by K. L. Savage
I need research. A new list of names now. The only place to get that is to see if Badge left his computer out.
I push myself off the bed and take one more look at Melissa, glancing down at her sleeping form. The familiar pressure I have, the one that makes me want to hunt and kill, it’s for Ellie. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to find Holly’s killer, but it isn’t as important as finding my daughter because whatever I do, I can’t bring Holly back. She’s dead.
There’s hope for Ellie, and Melissa reminded me of that.
I take four steps to the end of the bed and kneel on the rug the chest sits on. Lady whines. She hates it when I open the chest because I’m never in a good mood when I do. Something about tonight is different. Something has changed. “It’s okay,” I keep my voice low and calm, scratching the top of her head. “I’m okay,” I tell her when she whines again, clearly not believing me.
I wrap my fingers around the cord and lift it over my head, my hair getting caught in the clasp. I hiss when a few strands break and get pulled out from my scalp. The mattress moves when Melissa rolls over, and I pause, hoping she doesn’t wake up. She can never see what is in here. No one can ever see what I keep hidden.
Sliding the key in the hole, I twist, and the locking chamber clicks. With a deep breath, I lift the top of the chest and let the weight of the lid press against the mattress for support. It’s dark, but the moon is shining through the window to give the perfect amount of light that I need to look inside without waking Melissa up. I lift the first tier off, ignoring the blood-stained dagger I’ve killed too many men with.
Regret eats at me. All these years I thought I was doing this for the right reasons, to find Holly’s murderer and to find Ellie, but the truth is, I lost sight of that a long time ago. I killed because I liked it. I still like it, but my spree led to the Sniper Serpents, and it’s a step closer to finding Ellie. I can’t lose sight of my reason for doing this and becoming this killer.
I reach inside and grab one of the few framed photos I have of us as a family. The picture is worn, and the man in these photos isn’t the man I am today. It’s hard to believe this happened. This moment. I’m holding Ellie, and Holly is leaning her head against my shoulder as we stare at our newborn baby. I was so fucking scared that I was going to drop Ellie, so I didn’t move, I didn’t breathe too hard, I stood still.
It’s all just a dream, lost in another dimension.
I rub my thumb over Holly’s face. Her features barely register with me now, and silently I tell her I’ll always love her, but it’s time for me to let her go. I lay the picture down and pick up a stuffed animal, the same one I found in the yard the night of the murder. I bring it to my nose and inhale, hoping Ellie’s baby scent is still on there, but it isn’t. It’s gone. It just smells like old dust from being locked away. I keep the plush animal against my heart and reach inside the trunk to find that Fleetwood Mac album I bought for Holly. It’s never been listened to, still wrapped in the plastic.
I haven’t looked at this stuff is ages, and I’m not too sure what’s making me look at it now, but I feel better than I ever have. I feel anger still, but it’s more settled, almost as if I’ve finally come to terms with it all.
Setting the record down gently, I hold onto to the damn purple bear and pick up all the newspaper clippings I’ve gathered over the years. They’re organized by year in different photo albums. Murders like Holly’s, kidnappings like Ellie’s, and of course the articles of all the men I’ve killed.
“I’ll never give up on you,” I whisper toward the bear and give the top of its head a kiss before laying it inside the abyss of secrets. “I’m getting close.” Sniper Serpents have something to do with my girls, and I plan on figuring it out. I place everything back in the chest, including the dagger, and lock it all in place. “Keep an eye on Melissa, Lady. I’ll be right back.”
She huffs in response.
I open the door and wince when the hinges groan. I slide my eyes toward the bed and make sure she hasn’t moved, then slip out, closing the door with a soft click. I let out a breath and scrub my face, then walk down the hall, passing a guest restroom, and then I take a left to get to the main room. The TV is on, and the only person here is Pirate, passed out and drunk on the couch. The man needs therapy.
I snort.
Says the man who has killed a hundred men.
