by Hazel Grace
“Beat you up?” I repeat. “Nah, I’ll give you a chance to help yourself out. To be fair and all.”
Untwisting a gallon of water that I have sitting next to my brown duffle bag, I walk around him, pouring the liquid out and making a circle in the dirt.
“You gonna do some type of ritual and shit?” Bubba spits out, following me with his eyes. “You religious or something?”
“Or something.”
Tossing the plastic jug, I peer up to the rope that’s hanging from the abandoned billboard I used to sit up on. It overlooks the park of badly needed renovation trailers and the dense woods surrounding it. The place that Scarlett and I would hide and go “camping” for a few days because the man in front of me wouldn’t stop coming over to throw me off and attempt to rape her.
The same spot I would watch Bubba traipse around the park—more like terrorizing it—and I’d wished that I was a sniper that could take him out from up there.
I’ll somewhat get my wish.
“Get it over with then,” Bubba seizes out. “I got shit to do.”
Taking another hit off my nicotine, I glance over the overgrown bushes and trash scattered around from kids, not giving a fuck about littering. They have more important things to worry about, especially if Bubba is stomping the streets again.
“You fucking with my brother the other night?” The words off my lips are rancid at best. They stir up what I’ve done, what I didn’t do, how everything might have been prevented if I would’ve just killed Bubba years ago.
“Me?” he drones. “Not my style.”
“No, you just rape.”
“It ain’t rape if they ask for it. If they want that blow. If they glance at my cock and nod their heads. If they look at me with longing in their eyes and—” The back of my hand slams into the side of Bubba’s face, sending him cowering in my wake.
Everything he just fucking said is bullshit.
All of it.
I wasn’t the only one he touched. He’s the devil in the night that stalked his prey and did it with zero fucks given. And the thing was, he never stopped.
“You’re a delusional fucker, you know that?” I seethe through my teeth. “You should’ve stuck around. I would’ve knocked some reality into you.”
Bubba spits, for his sake, not in my direction. “I knew you were hunting me down. Wasn’t going to wait for you and that redheaded prick to take me out.”
Kyson.
While I was a react first, ask questions can come second kinda guy, I’m taking a page from my best friend’s book and trying here.
Not only do my fists want to plummet into his face, but I’m ready to just get what I need done and be over this shit.
“And here we are.” Reaching for the dangling rope, it already has a hangman’s noose made at the end. Bubba sees it and narrows his eyes at me.
“You’re gonna hang me?”
I furrow my own. “Of course not. This is to wrap around your body.”
“I’m already tied.” Bubba watches me as I toss it over his wide frame and yank on it to tighten. “Too tight.”
“Calm down. I need to show you where I used to imagine offing your ass when I was a kid.”
“I don’t want to see your shit. Unless...your sister is in sight.”
His comment is to get a reaction out of me. However, even though I’ve already hit him, I’d like to see something else.
Reaching for my phone, I pull up my gallery, locating a screenshot of my sister that I saved. It was a selfie from years ago, something I found while searching for her to make sure she was doing fine. The only picture I have of her.
Turning the screen so he can see it, I let him bury himself even deeper when he examines the only thing I have that makes me warm inside. His dark eyes ping pong around her, interested and probably growing hard.
“Why are you showing me this?” he finally asks. “You offering her to me or something for information?”
“Do you got any?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s too bad,” I reply. “Cause I’m not really here for that.”
“Then what do you want?”
Tucking my phone back into my back pocket, I stare down at him, feeling a familiar coldness sweep through my veins. It keeps everything else out, emotions, feelings, memories, things that would make me go insane.
Everything.
Bubba scoffs loudly and shakes his head. “You might be a big man now, Bishop, but you’re still the same weak little bastard that I fucked up the ass. You can’t shove that out of your head, me inside you. My hard cock in that tight asshole.” He hums deeply, getting my hands to clench hard into fists. “Your sister...she was next. I wanted her more than anyone. But…I had to settle with the next best thing. Your little girlfriend, Camilla—” One of my hands mindlessly seize his throat as I lower myself onto my haunches. A deeply buried craze begins to nudge its way to the surface of my brain.
“I’m not sure what you’re bragging about because I got you to fake your own death, didn’t I?”
He tsks. “I saw what you did to my nephew, Mac. You let that crazy fuck of a friend skin him alive.”
A slow curl of my lips emerges from my face. Kyson is the pure definition of my ride or die.
I carelessly lift my shoulders. “Should’ve kept his hands to himself.”
“From what I remember, the little bitch couldn’t keep her legs shut.” The pads of my fingers dig into his throat but not hard enough for Bubba to shut the hell up.
I don’t want him to.
I crave to hear all the vile shit he wants to say so that I can make his death that much more satisfying to my siblings and me that he scared and harassed half to death.
Not that I’m going to broadcast it to Scarlett and Hardy. But it’ll be nice to know he’s dead and gone. That he’ll never touch them. That his rape days are over.
“We’ve taken turns on her before, you know,” Bubba continues like an idiot. “All for that white powder that your mama liked to suck up her nose too. All those fucking whores sucked dick and would have a train ran on them just to get a hit. Even her.”
