by Candy Crum
The car was in real need of some work, but I didn’t see that when I looked at it. I saw beauty.
“Absolutely!” I said. “What’s in it?”
My dad was all smiles as he stared at his new baby. “It used to be a 350.”
“Used to be?” I asked.
He nodded before turning to me and smiling. “But I ripped the 454 big block out of that old Chevy truck. This car will rattle the windows in the house. Your mom gets so mad when I sit out here and play.”
I laughed. “Does it still run? Or do you have her in pieces, at the moment?”
“Oh, it runs! She might not be the prettiest right now, but I’m going to fix that.”
“Wanna piss Mom off?” I asked with a smile.
My dad looked like a little kid in a candy store in that moment. He smiled all the way to the driver’s seat. I popped open the passenger side and climbed in. Only moments after I closed my door the car growled to life. The entire car rumbled and vibrated with the monstrous sound. It was incredible. It had been a while since I’d been in a muscle car, and I’d almost forgotten how amazing it could be.
“Would you be overly offended if I came over and worked on it with you?” I asked.
“Really?” he responded.
I hadn’t thought very hard about it until that moment, but having a hobby, like fixing up an old car, could be a good thing. Staying calm and keeping my mind off everything going on seemed very appealing.
“Yes!” I said finally. “I’d love to. Hell, I’d come over and work on it whenever I had time.”
“Well, given that we both work so many different hours, it would take me years to do this alone. We may not get a chance to work on it together, but if you want to work on her with or without me, I’d be honored. I’ve always been proud of having my little girl along.”
I loved my daddy. He was one of the rare ones. He always treated me like a boy. That was really all he knew to do with him being the youngest of his siblings and all of them having boys, except his sisters that lived across the country. It was something I never minded though. I grew up going mudding and to car shows with my dad instead of playing with dolls. Not a bad way to grow up.
We spent the rest of my visit talking about the car and what we planned to do with it. By the time mom came out to retrieve us for lunch, we had one hell of a pricy list to get us started on our new pet project.
When I finally got home around four that evening, I had quite the surprise waiting for me. An unfamiliar black car was parked down the street. At first, I found myself standing there questioning its presence, but dismissed it. As I climbed the steps to my house, I realized exactly how wrong I’d been. My door was closed, but not latched. Someone was inside my house, or at the very least had been.
Reaching out, I slowly pushed the door open, poking my head in and looking around before taking a step inside. Once inside, I didn’t latch the door, but shut it just to the frame as it had been done before. I wandered into the kitchen, making sure each step that I took was as quiet as possible. It was obvious that someone had been through there. Drawers were partially open and things inside them were tossed around, though a mess had not been made outside of that.
As I made my way through the bottom floor of my house, I wondered who had been there and why. The only person that would have such a reason to be there would have been that asshole, Jay. Perhaps it was him or the likelier probability, someone that worked for him. The more I thought about it, the more I knew that it had to be true.
As I continued my search, something very disturbing caught my attention. A familiar scent…
Blood.
Being quiet mattered little at that point. I ran as fast as I could up the stairs, fear rising from my chest and forming a lump in my throat. A sensation that had become far too common over the course of the past few days. As I followed the scent, every step making the smell stronger and stronger, I mentally cursed myself for not having grabbed a weapon from the kitchen. Stupid.
I burst through my bedroom door to see Will tied to my bed, covered in blood. He was awake, but he looked weak.
“Hello, Mia,” Jay said from the right side of the room.
I looked over, not at all surprised to see him. My instinct was to run to Will’s side. I wanted nothing more than to comfort him and tell him everything would be okay. I wanted to save him, but I had no idea how. Instead, I forced myself to stand where I was. If I moved, Jay could kill him before I even crossed the room.
“Hello, fuck-face,” I said.
His eyes widened a little. “A little brave, aren’t we?”
I shook my head. “A little pissed is more like it.” I looked over to Will, struggling to breathe. “Are you as bad off as you look?”
