Vile Bastards, page 4
“Alexei Grove came looking for her,” I explain, and the entire dirty scenario replays in my head again. I decide to skip the fact that she allowed that blond-haired germaphobe to rut her into the muddy wall of the winner’s circle, or the fact that I shamelessly jacked off to the whole thing, humiliated and hating myself for it even as I loved it. “She was worried about him and wanted to follow him.”
“And you let her?!” Bohnes puts his face in his hands, and I can see that he’s shaking all over. He drops his arms, and the look he throws my way causes me to take a menacing step forward. My fingers curl around the weapon.
I could shoot this ghoul, and who would care? Who? Friggin’ nobody.
Only … Scarlett would.
I school my temper. Killing Bohnes won’t save my woman from whatever trouble she’s gotten herself into.
“When was the last time you stopped Scarlett from doing what she wanted to do, huh?” I retort. She took off so fast that I had two choices: follow her or stay behind. There was no keeping her there. “She must still be with Alexei; they left together just before Ash stumbled onto me.”
I gesture his way, but he holds up a hand.
“Shush.” The word is snapped out like a command, and both Bohnes and I bristle, but neither of us question it. He’s far too serious to play dominance games right now. “Do you hear that?”
It takes a minute to listen past my thundering heart, my rapid breaths, the rush of adrenaline fogging my brain. But then … I do. I hear it. And it scares the shit out of me.
A scream like that is never good news.
Only tragedy waits behind a sound as ragged and broken as that.
Alexei
The river nearly drowns us both, carrying our rapidly weakening bodies in a cruel but quiet current until I’m slammed mercilessly against a fallen log. I cling to it with one arm, desperately grasping Scarlett with the other.
For the second time that night, I’m certain that my choices are to let her go and live or hold her and die.
This time, I don’t bother to entertain the former thought.
Either we both make it out or neither of us makes it out.
My fingernails rip and tear, sending sharp, hot pain through me that helps cut the frigid grip of the river, the cool numbness drifting over me and causing my lids to sink. They’re weighted down, heavy, and I start to wonder why I’m so eager to live? Wouldn’t it just be simpler to die? I could see Papa. I could …
I dig my nails into the wood and, with a ragged scream, wrench my body up until my torso slams across the log’s surface. Scarlett’s dead weight makes my left arm feel like it might very well detach, but I drive my numb fingertips into her skin and refuse to be parted.
I’m nothing, if not obstinate.
With another broken scream, I flex the muscles in my left arm and throw Scarlett up and over the log. There it is. We’re both more or less out of the water. I’m panting terribly, shivering, teeth chattering, but there’s no one coming to save us.
Either we save ourselves or we die.
I turn to face the river, moonlight glittering on the dark surface, a beckoning finger from Mother Nature. Come, take a dip, relax. I curse her ethereal and deadly beauty as I grab onto Scarlett’s shoulders and start to scoot backward along the log toward the shore.
The tree’s roots are a gnarled bundle, mud and grass clinging to them in thick clusters. It’s the heavy weight, and the desperate cling of the few roots still buried in the ground, that keep the log from being pulled down the river.
Getting past them proves to be a challenge. I’m disoriented and confused, and for a brief minute there, I almost forget where I am and what I’m doing. I start to drift off, slumping forward, and then my eyes snap open with a start.
I almost toppled us both back into the water.
“F-fool,” I grate out, and the sound of my own voice helps rouse me. The bundle of roots is about the size of a small car. In order to get around it, I’m forced to jump down into the shallow water, feeling that impossible cold sweep up to my waist.
With my hands under Scarlett’s armpits, I drag her down off the log and into the water. That helps a bit, taking some of her weight off of me as I move backward toward the shore.
The water level drops to my knees, my ankles … and then I’m on land and pulling the girl’s comatose body through the thick grass and into a field just off the side of the road. The very first thing I do is drop to my knees and check to see if she’s breathing.
She’s not.