My gut suddenly twists because Camilla never told me he had raped her too. That she didn’t let herself get tied up with Bubba after…
“You still keep in contact with her?” His so-called piqued curiosity is anything but. He’s urging me to lose my temper.
To fucking feel.
Plucking a small flask out of my back pocket, I release Bubba’s neck and unscrew the cap.
He opens his mouth like I’m about to do a good deed, and when he does, I pour the contents into it. He immediately spits it out as I rise, all over my clothes, while it drips off his chin to his chest.
“That’s fucking gasoline, you stupid fuck,” he fumes, glaring up at me through slitted eyes.
“Good job, Sherlock.” I knock the top off my Zippo. “And this is fire.”
Chucking it at him, the flames abruptly kick up the flammable substance, and he ignites. The colors flick up to his face, trailing up the path I led for it to go. Bubba releases a blood-curdling howl, but I’m already ready for him, shoving the stupidass handkerchief he always kept wrapped around his head back into his big ass mouth.
My booted foot hurls into his stomach, knocking him backward and still within the circle of damp dirt. The last thing I want to do is light this whole place on fire and make people homeless.
I’m just sorry that they’re going to have to see the aftermath of what I do tonight.
“Here’s that chance I was talking about,” I quip. “Stop, drop and roll, asshole.”
Bubba either hears me or does it on instinct because he begins to turn on his tied hands to put himself out. He succeeds with his chest and face, kicking out the flames a moment later with the dry dirt.
“Good job,” I praise through Bubba’s deep-seated moans of anguish. The smell of burnt flesh infiltrates my nostrils, but it doesn’t bother nor phase me anymore.
> It’s normal.
It’s nostalgic. I watched my father burn alive while Bubba, Mac, and their friends threw bottles with lit towels at the end inside his car. I remember my father’s screams, but they didn’t last long. The helplessness I felt because I couldn’t save him; the fire was too hot.
I’ve endured more than the man in front of me has in eight of his lifetimes. The pain and nightmares were what kept me strong to protect Hardy and Scarlett because Mom began to fail us months later after Dad was murdered.
“Remember when my daddy got burnt all to hell,” I reminisce, lapping around his frame. “I think you were there.”
I’m answered with a pained grunt, and Bubba moving his leg to try and push himself away from me.
“I watched him burn alive while you, Mac, and that piece of shit Mad Dog stood by and did nothing. Whose idea was it?” I get to my haunches again. “I don’t think it was you. You’re not creative enough. You liked bullying on things smaller than you, and my dad was so much bigger. But you got the opportunity to pick on something defenseless, and you took it.”
“I...didn’t…” I think I hear him say through the handkerchief.
“You may as well of.” I toss more gas on his back, smelling the fumes of euphoric feelings hit my nostrils. “This one’s gonna hurt.”
I snap another lighter and chuck it, letting it land on his back so that the flames lick up his spine.
Bubba’s screams are somewhat kept muffled as his clothes act as a secondary enemy, keeping the flames alive and hot. His skin starts to smolder under the heat, creating a dark gray cloud of smoke overhead.
Heaving on the rope that is still tied around his body, I lift him off the ground. His weight makes the strings whine in protest, but I use every muscle to make him ascend above me and overlooking the park.
At where he hurt, not only me and my father but so many others.
His death won’t be missed but appreciated.
Bubba’s frame looks like a ball of fire floating on his own as I tie the rope around a yellow fire hydrant. A message to anyone who has any involvement with my mom or fucked with me way back in the day that it’ll be like this...because I’m back.
Reaching down to pick up my things, I heave my bag onto my shoulders and steal another glance at Bubba kicking around to get free.
Someone is bound to see him, so I begin to dip out towards my truck parked on the other side of the fence.
Until my eyes fall on her.
Blonde hair illuminates off the full moon, her petite frame that I’ve touched so many times and got lost in.
My peace within the strife of this place.
She takes a hesitant step in my direction, and I match it, gaping at her like a ghost that vividly comes to me.
“Kace,” she whispers as she has so many years before. My heart accelerates double-time. It’s been forever since I’ve laid eyes on her.
It has been forever. Ever since she broke your heart.
“Cam.”
Three Weeks Later…
“Everything’s a fucking mess,” I profess, dipping a hot McDonald chicken nugget into my tangy BBQ sauce. “But it always is when he’s involved.”
Taking another bite, I watch the trees around me gracefully dance along with the wind, a few leaves blowing off their branches.
I shouldn’t be here.
I definitely shouldn’t be found here.
Kace Bishop will have my fucking head if he finds me looming around his rented condo like a type-A stalker with a severe problem of following directions.
Our plan is simple, has been for years—stay the hell out of each other’s way.
His route has been easy. He evades me like a foreseen disaster that’s about to make a collision course to his untimely fate.
And I…I try my best to detach my previous and obnoxious feelings towards him so that I don’t waste my time carving into a man who’s already hollow inside.
Well Enough Alone by Chevelle starts on my Jeep radio, and I exaggeratedly sigh, immersing another nugget in my sauce.