“He’ll be fine,” Jay said. “As long as you cooperate.”
“He’ll be fine?” I asked. “He sure as hell doesn’t look like it.”
I tested the waters and took a step forward.
“Move any closer, and I’ll put a bullet in his head,” Jay said, raising a gun and pointing it at Will.
I ceased movement, standing and staring helplessly at my best friend lying presumably half-dead in my bed.
“He’s suffered quite a beating,” Jay said. “That’s why he looks so... deadish, but I promise that there’s only one bullet in him and it’s not even in a fatal place. I can show mercy sometimes. So, don’t get those sexy panties in a twist. I just didn’t want him running off.”
“I thought you guys made a deal? I thought that if he sold all the shit you gave him that you’d let him go? Isn’t that why he was able to help me?” I asked.
“I never shook on it. Besides, this isn’t necessarily about business. This is about tying up loose ends,” he said.
“Loose ends? You mean me,” I replied.
Jay nodded. “That’s no shit. I killed you. There’s no doubt. You were very dead when I left. I only made that deal because I knew that he’d have to relive screwing me over repeatedly as he tried to revive you and couldn’t. But... here you are and in perfect health. So, I need to make sure that I don’t have anything to worry about here.”
My left brow rose a little. “That’s what you’re concerned about? You don’t even care to know how I survived a straight shot to the heart?”
He shrugged. “I don’t really give a damn. All I care about is that you’re here and a thorn in my side. I’d kill you again, but I’m not quite sure where my friend here has the product and I’m not going to lose that money. So, here’s the deal. You’re going to agree to help him. I want your hands just as dirty as his. If I see otherwise, I’ll tie you down instead and make you watch me skin him alive.”
“You should be a poet,” I said. “Blood is red, my balls are blue. No one gives a damn about me because I’m a pathetic piece of shit.”
His brows furrowed, confusion on his face.
I smiled. “What? You thought I was going to say ‘poo,’ didn’t you? Well, I did say that you should be the poet.”
“Mia!” Will choked out. “Stop.”
“Yeah, Mia,” Jay said. “You should probably stop.”
“The only reason I’m standing here is because you’re holding a gun. That shows weakness. Big man with a gun. Do you even need it? I’m not afraid of it. Or you, for that matter,” I said.
“Mia!” Will rasped again.
Once again, I ignored him. I wanted to keep that jerk’s attention on me. Jay laughed. He actually laughed. That couldn’t be a good sign. He lowered the gun before walking toward me. My entire body stiffened, but I did my best to fight against that. I didn’t want him to see my weakness. Truth be told, I was very afraid of him. I had no idea how I survived the first shot. More than that, I had no idea if I’d survive another. I just didn’t want him focusing on Will. Past that, I had no real plan.
Jay stood in front of me, his tall stature dwarfing my smaller body in size. He was truly intimidating and I realized that he really didn’t need the gun at all to in
timidate people. He knew what he was doing. I stared into his eyes, begging the part of me that held some sort of power to come out and play, but I was forsaken. There was nothing aside from fear. Fear and my unbelievable inability to keep my mouth shut. I blamed my parents. They didn’t punish me enough for my outbursts. They laughed at those smartass comments because I was like them.
Thanks Mom and Dad.
“You should be afraid of me, girl,” Jay said, his voice deep and quiet. It was calm. Terrifying.
“I want you to leave,” I said. “Please just go.” My voice shook. Damn it.
He smiled. “Just a reminder…”
Without warning Jay punched me hard across the face, his large hand breaking a couple of bones along my right cheek, brow, and jaw. As I fell from the hard hit, I managed to gracefully bash my face on the corner of the dresser just a few feet from me. I landed hard on the floor, the pain taking my breath away. Everything was blurry.