Panic spikes through me, but I force myself to concentrate. Just because she isn’t breathing, that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s dead. I do my best to check her pulse, but I’m in as much trouble as she is. I’m quite literally freezing to death; my hands are numb, and I can’t tell if Scarlett has a pulse or not.
I allow myself one, small scream of frustration, and then I start CPR. It’s a gargantuan effort on my part, mammoth, monumental. I wouldn’t just put my mouth on anyone else’s filthy lips—not even to save their life. This is a gift I wouldn’t bestow on a single other living human being. If my parents were alive, I’d breathe for them, but that’s the extent of my compassion.
This is futile, Alexei. It’s over. It’s fucking over.
Scarlett is cold, motionless, silent.
Scarlett is dead.
There’s no hope of anyone finding us here. Even if I continue to perform CPR—which I am—how long can I keep it up? Already, I’m struggling to find my own breaths let alone lend them to her. I need to get her out of that wet dress, that beautiful white dress with the cherries all over it.
Oh, Miss Force.
She’s beautiful, even like this, clinically dead. Her skin is tinged silver from the moonlight, her pouty mouth blue. The dress is far too sweet for someone as violent and wild as her, but asleep like this? One might almost believe she was a princess.
And she might’ve been mine. My princess. My wild, barbarian princess.
No matter how my mind tries to trick me later, how my idiosyncrasies swear up and down that fucking her was a mistake, I know it wasn’t. It was the only break of sunshine through the clouds of my life, the only glimmer of a promising future I’ve had since my mother died.
I continue with the chest compressions and the rescue breaths, my mind frantically searching through options. If I don’t get her warmed up, she will die. If I don’t continue with CPR, she will die.
Or rather, she will stay dead.
My teeth are chattering so hard that I almost don’t hear the footsteps until it’s too late. My head snaps up, and I catch sight of a flashlight in the gloomy darkness.
“Scarlett?” It’s Widow’s voice.
I don’t answer him. I don’t have the energy to offer Scarlett my breath and talk at the same time. Instead, I continue what I’m doing and then there they are. Bohnes crouches down beside us, and I catch sight of his face when Ash Kelly’s flashlight sweeps over his features.
Complete and total devastation.
“Oh, my heart …” he murmurs, voice cracking. In those three words, I can see how deeply dedicated to this woman he is. But he hasn’t had to compete against me yet.
What a horrid thought.
The girl may very well be dead.
I blame the blip in brain activity on the fact that I’m having trouble remembering where we are or how we ever ended up here in the first place. Hands land on my shoulders and shove me aside.
There’s no energy in me to resist. I end up sprawled in the mud, panting for breath as Widow takes over, offering Scarlett much better care than I was able to. He continues the chest compressions and the breaths as Bohnes slips out of his trench coat and lays it across Scarlett’s body.
“We need to move her. Now.” Bohnes pauses to look across the river, and I see a slow sweep of headlights. Either the family is still looking for us, or it’s the mayor’s goons.
Based on what I heard via that last phone call, I’m not so sure that they are working together. I’m also not particularly certain if they’re here to kill me or not.
“Help me lift her and then we run,” Bohnes tells Widow, and the other man prepares to do just that. “You, keep the flashlight out.” He barks that order at Ash, and then glances very briefly in my direction.
There’s panic etched into his eyes, but he does an admirable job of hiding it.
“What about him?” Ash asks, panting heavily, staring at Scarlett as if he’s considering following her to the grave. “The Grove boy?”
“Leave him.” Bohnes and Widow heft Scarlett up in their arms, and I relax into the mud, finally allowing my eyes to slide closed. If there’s anything more that can be done for her, they’ll do it.
I’m half-asleep before they take their first steps back in the direction of the road. Hypothermia sets in, and I accept death’s waiting arms with a final sigh of relief. At the very least, I was able to give Miss Force a chance.
And, I didn’t have to die feeling entirely alone. Even as I’m drifting off, I’m thinking about the way she felt in my arms and wishing that I’d simply given in and kissed her.
