5 Words: Paradox Ink Trilogy

by Melanie Walker

  I nod, unable to say anything to that and hold her tight to my chest.

  *

  Sully

  I get to the police department early and take a seat while I wait for Mark, Ben, my dad, and the DA. It is unnerving to know that sack of shit that took my baby is in this building. Within minutes, I am bouncing my knees and grinding my teeth. I can’t sit here or I will go crazy.

  “Hey, Trev,” I say to the desk clerk that I have known for about twenty years. “I can’t sit here. I’ll be in my truck. Just have pop call me when he gets here.

  “Sure thing, Sam,” he says kindly and shakes my hand. “I am really sorry it ended this way Sam, but at least now we can put her to rest.”

  I nod, even though that idea makes me want to puke, I still agree with it.

  I get to my truck and see I had left my phone on the dock. The flashing lights on the screen tell me I have messages.

  There’s fifteen voicemails, all from the damn news wanting fucking statements, and I cringe hoping they aren’t blowing De` up like this.

  I see the group text from Noah and Asa, and one from Mya. I check hers first.

  Mya: You got this, crow and I got you. Thinking of you.

  I feel that slight peace that only she can give me and text her back.

  Me: Thank you. Have a good day, butterfly.

  She responds with an emoji blowing a kiss and I send one back before opening the other.

  Asa Group: Had the guys and Jen reschedule all your appointments out two weeks. You were booked seven months out, so we pushed all the way back. Most your clients know thanks to the fucking news.

  Noah Group: I am bringing Chad in to help with some of the photo realism tatts that we have had waiting in the wings. The studio needs to keep pace and he is the best in the industry next to you.

  Me: Cool. Tell Chad I said thanks for the help. Thanks for fixing the books too. How is the studio? Packed with reporters yet?

  I ask because I share partnership with a Rockstar and anything touching Noah’s name, the vultures come scavenging. My name and my studio have been all over the news yesterday and today even without the clarification that we should have today.

  Asa Group: Noah beefed up security and we closed until further notice on walk ins. If they ain’t booked, they ain’t getting in.

  Noah Group: I had Tay give a press release stating we were all keeping you and Deja in our thoughts while we await the results of DNA. She is ready to make another one on your behalf once we know more.

  Me: You two could run the world.

  I chuckle at that knowing I am right. Asa is so much like Cal used to be. All business, all pussy, all the time. Repeat.

  Asa Group: We got your six. Keep us informed.

  Noah Group: Whatever happens, we are family Sul. You ain’t alone. Trust me, yeah?

  Me: Yeah, I trust you guys.

  Noah is all about trust, and lives and dies by it. If he tells me he’s there for me, I trust that he is and won’t budge even if I fought him on it.

  My phone rings just as I set it back on the dock.

  “Hey, Pop.”

  “Hey, son. It’s time.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  "Fools, " said I, "You do not know

  Silence, like a cancer, grows

  Hear my words that I might teach you

  Take my arms that I might reach you"

  But my words, like silent raindrops fell

  And echoed in the wells, of silence

  Sully

  Deja didn’t end up coming and pop said she was a wreck. So the fuck am I, but I wouldn’t not be here. My baby endured something foul and I would suffer through this torment for her.

  I stare at pictures of the grave site. Small yellow markers with numbers surround the few bones I see. My stomach revolts and I vomit into the trash can beside me.

  “Sam, are you sure you can do this?” Agent Sorell asks me.

  I nod and wave for him to continue. I see where her costume was wrapped around the remains and her doll beneath her. “How are these intact?”

  Agent Sorell looks at me with kind eyes. “She was wrapped in a garbage sack that was duct taped before it was buried. Time, elements, and animals are why we have what is left.”

  It sounds so fucking morbid and twisted, but I want to know it all. For her, I will know every fucking detail.

  I nod, motioning again for him to continue. Photo after photo, close ups, some from afar. Evidence they believe is blood on her costume and doll. Blood that is most likely hers and my stomach tumbles again as I wretch into the trash can.

