Since the brutal attack on me had happened way too long ago to dig dirt up on and use it against them when I finally brought them down, I have started slowly snooping around about my parent’s ‘accident’ to see if I can uncover anything incriminating to use against them. I didn’t believe Sam when he had tried to assure me that there had been nothing peculiar going on with my parents the night they met their untimely demise. It was all too big of a coincidence and I was bound and determined to get to the bottom of it all.
I also had their funeral and wake to plan, which I was expected to have soon. Another show for the public to bring my position on the council more into light. I was also expected to have the ‘party’ at Locke Manor after their funeral and I just wasn’t sure I was ready to have the Order of Red and their devil spawns inside my sacred home. Sam bugs me enough about starting the planning as it is. I just have way too much going on right now to be dealing with that shit.
Movement in my peripheral drags my gaze over to the shadowy tree line to the right of the junkyard and I sigh in relief when Des finally steps out of the darkness and strides to me, but I involuntarily freeze when another figure follows after my old friend, a male I don’t recognize. They come to a stop in front of me and Des gives me a small hug, but I keep my hard eyes trained on the awkward male beside my friend.
“Before you go all Jackie Chan on him, Honey, I would like you to meet my boyfriend, Jackson Wade. He’s good at finding things out of place in cars and I thought he would come in handy when you look over your parent’s car. Trust me, he is sworn to secrecy.” Des assures me and I stare at the kid for a moment, searching his face for deception or anything incriminating. I have been gone from Crimson Valley for a long time, it was hard for me to tell who wasn’t on the side of the Order anymore. I used to know everyone, but even though I had only been here a few days, it had been clear from that first party I went to on Saturday just how many new families The Order had allowed to come into this town in the ten years since I had been gone. I trusted Des and if he trusted his boyfriend, I was sure I could as well.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Honey. Desmond has told me so many good old stories about you from your childhood.” Jackson speaks with a deep Romanian accent and my brows shoot up in surprise, the first sign to Desmond I am not about to kill his boyfriend he has brought here to assist in my investigation tonight.
“Jackson Wade is a very American name for a Romanian foreigner.” I decide to point out, crossing my arms over my chest and the material of my jacket rubs against my hard nipples and I involuntarily shiver. It was colder than a witch’s tit out here and I wanted to get inside, look over my parent’s car for any signs of foul play, and go home to have a nice hot bath with Finley before I had to get up and get ready for work again in a few short hours. The kid smiles warmly at me at that and it eases something in my tense muscles to see the genuine expression on his face. I don't know how I know it, but Jackson Wade is good people, like Des.
“Ah yes, my ma and da wanted me to fit in when we moved here from Brasov. Ma had always wanted a better life for me so at birth she gave me an American name just in case we were ever able to relocate to America later on in life.” I had to hand it to the kid, even with the heavy accent he still spoke nearly perfect English with very minimal issues with the language barrier I know some foreigners suffered with when they moved to the United States from different countries in the world.
“What kind parents you have then. Shall we?” I gesture toward the far side of the junkyard around the back where I had set up a few crates before the boys had arrived so we could climb over the fence. There was a spot I knew that has a blind side from the cameras. I made sure I had done all the research I could on this place before I had decided I wanted to try and snoop around for clues on how my parents pristine Mercedes turned out from that night. I was just hoping and praying that it hadn’t been completely scrapped yet so we could get a good look at it.
Des and Jackson follow me as I lead them around the side of the junkyard and I avoid getting too close to the fence on this side, keeping to the tree line with the darkness as a cover. I had informed Des earlier that day where the cameras were positioned so he didn’t need any guidance to follow my lead as I led them to the back of the property. As we rounded the back right hand corner, my crates were easily spotted and I had already placed a blanket over the top covering the barbed wire. Des gave me a wink before he stepped forward first to climb up.
I allow Jackson to follow and I feel bad at the nervousness wafting off the kid about this obvious criminal thing we are doing, but Des had assured me that he could be trusted and I needed to trust Des on this. I had no other choice. I had no one else in this town I could turn to for help. You have the Red boys, a tiny stupid part of my brain tries to reason with me, but I wasn’t having any of that. The Red boys were anything but trustworthy. I should know more than anyone.
I scale the fence faster than the two boys that went before and I smirk at Des when I land gracefully on my feet before the two of them and straighten as he gapes at me. Des only knew a little about the things I had been up to after I left Crimson Valley, hence his Jackie Chan comment from earlier. I liked surprising him with little tidbits of what I could do. It made my confidence boost even higher and made me realize that I truly had overcome what had happened to me at the hands of those ruthless Red boys ten years ago.
“Come, they keep the nicer junker’s in the back left hand corner. If my parents' car is still here, it will be back there. Keep behind me, I know where to walk to stay in the blind spots of the cameras.” I say in a soft tone to Des and Jackson and they nod. Walking past them, I grab an old empty oil barrel off to the side from where we stood at the back corner and I push it up against the fence right below where my blanket was resting on top of the barbed wire. It would have been foolish not to have an easy escape root planned out in case things went to shit while we were trapped inside here. Plus, I hadn’t forgotten that black hole in the pit of my stomach from earlier Monday morning. Something bad was still bound to happen, even if it was no longer Monday. I don’t mention how I know where the things are located in the junkyard. I used to come here a lot with Kass after school because he would be so excited to show me all he’s learned from my papa, but I push that out of my mind too. It had all been a lie.