I can’t be a hypocrite. No one knows much about Pirate except he drinks his weight in rum and fucks all the cut-sluts whenever he can, when he doesn’t have whiskey dick—rum dick—whichever booze you want to blame it on.
In the corner there is a basketball game, the kind that belongs in an arcade, and to the right of it is a dart board. There’s the bar to the left which is usually where all the cut-sluts hang out, and behind the bar are a few fuck rooms.
Fuck rooms are for the cut-sluts and members only. The digs aren’t too nice either. A bed, lube, zero passion and no romance. It’s a ‘get in and get the fuck out’ room. Members want their dick wet, and cut-sluts are willing to soak it.
Not me. Never have I been with one of them. Holly is still the one woman I’ve ever fucked, and that will change soon; I want it to. I can’t wait to sink inside Melissa. She’s the reason I’ve changed inside, or I’d still be okay with being celibate and too pissed off to even think about having sex.
Yeah, she’s the change of perception I’ve needed.
My sunflower brings me lucidity where killing does not. Colors are brighter, food tastes better, my vision is clearer, and my heart is lighter. I lived in black and white, and Melissa brings neon to my world of gray.
She’s my lucid dream, a vivid narrative that came out of nowhere when I dared to dream to be somewhere other than the darkness in my head.
With light footsteps, I pass through the hallway, kitchen, and then take a left down another hallway. Across from Reaper’s office is Badge’s room, but usually he leaves his laptop in the office space by the side door.
“Where you going?”
I almost jump out of my skin when Tongue’s voice comes out of fucking nowhere. “Jesus, Tongue. You scared me. Why do you do that? Haunting the damn corners like some ghost.”
“I see things people don’t by staying in the shadows.”
Is he telling me he knows something about me that I don’t want him to?
“Badge changed his password, by the way.” Tongue speaks slow, achingly slow, like every word is long and hard to say. “Thought you’d want to know before you got locked out. It’s 1207.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just stretching my legs. Nothing like exercise.” I bend down to touch my toes and want to hit myself for how lame that sounds. No way is he going to believe that.
“I can help.”
“Fuck, Tongue!” I jump again when his breath heats my ear. “Too close, and warn someone. It’s dark, and I don’t trust you in the dark.”
“Shouldn’t trust anyone in the dark.”
Always count on Tongue to really shake things up. “Noted,” I say.
“You have around ten minutes before Reaper comes here. He’s been restless, coming in around the same time every night. Thought you ought to know.” And just as soon as the creepy bastard arrives, he disappears into thin air. I swear, the fucker is a phantom.
Now I’m all nervous and jittery because of him. “Damn him and his creepy, knife-wielding, vanishing act,” I mumble under my breath and hurry by Badge’s room, hoping he doesn’t hear my footsteps.
The door to the outside comes to view, and to the right of that is a small makeshift office space with a built-in desk. Badge declares it as his ‘center of intelligence.’ He has all the police gadgets to keep us updated and informed which works perfectly for me. I open the silver laptop and punch in the new password like Tongue suggested. The screen turns blue, and I click on the criminal database that Badge has stored. I type in ‘Sniper Serpents’, and anxiety shakes my leg as I watch the dots along the screen
.
When the names pull up, I chew on my thumbnail and press print. It has names, addresses, and criminal history, and there are only around twelve members that aren’t in jail like the rest of the MC.
Ten now since I killed two.
The printer beeps and gets to work, the low buzz telling me it’s printing what I need to know. The problem is, every name has all of their criminal history attached to it which means it is printing every report. That’s new. It wasn’t like this before. It wasn’t as time consuming.
This could be a hundred pages.
When the first page is done, I snatch the white paper off the tray and look at it, reading about Hector Livingston. He’s old, too old to kidnap a kid, but maybe old enough to run the operation and give orders.
What if I’m chasing a dead end? What if this has nothing to do with Ellie? The only real thing I have to go off is that they disbanded around the same time Ellie was taken. Is that enough? The FBI report says they ran an illegal business, but what kind? What if it had to do with sex trafficking?