One, last regret to bid me farewell from this life, and welcome me into the next.
Hello, Papa.
Bohnes
Scarlett Force is dead.
I consider that as a possible reality and realize then that I’m waffling between being suicidal and being homicidal. On the latter, I should at least add that I’d make sure to drag other monsters with me to the grave. I’d likely end up dead on a vigilante binge, but if not, suicide would always be an option later.
It’s not a particularly healthy state of mind, but I’ve never been a particularly healthy person—mentally speaking.
The Chevelle blasts through the night, and we end up at the local hospital with the heater blasting and Widow continuing to perform CPR in the back seat. He’s murmuring between breaths, these panting, desperate phrases like “come on, baby” or “I told you I only had room in my heart to try once; you’re not allowed to die.”
I don’t let myself think any more on the possibility; I exist only in the current reality.
The urge to self-flagellate is there, but I can’t waste the energy.
If Scarlett survives, I’ll do it later. If she doesn’t, well, again: suicide or homicide.
I could at least murder one child molester before I died, right? That seems like the heroic thing to do, doesn’t it? I can’t go out without making a true, positive difference in the world.
We arrive at the hospital with Ash just behind us. He stumbles out of his own car before I’ve fully come to a stop. The staff look his way—at his bloody arm, his oozing hand—and assume he’s the one who needs attention. I’m already out the door, too, helping Widow move Scarlett’s body.
The attention of the ER staff shifts, and then Scarlett is being whisked away on a stretcher, and I know that as much as we want to: none of us can stay.
“We have another patient,” Ash tells one of the staff members, and then they’re pulling Alexei Grove’s cold body out and loading him onto a stretcher of his own. Sigh. We should’ve left him there, but I felt a strange sense of obligation to drag him along.
First, because he’s my client. I have never behaved less than professionally in my chosen career, and I don’t particularly feel inclined to start acting like a hooligan now. Integrity is something that cannot be purchased or won or coerced; a person either has it or they do not.
Most people have little to none; I pride myself on being one of a select few individuals that truly embodies the idea.
Second, because of Scarlett. Because if she dies, then she’d want him to live. I know her far too well to think she’d ever forgive me—in this life or any other—if I allowed Alexei to die out of mere jealousy.
Besides, Ash was able to drape him over his back and carry him without slowing us down too much. It’s the only reason I allowed it.
“We need to go,” I tell Widow, even though my throat is tight, and my heartstrings are being pulled taut as Scarlett is torn away from us. If we don’t go back and clean up the mess that is Ralph Shipman, Scarlett might live through tonight, but she won’t live much longer.
I climb back into the Chevelle, and Widow joins me.
Ash Kelly stays at the hospital, and I hate that the idea of that brings me some small crumb of relief.
Ah, what complete and total shit. Both rich boys are going to be left with Scarlett.
And, as usual, it’ll be the poor ones who clean up their messes.
I’m sitting outside of Scarlett’s house, smoking a cigarette. I probably shouldn’t be here, but I just can’t seem to help myself. I’m feeling twitchy and murderous and monstrous (more so than usual, I mean). I resist the urge to bite someone. Namely, I resist the urge to bite Widow. Luckily for him, he’s out of reach or I just might do it.
“Why are you here?” a voice asks, drawing my attention around to that girl, Scarlett’s sister. Alexis Rose Force. I know her; I know everyone in this family. Would I be a proper stalker if I didn’t? I consider my answer for a moment before responding. There’s no sense in being rude to my soulmate’s sister.
“For Scarlett.” The statement is mild, factually accurate, and yet reveals nothing about me or my true intentions whatsoever. It’s been a busy two days, and I’m too tired to entertain this girl—even if she is Scarlett’s sister.
Alexis comes down the steps to stand beside me. I don’t like that. I don’t like people near me whatsoever. Humans are unruly, deceitful creatures. I should know: I am one.
