After a few hours, my phone vibrates on my lap. The alarm. I’m proud of myself this time for not leaping in response. I turn everything off and head back upstairs. It’s time to at least try and get some sleep. After all, I have school in the morning.
I sigh.
I might be a liar, but what I told Duke earlier is the truth. I don’t like high school all that much.
Not now, and not when I graduated the first time.
Four years ago.
Chapter Four
Every morning,or afternoon, or whenever I wake the fuck up, the first thing I think about is the night my life went from being all about my work to being all about revenge.
Ain’t no doubt in my mind that when my time comes and I’m delivered to Hell, the memory of finding Morgan dead in her house will be the one I’ll relive over and over again on a never-ending loop.
Then again, maybe I’m already in hell.
That night changed me. Made me harder. Crueler. More unfeeling than ever.
Except anger. That I feel just fucking fine.
The blast of a car horn brings me back from the past. I’m grateful for the distraction until I glance in my rearview mirror at the little shit throwing his hands in the air like I’m somehow blocking him when I’m parked next to the curb and there isn’t a single other car on the fucking road.
I hold my favorite finger out the window of the van. I ain’t going nowhere.
The little shit shakes his head and maneuvers his little Mazda, turning the wheel hand-over-hand like he’s driving a fucking big rig.
He pulls up beside me, blocking my view of the townhouse I’ve been watching for weeks, and rolls down his passenger window. He’s yelling, but I don’t hear his words ‘cause I’m not fucking listening.
The fucker’s gotta go.
I hold up my hand like I’m about to apologize but grab my gun from the console instead and prop it up against my open window.
I smirk.
That does the trick. One look is all it takes for the fucker to slam on the gas pedal, his little roller skate screeching against the pavement as he takes off.
I return my gun to the console and lean over, popping open the glove box. I feel around until I find what I’m looking for. I sit up, open the bottle, and toss back two pills, swallowing them down with a swig of whiskey from my flask.
Adderall.
It’s needed, especially today. Watching this house for weeks isn’t good for a mind that tends to go searching in the past when it isn’t concentrating on the present. The Adderall helps me focus when I got too much time to think. Plus, it’s a better high than coke and lasts a fuck of a lot longer.
The only thing keeping me here, in this van on the side of a nameless road in Banyan Cay, besides the steady diet of whiskey and amphetamines, of course, is revenge.
Frank Helburn is going to die by my hand.
As soon as I can fucking find him.
I’ve never spent a year looking for someone. Finding people, tracking, is what I’m paid a shit-ton of money to do. I can usually trace someone in hours, days at most.
Never an entire fucking year.
I may not have found Frank, but I’ve found the next best thing.
His daughter.
Frances Helburn, named after her sorry fuck of a father, Frank, is now going by Sarah Jackson.
She has a miserable excuse for a life. Seriously, the bitch barely leaves the house. From what I can see she doesn’t have any friends, except of course for the curly haired motherfucker who barely looks old enough to shave. Although, Frances could be hiding a beard of her own for all I fucking know with that hair always in her face. I’m surprised she makes it to school every day without getting hit by a fucking car.
She spotted me across the street today. I felt her eyes on me. I pretended to be repairing something on my bike, when, in reality, I’d just ran from her house after breaking into the basement. I didn’t make it one foot inside the little window before I was clawed at by some fat feline who jumped past me in the dark, knocking a bunch of shit over.
Fuck that cat.
I didn’t have time to search for clues to where Frank could be hiding. Patience isn’t my strong suit. Finding Frank Helburn is testing my very limits. I was growing restless again. I remind myself of the goal and how sweet spilling his blood will be.
And, for a moment or two, I’m at ease.
Well, at ease as I can be.
I crack my knuckles and then my neck. I pull out my phone and click on the file Griff sent me a few weeks back. There are only two pictures in the file and one is of Frank and his daughter. The picture itself is several years old at best and blurry as all hell. Frances has no discernable deformities from what I can tell, but again, the picture is so distorted I can’t even make out if she’s smiling or not. Just dark hair and weird yellow-gold colored eyes, which must be another testament to the quality of the picture.
I may have never seen her face but when I was across the street from her I felt her eyes watching me with interest, and when I saw her shoulders drop from the corner of my eye I knew she’d removed me off her list of possible threats. I smile.