I felt the floor shake a little as Jay’s large feet straddled my weak body. He knelt down, roughly snatching a large handful of my hair and yanking my head back. I winced in pain and I may or may not have made a pathetic squeal. I’m not telling…
“You’re cute, but not cute enough to talk to me that way,” he said.
Something cold pressed to my left temple and I knew without a doubt that it was that gun of his.
“I don’t need a gun to deal with pieces of shit like the two of you, as you can now see, but it helps,” he said.
Apparently, that was what I needed. I felt a bolt of white hot anger fill my chest, my vision immediately clearing. Him speaking to me like that and degrading me when he was the very definition of a piece of crap made me rage more than I could handle. Once again, my mouth was unstoppable.
When I spoke next, my voice was something dark, cold. I didn’t recognize it at all. “I’m going to kill you.”
He laughed again. “Oh, is that so?”
“I’m going to dissect every part of your drug ring and I’m going to rip every one of you apart with my bare hands. Then I’m going to deliver all of you, piece by piece, to next person that I find involved with you, just to let them know I’m coming for them, too. Mark my words, you overgrown useless waste of fucking space. I will destroy you.”
“Well, you’re more than welcome to try, but I don’t think that will happen anytime soon. Rest in peace, bitch.”
The gun fired against my temple, and I was gone.
Chapter Five
Pain ripped through my head as my eyes fluttered open. Everything was spinning, and my vision was blurry again. I couldn’t remember anything. Slowly, piece by piece, things started to make sense. After a few minutes passed, memories began coming back to me and I could move. Once that pain took hold again, I remembered exactly what happened. I forced myself to sit up and it took every ounce of energy that I had to do so with as weak as I was.
Will. I had to get to Will. He’d been beaten pretty badly and I had no idea how long I’d been out. Minutes. Hours. I took a bullet straight to the brain. I had to assume it had been a while. Flipping over onto my hands and knees, the carpet squished under my weight, the blood welling up over my fingers. There were lumps of different things under my hands. Some were hard and sharp and others were soft and pliable. I quickly realized that it was more than likely bone and brain matter. Gross. It took all I had not to puke all over the place.
My vision cleared some more and I forced myself to stand. Touching my hand to my head proved to be the worst decision ever. It was no different than the OR, where I’d felt my own heart, only this time, it was my brain. There was a large hole in my left temple and the bone in the area had shattered away. I imagined it was lodged somewhere in my brain.
The right side of my head, however, was a disaster. I had no idea what he shot me with, but it was powerful. At that moment, I had no idea how I was standing, let alone thinking or breathing. The blowout was massive. The hole was much larger on that side and there was a lot more bone missing. When my fingers touched the area, aside from the mind-numbing pain, I could feel my brain as it had swollen so badly that it was trying to push through the open area. The jagged part of my skull was cutting the soft tissue as it swelled around the bone.
The taste of blood and stomach acid lingered in my mouth and I knew that I was about to throw up. I had to think about something else. I looked over to the bed and saw about eighteen of Will lying there. His head was slumped over, and I couldn’t focus my eyes enough to see if he was breathing or not.
I hobbled over and sat next to him, sighing in relief as he jolted awake. His heart didn’t seem erratic at all when I checked his pulse, so that was good. Honestly, he seemed fine.
“Did you pass out from wounds or shock?” I asked.
“To be honest, when I saw your head explode all over the carpet, I puked and passed out,” he replied.
Yum. So, I was sitting in that. Awesome.
“How are you still alive?” he asked.
I looked at him incredulously. “If I had even a single answer to that, I’d be a very happy woman. I’d like to get you out of here, but my eyes are still very fuzzy and I’m wobbly.”
It wasn’t but a few moments after I spoke that we heard sirens, our eyes going wide.
“I don’t think we can wait,” he said. “Look at us. They’re going to take us to the ER. They are going to see you and try like hell to figure out how you survived. What you pulled off with a single doc and two students I don’t think you’ll be able to do again with paramedics, police, and a room full of medical professionals, especially when some of them probably saw you the first time you were in the ER before sending you up to surgery.”