Satisfied once I have our escape route secured, I turn and lead the boys into the junkyard, making sure to stick close to the blind spots I have mapped out in my head. I had spent an uncomfortable amount of time in front of my papa's computer in his office after work memorizing the proper route through the junkyard to avoid the cameras. I didn’t want to be the reason why we were caught and I didn’t want to get Des and his boyfriend in trouble for helping me, even though Jackson wasn’t even supposed to be part of this plan. So, I now not only had Des to look after in here, but his boyfriend too.
It doesn’t take long to reach the back of the junkyard on the left-hand side and I know I’ve hit the jackpot when I spot a familiar, albeit crushed and nearly unrecognizable, sleek black Mercedes with the familiar Locke family crest on the front of the hood. A pang of sorrow zings through my chest as I look over the wrecked car that had been a favorite of my papa’s, a car that had been built to protect, but it hadn’t been able to save them that night.
Moving closer to the heap of metal, I put gloves on before tossing pairs back to Des and Jackson and went to the driver’s side of the Mercedes, which was less smashed up than the passenger side, the door easy to open. Pulling it open, I peer inside and grind my jaw at the distinct dried blood coating the headrest and the shiny matte black, half crushed, steering wheel. My papa’s blood.
Doing my best to ignore it, I bend down and pull the lever on the side of the seat on the floor that would pop the hood and I wince when it makes a sudden loud, metal against metal, screech when it releases and I quickly gesture for Jackson to lift the crumpled hood the rest of the way to make quick work of looking underneath i
t for any obvious signs of foul play.
Des and Jackson bury their heads underneath the hood out of sight from me and I quickly slip into the driver's seat, my ass brushing against tiny shards of broken glass that makes me thankful I wore my thickest pair of dark grey jeans tonight, and I pop open the glove box as best as I can since my mom’s side of the car is the most smashed in and covered in blood. I try not to think about it, about what happened to her that night and as I pulled the contents of the glove box out, I hoped to whatever God was out there that they hadn’t suffered after the impact. That fear that they had suffered was what stopped me from marching down to the coroner’s office to see the report.
I am rifling through the papers inside the glove box, all ownership papers of the car and a few odd documents titled confidential Order business when Des appears around the car by the open driver’s door, a grim expression on his face. It instantly puts me on alert and I stuff the confidential documents inside of my zipped-up blazer and put the car title and registration back inside the glove box before slipping back out of the car.
“Jackson found something.” He murmurs softly to me, his voice tight with an emotion I couldn’t read and I push past him to round the car where Jackson was hunched over the engine, holding two plastic tubes up and out of the left side of the engine and I don’t have to be a mechanic to recognize what those were.
“Someone seriously cut their fucking brake lines?” I snarl in a low deadly tone, coming to stand closer to peer at the severed brake lines and I notice how the top half where the lines should be connected look smooth like a sharp instrument had started to cut through but then it had stopped. The bottom half was jagged like it had been yanked apart by a force and that was what had completely severed the line. “No, someone did a partial cut, enough that the brake fluid would leak slowly enough and that if my dad had slammed on the brakes too hard, it would completely snap the line the rest of the way, causing him to lose complete control.” I surmise in a cool and clinical tone, doing my best to keep my anger at bay, and Jackson nods and flashes me a sad, solemn look.
“That’s not the only thing, if I had to take a guess, someone had also syphoned out most of their brake fluid before they started to cut the line. A cut this big with a full tank of fluid would have been noticeable to your father as he was leaving your garage.” Jackson points out a small white plastic container on the side of the engine barely noticeable at first and it was indeed empty. A spill that big on our garage floor my papa would have noticed as they were leaving. I was going to have to check the garage out when I got back home for any suspicious stains on the ground.
“Thank you Jackson. I notice the front driver's side tire is flat. Can you check it over and see if it was just deflated from the accident, or if something else caused it?” I ask him as I raise my phone with the flash on and take quick pictures of the lines he has held in his hands along with the empty white brake fluid container. He nods and I slip my phone back into my pocket and slowly shut the crumpled hood so it wouldn’t make that awful noise again.
Just as I get it snapped shut and Jackson is bending at the waist to take a look at the tire on the driver’s side with his phone light flashing to get a better look, a low growl has my head snapping over and every cell in my body freezes at the exceptionally large, incredibly angry looking demon dog from hell stalking towards us from the direction of the garage workshop of the junkyard, pointed black ears back and teeth bared in a menacing snarl.
“Fuck. Boys, time to go.” I murmured softly to Des and Jackson, not wanting to raise my voice to cause the dog to launch at us sooner than I was prepared for as it stalked closer to us. It was a good ten feet away and if I could distract it long enough for Des and Jackson to slip back along the fence to my escape route, I could easily outrun it. I couldn't be worried about them and myself at the same time.