Who is Pops that Darius told me about? Maybe this Hector is Pops, the ‘father’ of them all or some shit.
I slam the piece of paper down harder than I mean to, and my palm hits the tray of the printer, sending freshly printed sheets crashing onto the desk and floor. The printer still buzzes, along with my mind. I grab the bridge of my nose and twirl around in the stool as I think and try to decipher all the information.
When the printer is done and shuts off, I grab the stack of paper, exit out of the tabs on the laptop, and close it. I make my way through the hallway and wander back to my room.
The clubhouse is still quiet. The ancient plank floors creak under my weight, and the sound of the sink faucet dripping grinds my nerves until I’m close enough to the TV in the main room. Whatever show Pirate has on drowns out the annoying drip, drip, drip, noise.
He’s awake now, but barely, and when he realizes his bottle is empty, he staggers to get up, sways, and makes a beeline for the bar. He can’t walk a straight line. He zigzags, smashing into a coffee table. He tosses the empty bottle in recycling, which I’m surprised he remembers to do, and grabs another bottle.
His glossy eyes squint in my direction, wet looking, as if he’s stuck in a dream or nightmare and it’s taking a toll on him. He’s going to drink himself to death, and maybe that’s his goal.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” he sneers and twists off the cap to the spiced rum before guzzling more than one shot. That must burn.
“Nothing. You alright?” I ask and roll up the stack of papers in my hand so he doesn’t see what I’ve been up to.
“Fine,” he grumbles and pushes off the bar. He trips over his feet, and I catch him before he falls onto the floor. He shoves me against the chest. “I said, I’m fucking fine. I don’t need you,” he slurs. “I don’t fucking need anybody. Just this rum.” He turns up the bottle and keeps chugging. I can’t have him do this. I yank the bottle from his mouth, and the liquid spills down his chin and neck. I sling the bottle through the air, throwing it in the trash. “What are you doing!” he yells and hurries to the garbage to dig it out, but the bottle is broken.
He needs our help. We can’t ignore this anymore.
“What did you do? What the fuck did you do?” He charges at me, and I lift my fist and slam it across his face. He falls to the ground, unconscious. I place the papers on the bar to bend down and pick up Pirate. He’s heavy, do I drag him by the arms, his boots dragging against the floor. I throw him on the couch and lift his feet up.
“Sorry, buddy. I can’t let you kill yourself,” I whisper and throw a blanket over him, hoping that in the morning he’ll forgive me.
I rub a hand over my face, my eyes drooping with exhaustion. I take the stack of papers, turn off the TV, and go to my room.
I open the door, and the papers fall out of my hand, snowing on the floor. Melissa is sitting on the floor, dagger in hand. She and looks up at me from one of the albums.
My hand flies to my neck only to feel my skin bare and empty. I left the key in the lock.
My secrets are out.
17
MELISSA
This… I can’t be looking at what I think I’m looking at. I’m not sure what I expected when I opened this trunk, but I didn’t expect this.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he hisses as he yanks me to my feet by my wrist. “Do you enjoy snooping? Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Who are you?” I whisper, facing the madness in his eyes. “What is this? What did you do, Poodle?” I steal a glance at the dagger in my hand. It has a sharp tip at the end, like lead in a pencil.
“You wouldn’t understand. Forget what you saw.” He lets go of my wrist, leaving me colder and more curious than I’ve ever been before. “What did you do? Everything was fine,” he mumbles. “It’s fine.” He’s speaking to himself as he bends down and cleans everything off the floor. When he’s done, he locks the chest and puts the key around his neck, safe and away from me. “Maybe don’t go invading people’s privacy. If I wanted you to see this, I would have shown you!” he spouts at me in a voice that I’ve never heard him use before.