  It feels like hours as they speculate the truth from what this Levi fuck admitted, before they allow me to read the plea deal, that they are willing to make for his full confession.

  “Plea deal? What the fuck? Why would we want a plea deal? He murdered my daughter! The fact he knows where she was, is proof enough!” I roar, unable to fathom any deal for the sick fuck.

  Chris, the DA, looks at me. “Sam, with the plea, we keep him in California with no extradition. He has three other cases of the bodies they found. He is using this case to avoid death on that case. We can give him four life sentences for Kace and the three other victims found in his basement and guarantee he never sees outside the gates again. With the amount of cases against him, it is likely they will result in a capital case.”

  My mind is going a mile a minute. “This mother fucker has been torturing kids for a minimum of ten years!” I roar, as I slam my fist on the table. “In and out of prison because the system is fucked up. The system allowed this to happen. To Kace and those other kids. How do their parents feel about letting this fiend live?”

  “He is willing to give a full confession on all three children. The other parents are just as furious, but willing because they want the answers more,” Chris explains, and it hits me.

  “So what? We say no to the plea and he walks, even though he led you to her body?”

  “He won’t walk. He will plea to a deal with the other three victims and most likely get life, and give the answers,” he looks at me then, uncomfortable. “He was very specific. Answers to everything, but only with a plea.”

  I feel an anxiety attack coming on as I see spots in my vision. “Then, let’s go to trial. Take his ass into preliminaries tomorrow and let him try to claim ‘not guilty’. I have the best back up money can buy. Noah Beckett and the members of TAT will buy us the meanest prosecutors in this country,” I am talking shit right now because nobody said that. It doesn’t matter though, I know they would.

  “I will sell my share of PIT to Noah and roast this mother fucker.”

  “With what evidence son?” My pop has been quiet through this, gritting his teeth in protest to the idea of a plea deal.

  “He gave you the fucking location!” I roar, slamming my hands on the table with every word.

  “And none of it will be admissible in court. His admission only comes because of the plea to the other three victims. Any defense attorney can argue it not admissible.” Chris tells me, as I pace the small conference room.

  “Then get some fucking evidence! Subpoena for his DNA to be tested on our evidence!” I am pleading, plucking any fucking idea I can from the fucking heavens.

  Then it hits me. I calm immediately.

  “Will he be detained in jail or out on bail?” I ask, knowing I have an answer for both.

  “He will most likely be detained unless somehow his attorney can argue a logical reason for bail. We will submit for bail to be denied.”

  “Will he be held in California or Washington for preliminaries?”

  “He is here in Washington. The judge over the preliminary hearing will agree to extradite back to California.”

  “Okay, so help me figure this out. Why can’t he be tried here if either way he is getting life? Washington has no capital punishment. It doesn’t make sense to send him back to California. I want him tried here in Washington. I want a guilty plea and he can face the Calif
ornia judge on his own case.”

  “Sam..” my pop says, but I wave him off.

  “How can you be okay with this, Pop?” I ask, looking my old man in the eye.

  “Because it is the law. Our founding fathers made this great nation, and everyone deserves a fair trial,” The DA says, pissing me off more.

  “A fair trial? Okay. What about the fairness to Kace and these other children?”

  “The fairness is in justice being met.”

  I am fuming and can’t think clearly. “I need time. I need to think about it,” I say. I know I will never agree to a plea. Never. That doesn’t mean he won’t meet his death.

  Mya

  I have been waiting on pins and needles for Sam to call me. It has been hours and I try to derail my worrisome thoughts with choreography, but gave up. I head to my house after shooting Sully a text.

  ME: Hope all is well. I am done for the day and headed home. XOXO

  He doesn’t respond immediately and I hit the grocery store on my way home to keep my mind occupied. About two hours go by with nothing, until he texts me back.