Wrong move, kid.
The other picture is a grainy security footage still showing Frank Helburn leaving the bloody scene at Morgan’s house and I feel the anger rising through my body settling in my throat where it’s been strangling me since that fucking night.
The phone rings, and I cringe at the name on my screen. I answer without a greeting, but Griff is Griff and doesn’t need one. He talks enough for the both of us.
“No sign of our boy Frank?” Griff asks, speaking fast as if someone pressed the fast forward button on his mouth. His voice is nasally. High pitched. Whiney. Every word he speaks sounds as if he’s complaining even if he isn’t. I look forward to when the job’s done so I don’t have to hear it on a daily fucking basis.
“None,” I confirm. “Just the girl and occasionally some little delivery boy twat.”
Griff makes a noise. Half sigh, half growl. “Well, Frank isn’t as good at covering his tracks as he thinks he is because last night my nephew Leo picked up a trace of him deep in the dark corners of the web only few know how to get to. He’s still hacking. Still doing jobs. Leo’s tracking him now. He may not be there with his daughter, but we’ll find him. Soon.”
“I’ll keep watching. If he comes here I’ll know it,” I tell Griff. It’s true. No one has ever slipped by me and they never will. “But I think it’s time to find out just how much Frank Helburn loves his daughter.”
“I think you might be right,” Griff agrees.
I look out the window at the dark townhouse. I press the speaker button.
“Take her.” Griff’s says. His voice deepens with the intensity of his words. His excitement is more controlled now. Darker. “Take Frank’s daughter. I want to flush this fucker out. He took Morgan and your child from you and he stole millions from me. He deserves everything he has coming to him.” He lets out a long breath directly into the phone causing static on the line.
“He needs to pay.” Another long exhale. “And then he needs to PAY.”
I don’t say anything, but I agree. Griff knows I agree.
“You’re one tough man to get more than a word out of.” Griff says, changing his tone from bitter to amused in single chuckle. “I like that about you.”
I don’t like anything about you.
“I hear you’re back to a one-man team,” Griff says, suddenly changing the subject.
I grit my teeth. This fucker sure knows how to piss me off. “None of your fucking business, Griff,” I snap.
I look out the window for the millionth time. The townhouse is still dark.
“I’m just saying, you must have been mad as hell when Rage left your team.” Griff continues, ignoring my warning. His mention of Rage’s name makes me want to call the entire job off. “He must’ve not been as loyal as you thought.”
Griff said HE. My anger
fades. Griff apparently doesn’t know who Rage is, never mind what SHE’S capable of.
I release my grip on the steering wheel. “We might have the same enemy, Griff, but make no mistake, that don’t make us friends.”
“Good, because I’ve seen first-hand what happens to your friends,” He drawls.
I hang up and toss the phone onto the passenger seat. I slam my closed fist on the steering wheel.
If Griff was in front of me I’d strangle the life out of him right here and now.
The fucker thinks he’s untouchable and to a certain extent he is. His organization has grown leaps and bounds over the last few years, but the guy is still a dick who likes to brag about his accomplishments, which gives his reign an expiration date. The best organization in the world can’t protect a leader who continually runs his mouth all over the place.
Loose lips sink ships, but in my world, they’ll also earn you a dirt nap.
Longevity comes with the ability to be silent. I give Griff one more year before someone’s paying me to dig him a hole in the ground. Of all the people in the world he had to be the one to discover that Frank was the one responsible for the slaughter that took place at Morgan’s house.
A light turns on inside the girl’s bedroom, I watch as her shadow crosses over the window.
I don’t know if it’s my need for revenge or my conversation with Griff, but my patience is at an end. And so is this girl’s freedom.
I’m not waiting anymore.
Frances Helburn is mine.
* * *
I’ve switchedout cars and clothes. I’m now sitting in front of the school watching as the students file in.
Frances is one of the last ones to enter.
She’s wearing the same school uniform she wears every day. Your basic plaid skirt, sweater, shirt combo. If the entire reason behind wearing school uniforms is to prevent indecent exposure then this school is succeeding because hers is three sizes too big and drapes over her body like a shapeless sack.