Now, if I could take the name of the song literally, maybe I wouldn’t find the urge to be sitting out in a condo parking lot like a damn psychopath.
“This is crazy.“ I shake my head. “Why am I even doing this? I mean, if he wants to ghost everyone on the squad, why am I wasting a perfect Saturday making sure he’s okay? Do you think he’d do that for me?”
Silence answers me as I snatch a french fry out of my brown bag, peering to my left then right down the quiet street for cars.
No one.
Like it has been for over two hours.
“Then again…he made things perfectly clear, several times. When I believe he’s going to do one thing, he sikes me out and does something else. He just likes to fuck with me.”
The twinge of anger that I’ve been attempting to hanker down begins to smolder in my chest.
This is a waste of time.
And it’s not just now that I’m doing it, but for the past six to seven years, I’ve misused perfectly blaze days to spend on him.
It’s pathetic.
He’s manipulated me into believing that—I stop myself right there.
This is madness. Utter and pure stupidity.
I stuff more fries in my mouth, shoving back the truth with salty food to keep the bile from rising. “But I’m doing it for you, right? He’s your dad…who won’t answer his damn phone.”
I steal a glimpse to my passenger seat at Bishop’s giant German Shepherd staring at me. His pink tongue hanging from his mouth with only one thought—he wants one of my chicken nuggets.
“Are you even allowed to have these?”
Armageddon blinks both eyes simultaneously as he patiently waits as his owner trained him to do.
The dog is eerily responsive. After I learned some Russian commands—because leave it to Bishop to teach a dog another language—he immediately sits, stays, lays down. Half of them I know I’m not saying right, but he complies, so I go with it.
Diving my hand back into my McDonald’s bag, I pull out what Arm has been watching me enjoy, unlike my babbling on and on about things that shouldn’t be a conversation or even a landing thought. “I’m throwing you under the bus if you can’t have these.”
Handing one over, Arm nicely takes it between his teeth, then settles into his seat, laying on his front legs.
“Actually, fuck that, we’re going to have words. Who leaves a poor dog alone in the woods with no babysitter during a torture episode? I mean, he doesn’t even know if you’re alive.”
Yes, he does. You’ve only sent him six photos of Armageddon in a baseball hat, one wrapped in a blanket, another on a walk, two where you’re feeding him from your couch, and a beautifully composed selfie with Arm with my middle finger between us.
Dark brown eyes peer back up at me, not giving a shit about what I’m saying or that I feel any sort of way about the matter.
Just like his daddy.
Except I can’t shove the feeling down that something is up with him, and it’s not a three-week vacation that he decided not to tell anyone on B723 about.
Not only that but if he was on a mission, Kyson would be privy to it as well.
No, he’s up to something, and I can’t help or stop the jealousy and irritation that keeps showing up in my head.
Yeah, he’s a quiet douchebag but a responsible one.
Hell, it’s impressive how he’s the biggest asshole but yet the dude that keeps the rest of our squad in line. I mean, hell, the boys need it. When we’re not assassinating the bad guys because politicians don’t want to get their hands dirty, they’re making poor decisions and creating havoc.
We’re the unseen and unheard, the ones that don’t get the recognition of putting our lives at risk to save this country from terrorists and the likes of people who are out for their own paycheck for the sake of American security. However, the boys like the stakes, I can’t say I’m not guilty of it either, but they
’re a bunch of idiots.
First, Marty wrongly kidnapped a woman he believed threw an attempt to kill his sister, Reagan.
Then you have Kyson, who is secretive but sweet who dodges shit, so he doesn’t have to come to terms with us thinking he’s doing something shady.
Mills, our clown, poor asshole, can’t catch a break with women, but he doesn’t seem to care either way.
And Blue…I hate the bitch.
MARTY: Where are you?
I clench my teeth together in an exaggerated grin and scoff. I’m not ratting myself out.
EMMY: Whatcha need?
MARTY: For you to answer my fucking question.
Mhm. I thought this becoming a father would’ve calmed his ass down; however, it’s done the exact opposite. Calling him a nervous wreck would be an understatement because Marty has a built-up notion in his head that he’s going to be a shit of a dad.
I believe he’ll be fucking amazing, but again, no one listens to me. I’d have a better conversation with a wall over these dudes with selective hearing. He is convinced his now wife and ex-kidnapped victim, Stormi, isn’t going to want to keep him around due to his broody and emotional past.
Transforming him into a walking and sneering disaster of nerves.
It’s been a ball—really.
I love watching him pace the floors and drive himself absolutely crazy while the boys do nothing but laugh, and I’m the one that has to settle his unstable ass down.
I think I’ve missed my calling as a psychiatrist.
EMMY: Shopping.
MARTY: Since when?
EMMY: Since when what?
MARTY: You’re the only female I know that hates stores and trying shit on.
EMMY: Sometimes, you just have to suck it up and go.
MARTY: I was gonna see if you were around.
I recognize what that means, even if he won’t just blurt it out and say it.
Marty needs someone around to keep his mind off parenthood. Which is dumb because Stormi is probably nearby to console him.