I blinked hard as I spun the silver chain around until the heart fell into the palm of my hand. I blinked even harder when I shakily turned the heart around and met the three words that had once meant everything to me.

  You’re my ultimate.

  Panting heavily now, I stared accusingly at Remy. “W-Why do you have this?”

  Remorse stricken, he opened his mouth slowly and quietly said, “Why do you think, Birdy?”