Even her socks are ridiculous. They’re forest green and ride high on her legs, almost to her knees, although one keeps falling as she walks. The black top she’s wearing under her sweater has a collar, but she walks with her shoulders hunched forward, hiding not just her face but any signs of having tits.
You can’t hide from me, Frances. Not under all those baggy clothes. I see you. I see you, and I’m coming for you.
Frances stumbles on the sidewalk, dropping a book. She bends to pick it up, and I catch a glimpse of the bottom of perfectly rounded ass cheeks, which are barely covered by red panties.
Red, huh? Surprise, surprise.
I have a moment of imagining the things I could do to that ass when I remind myself of who it’s attached to. Frances is awkward, and from what I can tell, she’s all elbows and knees. Shapeless.
I don’t give a fuck what color eyes or hair a woman has, but the women I like to fuck look like…well, women. Tits. Hips. Lips.
Today, Frances seems heavier than the rest of the girls piling into the front doors of the school. Not her body, she can’t weigh more than a buck twenty, tops, but heavy like she’s troubled.
It’s not like it matters.
Not my fucking concern.
I’m about to pile on the trouble and for the first time in a long time I feel excited. Amped.
Ready.
Frances stops. Her eyes travel over her shoulder, scanning the parking lot until they land on me. She pauses and turns her head to the side. The bell rings, and she pushes open the doors, disappearing inside.
I gotta give this Frances chick credit. She’s smart. Not smart enough to throw me off, but all the others Griff and I hired to find her father had failed to find her as well.
Now, I know why.
The others were all looking for Frances Helburn. A young woman in her early twenties. What they found instead was an eighteen-year-old catholic school girl named Sarah Jackson.
She was hiding in plain fucking sight. In high school of all places. Clever.
But not clever enough.
I open the car door in front of the school and step out into the blinding sunlight.
Her plan was decent, while it lasted, but that’s all over now.
Frances Helburn is about to learn that she isn't nearly as smart as she thinks she is.
Chapter Five
The receptionist looksme up and down. She can’t hide the surprise in her eyes as she takes in my tattoos and my police uniform. She stands from her chair behind her desk and brushes a strand of hair behind her ears. She sets her mouth into a polite yet worried smile.
“Can…can I help you, officer…?” she stutters, linking and unlinking her fingers together.
“Officer Wiggum,” I finish for her, using an emotionless yet polite tone. I inwardly chuckle because no one ever seems to notice that when I impersonate a cop I use the name of a character from the fucking Simpsons. “And yes, as a matter of fact, you can, ma’am.”
I hand her the phony paperwork and check my watch like this is the last thing I want to do be doing before my shift ends.
Her eyes go wide as she reads over the papers, her lips moving silently. She looks up to me and clears her throat which is now as red and splotchy as her face. “Just a…just a moment, officer,” she excuses herself, scurrying away like a rodent being chased by a cat.
She’s frazzled. I can’t blame her. It’s probably not every day a police officer comes in carrying a warrant to arrest one of their students.
A few minutes later, I’m standing in the middle of the principal’s office waiting for the principal herself to bring Frances to me.
I glance up at the framed United States flag hanging above the desk and watch my reflection in the glass.
It’s almost too fucking easy.
Chapter Six
Principal Gregory pokesher head inside my math class and clears her throat.
Mr. Timball stops his geometry lecture; his marker pauses against the dry erase board. He raises his eyebrows in a silent. What do you want?
“I need to see Sarah Jackson,” she answers, scanning the rows of students until she finds me in the back. Her eyes lock on mine. “Now.”
I feel every single set of eyes boring inquisitive holes into my skull as I slide out my chair and make my way to the front of the room. Thirty heads swivel around, gazes following me like some weird slow synchronized dance from an eighties music video.
“Grab your things,” Principal Gregory says when she sees my hands are empty. I nod. Grabbing my things means that whatever she’s calling me to her office for is going to take a while because I won’t be back to class today, at least not this one.
A foreboding pricks at the back of my neck, and it’s not from all the eyes watching my every move. It’s the dread pitting in my stomach and a feeling like everything is about to change.
Again.
I gather my bag and my books and wrack my brain as to what school-related thing this could be about, but I come up empty.
I make my way to the front of the room for the second time. Only the tapping of a pencil against a desk and the popping of gum can be heard along with the echo of my shapeless black shoes
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