by M. L. Giles
One of them was Wendy.
“Hmmm, does she know Thomas is gone yet?” I wondered. “Would she even care?”
Aiden and his two concubines stopped right in front of me. He was doing his hardest to look majestic, but the rosy red cheeks, slacking eyes, and inability to remain standing straight for any length of time gave away his intoxicated state.
“Is the animal still secure?” Aiden laughed. His breath stank of something strong.
With Wendy standing by me, and Aiden knowing my normal voice better than most others here, I had to talk in a completely different tone, saying things Grayson Ryder wouldn’t normally say.
I ended up with a fairly high-pitched voice. “Ain’t heard a peep from him, boss!”
“Wonderful.” Aiden gave me his trademark creepy smile. “Maybe I should give my old ‘friend’ one final visit, hmm?”
It took every ounce of restraint not to ram my secluded knife into his eye socket.
“Wouldn’t that mean keeping these fine lasses waiting?” I shook my head. “Don’t you be wasting your energy on him tonight! Save yourself for the girls.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Aiden gazed at Wendy. He pulled her hair back, teasing her by coming in close to her face. “I quite like this one’s red hair. So rare, so exotic, reminds me of embers. Perhaps I shall make an exception to the rule of shaving all my follower’s heads.”
Wendy giggled in a way I hadn’t heard before. She sounded like an enamoured schoolgirl being tickled by her new boyfriend in the playground. “You can do whatever you want with me, Aiden.”
This was the first time I’d heard Wendy talk since she betrayed me – betrayed us all. Her voice sickened me. She had always acted like such a motherly figure, but that image was melting away in the fires of Aiden, replaced by a greedy, love-sick bitch.
“There you go, boss! Go have yourself a good time. This door ain’t opening for no one,” I told him confidently.
Aiden gave me that smile again. “Lovely. It’s unlikely Colton will be any trouble tonight, given how badly I broke his spirit earlier. I am looking forward to witnessing it break again tomorrow once he finds out about his precious group and dear Grayson. Ah, Grayson, I still have regrets regarding him… Perhaps I was hasty in ordering his death instead of having him captured.”
That was odd for me to hear. “You regret what happened with Grayson, boss?”
“Quite.” Aiden nodded. A sincere sadness seemed to replace his drunken look. “He was a talented individual, suited more for this new world than any of us, most likely. If what I’ve heard of him was true, it would have been wondrous to know him better. I genuinely believe a single Grayson Ryder would have been worth at least ten men in pure skill. Such a waste.”
“More like a hundred, shithead,” I thought.
“Say, isn’t Liam on guard this evening? If you like, you have my blessing to relax in there with him rather than standing here all night.”
I assumed he meant the dead lad in the room behind me. He was plenty relaxed for the both of us right now.
The three of them started walking off together.
“Thanks, boss! Enjoy your evening!” I shouted.
To hear such a twisted person like Aiden hold me in high esteem was unsettling! It felt like I needed to give my mind a bleach bath to rid myself of that disturbing conversation.
An hour or so passed. The only sounds now were that of a few still-lit torches crackling away and the echoing snores coming from the rooms farther down the hall.
I waited a little longer, keeping an ear open for anything. If I heard any footsteps or talking, I’d need to keep waiting.
Another fifteen minutes went by without a single change in the sounds I was hearing, except for the heavy coughing of a few people or bed frames creaking.
With the palm of my hand, I gently knocked on the door behind me three times, then gave it a few seconds before entering.
Colton was standing, wrench in hand, near the chair I’d left him on earlier. It looked like he had taken my advice by bandaging a few spots, as well as cleaning some of the blood off. Wrapped around his chest, waist, and slung over his shoulder was a white, dirty-looking bed sheet – probably done to stay warm.
“What took so long?” he asked, after confirming it was me.
I closed the door slowly behind me to avoid any noise. “Had to be certain everyone was asleep. Feeling any better? Looks like your colour’s back.”
Without answering my question, Colton walked towards the windows. I followed, taking my place beside him. We both looked out of a window facing the back of the hospital. Evan’s burnt remains still glowed slightly in the centre of the car park.
“That him?” Colton asked with a certain sternness in his voice.
“…Yeah. That’s Evan.”
“I can hear him, y’know?”
“Your dad?”
Colton nodded. “He’s yellin’ at me for being so stupid. ‘Why didn’t you take everyone and run? Why’d you trust Aiden was tellin’ the truth?!’ …I failed a lot of folk today.”
There was a brief silence before I could think of the right words to say. “That doesn’t sound like something Evan would say.”
“Yeah?”
“I think he would say, ‘my son gave himself up, believing it would save everyone. I’m proud of the little shit for that’.”
Colton didn’t reply. When I looked up at him, I saw a single tear run down his focused, unchanging face.
I reached up, wiping the tear off his stubbly cheek with my thumb.
“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, Gray.” Colton told me without looking away from what remained of his father.
“Says the guy who could lift me up with one arm.”
“I’m serious. You went out alone to try an’ get my old man back, came here to save me despite knowin’ what Aiden is capable of, an’ I even heard you talkin’ to Aiden a while ago without losin’ your cool.” Colton looked at me. “I can carry you, but you can carry all the crap this world throws at us. That makes you stronger than me.”