In a frenzied panic, he squats to gather the sheets of paper that fell on the floor. Before he grabs the final sheet, I snatch it away from him at the last second. His fingers grip the edge, and the paper tears, but not enough that I can’t see my father’s face. I don’t understand what’s going on. The Sniper Serpents? My father isn’t in an MC. He’s just some asshole who can’t hold a job and is addicted to every drug he can get his hands on. This can’t be him.
Maybe this picture is be before me, a previous life my dad lived. Do I let Poodle know that whatever he’s looking into, I’m connected to it somehow? What if Reaper thinks I’m a spy or something?
“Give it back, Melissa. You have no idea what’s going on. No one does. Please, just … forget all of this, okay? I’m begging you.”
“I can’t forget this,” I whisper, staring at my father’s face. I shiver when the memories of him rush forward and assault me. My skin feels dirty. I’m filthy from his touch, from all of their touch. “Why do you have a picture of—”
“Get out,” he cuts me off and takes the piece of paper away from me.
“No.” I hold my head up even though I’m terrified of him in this moment.
“I said get out. Don’t make me force you to leave.”
“You’d do that to me? Why? Because I’ve seen a side of you no one has seen? I just want to know the truth. I want to know why you have a picture of my father in your hand.”
He freezes and holds up the sheet that seems to have all the answers. “This is your father? Hector Livingston?”
I nod and cross my arms over my body. I feel safer this way. Even the sound of my father’s name has my stomach lurching. “Yes. Poodle.” My bottom lip trembles. “What’s happening?” I’m fighting back tears when he throws the papers against the wall. This side of him makes me back away to the door, afraid for my life.
He registers my reaction, his shoulders sag, and his eyes soften around the edges. “I’d never hurt you.”
“But you’ve hurt people before?” I ask, wondering why he would not hurt me if he doesn’t have an issue hurting others.
“Yes.”
“You’ve killed?” My tongue is dry as the word barely forms between my lips.
“Yes.”
“No one knows?”
“No,” he says, picking up the dagger that’s stained red.
“Is that blood?”
He turns those eyes on me, and all I see are two sides, two faces of the man my heart belongs to. Poodle, the funny, light-hearted man.
And James, the revenge-seeking-father.
Right now?
I’m staring into the eyes of a killer.
“Yes,” he answers, twisting the dagger over in his palm. “Does that bother you?”
I don’t kno
w if I have a death wish, but I take a step toward him and wrap my hand around his, the same one that holds the weapon. “I think we have a lot of talking to do, Poodle. I’m not leaving your side until you tell me.”
“What do you want to know?” he questions.
“Everything.”
“Only if you tell me everything,” he says. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence your father is involved. I need to know where you came from, Melissa. If he took my daughter, if he sold her, wherever she might be, I need to know what happened in your life.”
“Only if you agree we talk to Reaper when we talk about all this,” I say. “The MC can help. We need them.”
He shakes his head and picks up a piece of paper with a different face on it. “No, I can’t have them finding out I-I’ve killed behind their backs. If Reaper finds out, the punishment I received before will be nothing compared to this.” He taps his shoulder. “I’ve been using Badge’s resources to find men connected to Oklahoma to find out what happened to my girls. When I find them and get the answers I need, I kill them. And you know what? It feels good. I can’t give that up, not yet.”
It’s a scary thing, knowing the man you thought you knew isn’t the man you know at all. “Your plan is to find all these men and kill them?”
“Until they lead me to your father. I think your dad is the guy in control, and if he has any information on my daughter, I want to know.”
“That’s…” I’m about to say insane, but I stop myself because is it? My father sold me to hundreds of men under what was supposed to be the safety of his own roof. “What makes you think they have anything to do with it?”
“A few of the members were arrested around the same time Holly was killed and Ellie was taken. It’s all I have to go on. If this doesn’t pan out, I’m back at square one.”
“Poodle, the chances—”
“I know, but I have to try. You told me not to give up. I’m not giving up. I’m taking action. I’ve been taking action for thirteen years, Melissa.”