I take a drag on the clove cigarette, allowing my eyes to slide shut for the briefest instance. I’m exhausted. Escaping the Russian mob and a crew of meatheads, corrupt cops, and an assassin sent by the mayor?
Well, you tell me how many people can pull that one off.
“For Scarlett,” Alexis repeats, looking down at me. She reaches up to adjust her glasses. “I bet you know how she ended up in the hospital in the first place?”
It’s phrased as a question, one that I’m not going to answer. Of course I know. I know everything that happens in Prescott. I know that the mayor’s assassin ended up on the doorstep of his fancy countryside mansion (because I put him there as a warning). I know that Scarlett’s Pantera is sitting in the driveway, polished to a shine. There’s some damage to the front end, but that Widow’s doing.
I know that Scarlett was dead when we dropped her off at the hospital.
I stand up as her grandmother’s car pulls onto the block and eases up the driveway behind the Pantera. There’s another car parked across the street that I’ve been ignoring for the last hour. Widow opens the door and steps out, and our eyes meet across that great distance. He narrows his in warning, but as far as predators go, I’m as dangerous as they come. He’s a barracuda against a shark.
Kill him, Bohnes. Strangle him for letting this woman leave the track on Friday.
Only—sigh—I think Scarlett’s hold on my heart is softening it. I haven’t killed a single other one of her fuckboys, not even when I had a prime opportunity to shoot Ash in the head or, at the very least, allow Ralph Shipman to kill him.
Shame.
I just hope this overwhelming empathy doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass.
Scarlett’s grandmother—Patricia Force—steps out of the car first, offering me up a strange look. I know what I look like: white hoodie with a rib cage on the front, a single red heart beating inside of it. White joggers with holes in the knees, stuffed into combat boots covered in buckles.
Skin that’s too pale, eyes that are too blue, a mouth that looks like a razor blade.
I’m not exactly the type of guy a girl brings home to her mama, you know?
Patricia offers me up a small nod which I return, trying my best to ignore Widow as he crosses the street to stand beside me. It’s only been two days since we dropped Scarlett off at the hospital but having spent most of that time with Adrian truly makes me question my kind heart. Things really would be so much easier if he were dead.
“Ugh,” Scarlett groans as her grandmother helps her out of the passenger side of the vehicle. It’s incredible that a person can die and come back like that, isn’t it? I bend down and put my cigarette out on the toe of Widow’s boot, and he goes entirely stiff.
“Do not test me, Kellin,” he hisses out, but as I rise to my feet and meet his eyes, all I see is a damaged boy desperate for love. Disgusting. He has nothing on me. He is not the same sort of monster that I am; I am not entirely convinced that he’s a monster at all.
Scarlett—living, breathing, beautiful Scarlett—comes around the front of the car with her grandmother’s arm around her waist. It’s a bit comical, seeing as the older woman is in her seventies and is maybe five-two at most.
My eyes meet those of my darkest darling, and she sucks in a sharp breath.
Emotions ricochet beneath my skin, a pinball machine with flashing lights and swinging flippers, metal balls pinging off the sides, activating everything. I fall to my knees before her, and I don’t even care.
I’ve finally found someone to be monstrous for, and it is glorious.
“Scarlett.” The word is a near whisper, one that makes Widow scoff, and Alexis gasp. The grandmother, I must give credit to. She offers me a curious look before turning her attention to Widow and then Scarlett.
“Take a minute with your friends, but then I want you to come in and climb in bed.” Patricia pats her granddaughter’s hand, moving past me as if people falling to their knees around her grandchild is a semi-common occurrence.
Knowing Scarlett as I do, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“Scarlett,” Widow chokes out, exhaling and squeezing his hands into fists at his sides.
She looks at the pair of us before turning her attention to her sister.
“Give me a hug,” she commands, and the other girl hesitates briefly before obliging.
“Mom and Aunt Anita should be here any minute; they went to pick some things up for you.” Alexis draws back, looking Scarlett over and shaking her head. “I still don’t understand how you ended up in the hospital in the first place …”