“Keep talking like that and you’ll give me an inflated ego,” I joked, my ego probably couldn’t get any bigger.
“I love ya, Gray. We ain’t had much time together, but I ain’t felt this way since my first date with Sophie. When I was being driven down here in the back of the ambulance, not tellin’ you that sooner was my only regret.”
We turned to each other, stepping in close for a tight hug.
As he wrapped those strong arms of his around me, it felt like everything that was broken could still be fixed. Through Colton, I felt so much stronger.
This was why I came for him. This was why I risked my own life to get in here.
I stepped out of his arms, still holding on to his waist.
“That’s got to be the cheesiest thing I have ever heard,” I said, playfully smiling up at him. “Ready to finish this, big guy?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Chapter 24
Retribution.
Leaving It All Behind.
Finding Aiden’s room in this maze of a hospital was a cinch, thanks to Colton’s directions.
“…after that, just look for the golden door,” he had said earlier before we parted ways.
“Er, golden door?” I asked.
His only response was, “You’ll know it when you see it.”
Colton wasn’t kidding! The large double doors that stood before me were absolutely covered in gold paint, completely phasing out whatever its original colour had once been. Icons of the sun, patterns of fire, and other crazy designs had been painted on to the golden canvas. Six flame-lit torches were slotted into metal containers nailed to the wall around the entrance, framing the work of disconcerting art perfectly.
Locating this room had been easy. Getting in there, however, turned out to be… well… even easier.
A man beside the door (whom I’m assuming was meant to be on guard duty) sno
red away on the floor with one hand down his pants, the other hand half-clutching a glass bottle. Most of the alcohol from the bottle had spilled over the chubby little cherub’s torn jeans, making it look like he had pissed himself.
I stepped over the “guard” and pushed the double doors open, bracing myself for whatever insanity lay beyond.
I didn’t brace nearly hard enough.
This one large room alone was the biggest testament to Aiden’s eccentric mind.
Rays of light from the early morning sun shone through the windows, highlighting all the golden crap Aiden had hoarded. Statues, coins, kitchen utensils, silks, clothing, piles of jewellery – you name it! Anything that wasn’t gold had been spray-painted in either gold, yellow, or orange colours.
But that wasn’t even the craziest bit… Oh, far from it!
Sitting on a waist-high surface, that stretched across one wall of the room, were around ten plastic, see-through boxes, each with a name written on a piece of card placed next to it. Inside the boxes were human bones that, to top it all off, had been coated in golden paint.
This was a collection of those that had pissed Aiden off, I guessed. As I walked down the row, I came across an empty, open-topped box with Colton’s name and his machete beside it, confirming the theory.
In that moment, I felt more disturbed than ever when it occurred to me that once, upon first meeting the charming Aiden, I had seriously considered the psycho to be a genuinely nice guy.
At the centre of this large room, lying under a circular light, was a king size bed where an operating table should’ve been. Sleeping in that bed was none other than Aiden himself, along with Wendy and the other woman I’d seen him waltz off with earlier.
Aiden slept silently with a girl in each arm, that creepily sweet smile still on his beautifully youthful face.
Taking the upmost of care not to wake the ladies, I gently reached over to tap Aiden’s shoulder.
“M…mmm…” he grumbled before opening his tired eyes to look at me. “This better be important. Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep?”
“Colton escaped, boss,” I whispered.
That got his attention. Aiden’s eyes opened wide, almost like he wasn’t tired anymore. “What…? What?!”
I placed a finger over where my lips were under the scarf-mask. “Shhh! Let’s not wake the girls. We gave chase when we saw him trying to escape. He fled upstairs and immediately barricaded himself in a room on the top floor.”
“That man is dangerous,” Aiden whispered as he slid around Wendy and got out of bed completely naked. Red and orange handprints were all over his shaven nether regions. “Rally as many of my people as you can without causing a fuss. He must be recaptured!”
“Most of them were too drunk to wake up, boss,” I explained. “Five men have the barricaded door under watch right now. Colton said he won’t leave until he talks to you.”
Aiden slipped into his usual red bath robe. Despite the urgency of my falsified scenario, he still felt obligated to put on some golden jewellery from his massive collection. “How peculiar. What does he want to speak about?”
“No idea. He sounded very weak, though. We need to get him before news of this spreads. Wouldn’t want people thinking you’ve lost control of the situation,” I advised.
“Aha, good thinking. Order must be maintained,” he agreed. “Take me to Colton.”
The top floor of the hospital was where anything unusable was dumped; mostly trash, larger medical machinery, and the bones of the dead leftover from the outbreak. No one slept there or used it for much else.
It seemed like the perfect place for an ambush.
“Why would he come up here instead of trying to escape?” Aiden asked me as we hastily walked down a long hallway on the top floor.
Now that we weren’t whispering anymore, I had to use my higher-pitched voice again. “We blocked his escape, boss. Colton ran up here to get away from us – it was his only option.”