  Sully: I will meet you there in a bit. I need to talk to Noah and Asa about my time off from the shop and then get with Deja to start planning a funeral.

  Then, another one.

  Sully: It will be later, but I am coming to you, Pet.

  I feel warmth spread through my heart at his words thankful he isn’t pushing me away like he thought he would.

  Me: Do whatever you need to do. I’m not going anywhere.

  Sully

  My dad’s words ring through my skull as I floor the gas and head to the back entrance of my shop.

  “Whatever you think you are doing will end badly, son. Let the law handle this and accept the plea.”

  “I just need to think, Pop. That’s all. You guys are asking a lot for me to sign off on him staying alive. And for what? The gruesome details he will enjoy reliving? I don’t know if I want those details pop.”

  “Maybe not, but the more details, the harder to gain sympathy from a jury or a judge.”

  “Why should it matter? The judge can’t reverse a plea deal if he pleads guilty,” I looked at him, pleading with him to be on Kace’s side, on mine. “Why should he live, Pop?”

  “He shouldn’t, but better he spends his time miserable for the rest of his life.”

  “He won’t be miserable. He will be protected like all offenders of his fucking nature. Protected, Pop, and that shit makes me mental.”

  “Samuel, please don’t do something irrational.”

  I want to reassure him. To tell him I was rational and would do the right thing. The problem was the right thing to me and the right thing to him, were two different things.

  I shoot Noah and Asa a text to meet me in the water heater and utility room at the bottom of the back stairs. I sit in the small room and pull the string that flips the light on as I wait.

  “What’s up?” Noah asks, as he and Asa shut and lock the door behind them.

  I explain everything that went down at the precinct.

  “So that’s it. He can roll over for a life conviction for his confession?” Asa asks, as appalled as I am.

  “Yeah.”

  Noah is watching me close, too close. “What’s this private meeting really about?”

  I look to my two closest friends and answer Noah. “Hypothetically speaking. If you had got to Carrie in Gig the night your dad attacked her, would you have turned him in, or killed him if given the chance?”

  “What the fuck, Sully?” Asa gasps, knowing damn well why I ask. Noah’s eyes haven’t left mine.

  “You know what I would do,” His arms are folded, and he is not afraid to admit he would kill his own father for the vile things he did to his sister, let alone himself. “I guess the only real question is, if you were given the chance to let the law handle Levi Tenpenner or yourself, what would you choose?”

  I stand as he did, my eyes on him, just as his were on me. “You already know,” I admit.

  “No fucking way, Sul!” Asa yells and pushes me. “Killing him would not bring her back. It would ruin your life, our lives, because everything we built would be tainted.”

  “I figure if he can get a plea deal for killing a minimum of four children and sexually assaulting two others, then I can get a sympathetic judge and…” I pause and look to Noah. “The best attorneys TAT money can buy…”

  I leave it at that knowing the best defense is money, even I don’t have the money. The members of TAT do, and every one of them would take up for my me and my reasons. “It’s what? Temporary insanity? Manslaughter? Even if I get twenty years? I survived ten in hell, I can survive twenty in peace.”

  “Look,” Noah says, his voice uncertain. “Hypothetically speaking is one thing. Actually, planning it, is premeditated murder, Sully.”

  I know he is right, I do. “I can’t live with this shit, Noah.”

  “Yeah, dude, you can. It sucks and it isn’t fair, but you live a fucking hell of a life for that little girl. You live for her and waste no time on the trash in prison,” Asa says and grips my shoulder.

  “Asa is right, Sully. Besides, there are ways to get word to a prison that a fucking child predator is there. I did with Cody, and I know damn well he is feeling my wrath daily and that is more comforting than death.”

  “Yeah… I know. I am just not rational,” I admit, but my mind is still on vengeance as I think of ways to get the word into a prison. “Hypothetically speaking… How would I get word to a prison?”

  Noah laughs, as does Asa. “Dude, we are tattoo artists. Former inmates are like a third of our business.”