“Des take Jackson and slip around that pile of junker’s over there and make your way along the back of the fence to the escape I have set up. Try and stick to the shadows as much as you can to stay in the blind spots but be quick. I will distract it as long as I can.” I order my friend and his boyfriend and Des pauses for a moment, indecision warring on his face, but he moves after I shoot him a glare to obey me. Des would only be a distraction right now for me in this situation and he knew that at least enough to leave me to deal with this.
Lowering myself to crouch on the balls of my feet, I hold my hands out to the sides to keep the dog’s attention on me as Des and Jackson slip away into the darkness. I pray to God then that this is the only guard dog the owner of the junkyard had and that I didn’t just send my companions to the slaughter but I guessed I would find out soon enough if they started screaming in a few moments.
The hellhound continued to advance towards me with its lips pulled back and snarling until he got about four feet away and then he stopped, lowering his head, and growling at me menacingly as I continued to maintain eye contact with it. I know they tell you to never look an alpha dog in the eyes like that and try to dominate it with a look, but there was no way I was going to take my eyes off of it for even a second, not when it looked ready to rip my throat out and I was in unfamiliar territory right now.
Staring at the dog snarling at me and taking up an aggressive fighting stance, I contemplated what I wanted to do for a moment. No matter what I did, I was going to have to run to try and make it to the fence and the dog would obviously give chase. I was fast, sure, but I doubt I would be able to make it to the fence and fully scale it to safety without the dog catching up to me at some point. I wasn’t living in a delusional fantasy that I was going to make it out of this unharmed or the dog for that matter.
Glancing to my left, I searched the pile of junked cars for any weapon I could possibly use if it came down to me coming face to face with the hound. My eyes land on a long, metal piece of what appeared to be an old muffler, but it was partially buried in more scraps. I had to be absolutely certain that, if I dived to pull it out, that it would come free easily enough for me to use it.
Taking a split second to send a quick plea up to whatever higher being was watching my stupid ass right now for good luck, I flick my eyes to the posturing enraged animal one more time before I dive at the muffler. A second later, I am yelling out in glee as it yanks easily free from the rest of the rubble and I don’t even pause to curse when some of the metal on the muffler I now clutch slices my palm wide open. I feel the dog’s presence at my back a mere second before the snarl pierces the night air around me and before I can think of it anymore, I am swinging with the muffler clutched in both hands and slamming it into the dog’s side as hard as I possibly can.
Grunting from the exertion that took, I barely stay to watch the dog go flying back in the direction of the junkyard garage and skid across the dirt before I am dropping the muffler and sprinting back around the pile of junk and along the fence. Adrenaline surges through me, I pump my legs harder as I hear the dog recover and give chase, its snarls and barks ringing out louder now around the junkyard and I almost cry in relief when I see my oil barrel looming before me.
With a war cry, I launch myself at the fence and make quick work of beginning to scale it up to the blanket covering the barbed wire at the top. Des and Jackson are on the other side yelling encouragements at me, but before I make it barely over halfway up the fence, a sharp agonizing pain is ripping through me and I am suddenly clinging for dear life to the fence as I glance down to see the dog dangling from my ankle, its jaws clamped tight enough around me to puncture through the thick leather of my combat boot a little.
With every bit of strength I had, I used my other leg to kick out at the demon dog and it took a couple tries to kick exactly right, but I managed to dislodge him and he slammed back down on the ground, along with my left combat boot. Cursing, but not being able to do anything about it, I make quick work of scaling the rest of the fence and flinging myself over the top to land not so gracefully on the other side and Des and Jackson are
instantly there to help me to my feet.
Gritting my teeth through the pain at the few puncture wounds in my ankle, I glance back over through the fence to see the demon dog having a field day tearing my combat boot to shreds and even swallowing a few pieces of leather it rips off. Dogs are fucked up man. Hobbling over to the fence, I ignore the dog snarling and jumping at the other side and get up the crate to reach up and pull my blanket down before I take the crates and throw them over the fence, disappointed when one of them didn’t hit the damn dog. There was nothing I could do about the oil barrel on the other side of the fence.
“Come on, we need to get out of here. I have no idea if that dog is some sort of trip wire for something and I don’t want either of you around here if shit goes down.” Doing my best to keep my weight off my injury, I moved to slip into the shadows of the woods and all three of us trail back through the trees until we reached the front of the junkyard again. Finley was waiting as he should be in the car for me about a good two dozen feet down the dirt road the junkyard was located on the outskirts of Crimson Valley. Before I can slip into my car on the passenger side with Finley driving, Des stops me as Jackson continues on to the car that they have parked a few feet down from ours.
“Watch your back out there, Honey. If they find out we were snooping around here tonight and found credible stuff before we are ready, it could ruin everything we are working towards.” He warns me and I dip my head at him, approving of his cautiousness. That cautiousness will keep his ass alive and alert.
Whiskey & Honey: Crimes of Crimson Valley: Book One Page 6