“Ugh, that man… Even if he escapes today, I will hunt him down again and have him burnt alive right beside that vulgar father of his for what he took from me!” Aiden spat out angrily. “Colton is the reason my Pearl left me. He turned her against me. It’s because of HIM she died!”
“You did all that yourself, tosser,” I thought.
We had almost reached the point Colton and I had set up our ambush – just in time too! Listening to Aiden’s ramblings was doing my head in.
A set of double doors at the end of a lengthy waiting room lay ahead of us. I increased my pace, moving in front of Aiden, so I could have time to open the right-hand door especially for him.
“Not far now, boss,” I said, opening the door on the right to let him walk ahead of me.
Aiden gave a courteous nod in thanks. Then, the very second he walked through that door, Colton, who I’d told to stay hidden behind the other door, launched his fist straight to the side of Aiden’s head. The colossal punch sent Aiden slamming against the wall before crumbling like a ragdoll to the floor.
This took even me by surprise.
“Bloody hell, Colton…” I spoke slowly in astonishment. “That was unexpected! I thought you were going to gag and drag him to one of the rooms first?”
Instead of answering me, Colton reached down to grab Aiden’s wrist and pulled his limp body into a room that was once used for consultations.
The small, stuffy room lacked windows, making it mostly dark within. Six chairs were spaced out around the place, along with an empty plant pot. Colton threw Aiden onto one of the leather arm chairs that sat in the corner, similar to how a child might throw a toy they were unhappy with.
I held the door open with my foot, allowing what little light there was to enter. “How long do you need?”
“Gonna need a long time for this,” Colton answered, stepping in front of Aiden’s slumped body. “Go keep an eye out.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay? He might resist or something.”
“He ain’t gonna put up a fight. Now go. Don’t want you seein’ this.”
Although I knew Aiden had to die if we stood any chance of living our lives in peace, the idea of making him suffer beforehand did not appeal to me. Yet even though I may not like what I knew Colton was about to do, I understood why he was going to do it.
Aiden had robbed Colton of his group, destroyed everything he was trying to build, killed so many of his friends, tortured him, and burnt his father alive a few hours ago!
For those reasons, it was only natural he wanted Aiden to suffer. Our human nature makes us crave justice against those that do us harm. And with no prisons or laws to dish out punishments anymore, we had to take that justice into our own hands.
Retribution in these times was now our responsibility.
This understanding was all I needed to leave Aiden at the mercy of the man he had harmed in indescribable ways.
“W-Wait…” Aiden spoke weakly, just before I could walk away. “Don’t… leave me… with this man. You’re… my follower.”
Aiden’s head flopped limply to look at me. Blood fell from his nose, dribbling down his cheek. Half his face was swollen from the blow too. Yet it was his fearful, wavering, unfocused eyes that stood out the most.
“I wasn’t lying to you yesterday, Aiden,” I told him in my normal voice while pulling down my scarf-mask, revealing my true identity. “Pearl really was alive in that hotel.”
Be it the revealing of my identity or the revelation that Pearl had been alive, all the life seemed to drain from his eyes. That formerly pristine face of Aiden’s slowly turned towards Colton.
“Is that true?” he asked. “Was she really alive… this whole time?”
“Yeah, she was,” Colton answered. “Pearl saw what you was becomin’ before any of us. Escapin’ this place was all her idea; as was spreadin’ false information ‘bout her death.”
“Liar,” Aiden whispered, refusing to believe the truth.
Just then, as I
was thinking about Pearl, something important came to mind – something relatable. “Hah! He’s telling the truth. But do you want to know the best bit?”
Aiden looked over at me again without moving his head an inch. “What?”
“You broke her heart,” I said.
“More lies… She adored—”
“It’s the truth, you deluded nutter,” I interrupted. “When my ex broke my heart, I vowed to stay away from love, instead choosing to make the most of my assets by whoring myself out for pleasure and money. Guess what? Pearl was doing the same thing.”
“Lies!” Aiden managed a weak, angry yell.
The irony of it all made me smile. “First you burnt her heart, then you burnt her body. This is what you get for playing with fire.”
Aiden didn’t reply. His facial expression didn’t change either. Something was obviously running through his mind, and whatever it was, I didn’t care.
We had won, that was all I cared about now.
I started closing the door slowly, giving Colton the privacy he wanted. But just before I could close the door fully, Aiden called out to me one last time.
“Matthew?”
I opened the door slightly, enough to lean my head through and answer him. “The name’s Grayson Ryder. Not Matthew.”
“When you first saw Colton – strapped down, poked and prodded like the animal he is – what did you think? What went through that head of yours?” Aiden’s voice had changed back to sounding so calm, so angelic. The whole time he spoke to me, he kept staring at Colton.
“Doesn’t matter what went through my mind anymore, because we’ve—”
Aiden cut me off with a weak laugh. “Are you not going to indulge a dying man’s final question? Then at least let me guess… I suspect what went through your mind was something quite dark. I wonder, did you think about stabbing me? Did you consider torture?” He laughed quietly to himself again, turning his swollen head slowly to look at me. “Or was it fire your mind drifted towards, Matthew?”