“Fuck,” I said. There was no way around it; we were screwed.
“Drink my blood,” he said.
I looked at him with as much shock as I could muster. I couldn’t tell if he got the picture, as there were still twelve of him muddied together in one admittedly adorable blob, but I did my best.
“You’re sick!” I said.
“I don’t know!” he said. “I don’t know what you are! You need to heal. Maybe it’ll help. I’m just trying. All I know is that you need to heal up enough that it doesn’t look like a bullet went through your head and you need to untie me. Just try it.”
“This is the most unrealistic conversation I’ve ever had in my life. Fine! I’ll do it, but if this goes badly, you have no one to blame but yourself.”
“Duly noted,” he said. “Dickface shot me in the shoulder. That’s the easiest source without biting the hell out of me, which I’d appreciate you not doing.”
Hmm. Jay made it sound like he’d shot him in the leg. He’d said he didn’t want Will to run away. Then again, he didn’t want him to bleed out, I suppose. Jay could have hit the femoral and Will would have died in minutes. I moved forward and felt around, pulling his shirt sleeve back to find what I was looking for. It was in fact soaked with blood. Who knew? Maybe it would work, maybe not. It was worth the shot, just as he’d said. Quickly as I could move in that condition, I fumbled around for a moment and managed to get his hands free before sitting back down next to him.
Leaning over, I put my mouth on the bullet hole. It tasted horrible, like gun powder residue. He must have been shot at close range. I wasn’t able to tell since I still couldn’t see it well enough. Taking one for the team, I did my best to lick away the nasty residue before attempting the real thing. His entire body was tensing with pain from what I was doing. If it felt anything like touching your own brain, I felt terrible for him.
“Hurry!” he said. “The sirens are getting closer.”
I nodded again, deciding to get right to it. Locking my mouth over the open skin, I sucked. Lightly at first, but as the taste of him hit me, I drew harder. It wasn’t bad. Not amazing, but had potential. I found myself wanting to try it again when not under duress and from a cleaner wound.
After a few moments, I opened my eyes and realized that my visio
n had almost completely cleared. The throbbing in my head dwindled down quite a bit, but what I felt next was nothing short of horrifying.
Relief washed through me, and I’m sure through Will as well, that I was holding on to the headboard when I gripped down. The throbbing had ceased, but the burning pain had returned, only worse. So much worse.
“Oh, my God,” I faintly heard Will say.
His fingers reached up and pulled on something, which greatly hurt me, but also gave me relief. I forced my eyes open to see that it was a bone fragment that had worked its way out of my brain. Sadly, I realized that would happen a few more times. There wasn’t going to be enough time before the cavalry arrived.
For the next few moments before the paramedics got there, we took turns. I drew a little blood from his shoulder and then he'd pulled bone fragments from my head as they worked their way out. At one point, I was strong enough to snap the headboard under my grip. Not going to lie, that was pretty awesome, minus the searing pain, of course.
There was beating at the door and I knew it was the paramedics and police.
“What now?” I asked. At that very moment I could feel the bone growing back and the swelling going down. I was covered in blood and there would be no evidence as to why because I was nearly fully healed. The situation was awful.
“Let’s try to escape,” he said shockingly.
“What?” I asked.
“Stop questioning me. We don’t have time. Let’s just go! Let’s get down the stairs through the kitchen. They will come up the stairs in the living room,” he said.
It wasn’t a great plan, but it was still a plan. I was feeling much better and much stronger. Will stood and I helped steady him. There was more beating on the door then as the police announced themselves.
We had to hurry.
Will had been beaten terribly and had lost a lot of blood on his own. I had no idea how much of his blood I’d actually consumed on top of that, though I doubted it was much. Giving him all the strength that I had, I walked him out of the room just as the police entered the front door. We quickly made our way down the back stairwell and into the back part of the kitchen. It was only a few steps to the rear door.