  It eases some of the anger and I am no longer plotting his death. The idea of daily torture is better than death.

  Anyone can judge me for wanting this prick to suffer in ways that would make a serial killer shiver, but walk in my shoes a minute, just a minute… I guarantee you couldn’t take the pain.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Baby I’ll learn to touch you, I want to breathe into your well

  See, I gotta hunt you, I gotta bring you to my hell

  Baby, I wanna fuck you, I wanna feel you in my bones

  Boy I’m gonna love you, I’m gonna tear into your soul…

  Mya

  I am sound asleep on my couch when I hear the doorbell and jolt from my sleep. I check my phone seeing it is only nine p.m. and see a message from Sully telling me he was here.

  I rush to the door and unlock it, pulling him into my arms. “I am so sorry. I fell asleep watching dance videos.”

  He brushes my hair back and kisses me softly. “It’s okay.”

  He looks exhausted, black circles under his eyes, and his voice scratchy. I know he was crying earlier by the sound of his voice.

  “What can I do?”

  He laughs, but it sounds tortured. “Let me rage fuck you.”

  I pull back and look at him. I have no clue what that is. “Uh, how?”

  He looks at me and kisses me sweetly, no rage at all in his kiss. “It’s a term of speech. I just want to rage, but fucking sounds good, too.”

  I take what he says, and I know it isn’t a term of speech. I am certain it’s rough sex and he doesn’t want to scare me. I step back and drop the tight capri pants I was wearing, panties and all. Then, lift my sports bra over my head. I am naked before him, wearing tattoos and skin. “Give me your worst, crow.”

  He wastes no time at my offer and slams into me like a feral lion, pinning me to the wall. One hand is gripping me, half on my shoulder half on my throat as he kneels before me, dragging his tongue down my body. My heart is racing, and I don’t know if I want this, or what he will do to me.

  His thumbs open my pussy as he flattens his tongue over me and eats at me ferociously. “I need you, Mya, so fucking much,” he says, slipping two fingers inside of me.

  My hands fall to his scalp, scraping him with my nails wanting more. What was fear before was now foolishly forgotten
. He was all I wanted. Any way I could have him.

  He laps at me, fingers me, as that hand sits high at my throat as he squeezes. I know he won’t hurt me, but the ferocity of his touch has me coming.

  He finishes me off, slipping his thumb in my mouth as his fingers and tongue pull everything from me until I am mush against the wall. He stands, that hand never moving from my neck, as he pins me to the wall and single handedly drops his pants.

  He comes in close and lifts me when he finally moves his hand and uses both to lift me up by my thighs, spreading me open over his dick.

  “I love how you come on my face, Pet.”

  I groan at his words, but am lost for my own when I feel him impale me on his cock. He slams into me, pushing me to the wall with his hips. My hands weakly draped around his neck as he fucks me, his hips like pistons revving me up.

  “Fuck, Mya. I can’t get deep enough. I want to fuck you through this wall.” He tries to. I am certain of it. He is fucking me so hard against the wall, that there is a bite of pain deep inside of me where he is bottoming out in my pussy, telling me I can’t take more of him even if I want to. And still I spur him on.

  “More, baby, fuck! Harder give me more,” I scream, as each thrust sends a bolt of painful eroticism through me. I relish it and wonder for a split second if I am a masochist or simply falling in love with a broken man?

  Neither frighten me in this moment of pleasure and pain. I could let him burn through me if he needed to.

  He is grinding against me, deep as he can go, when he bites at my shoulder and smacks my thigh. The pain, oh fuck, the pain is so good. It isn’t violent or punishing. It is need. Pure reckless need, and he can’t control it any more than I can. I want him to fuck me up, make me bleed, if only for him. I want there to never be a thought of any man who could ever fulfill me like Sam Sullivan.

  This is ownership without words. Fucking me with an abandon that is reckless and thoughtful, beautiful and ugly.