SIX (24 page)

“What are you doing, angel?” I plead, holding my arms out to her, too frightened to approach her.

Her jeans lower to her ankles as she steps out and kicks them away from her body.

“The monsters are calling me, Tay. I have no refuge to escape them.” Her panties fall with her tears.

I want to go to her and swallow her into me to keep her inside my soul to show her how loved she is and how sorry I am.

I’m so fucking sorry.

“They told him where to mark me,” she sobs.

“Your love destroyed me, but you’re still the only person I wanted to be loved by. Remember me the way I was before this, Tay.”

“I do love you, I love you. I’ll never stop loving you. What do you need, angel, just tell me and it’s yours.”

“I need you to forgive yourself, and forgive me.”

“Forgive you for what?”

My world implodes as she reaches over to the dresser and picks up my gun.

My feet move like I’m wearing cement boots.

My body pushes forward in slow motion across the room as a roar rings out, vibrating off the walls and bouncing around our bodies.

Her eyes widen as her finger squeezes the trigger.

A spark of light, an air-cracking pop, and a blood curdling scream meld into my soul as her body falls.

My arms catch her naked body as it goes limp in my grasp.

Blood splatters across my face, the hot spray showering me, but I refuse to believe the red mist blurring my vision is her blood.

I check her face, my hands trying to cover the hole in her skull, trying to push the blood and matter back inside.

This can’t be real.

My body shakes as my mind threatens to darken and steal me away.

I want it to.

This isn’t real and the loud screaming in the room isn’t her.

She’s silent.

She’s dead.

The noise penetrating my ears is me.

It’s me screaming.

“Help me! No, God, angel, what have you done? HELP ME!”

I rock her body in my arms and force her arms around me.

If I will it all away, will this become a dream? Will I be able to wake up in our old room and never go to that alley where I met Jordon? I want to go back.
I want to go back. I want to go back.

Whispered voices echo around me, but they are distorted and distant.

I can’t focus on the bodies surrounding ours.

I’m numb, the pain so intense, my body and mind can’t process it.

I’ve gone into survival mode, numbing every part of my soul, my heart.

Looking over her scarred body, my heart tears from my chest and ceases to beat. Etched into the mount at the apex of her thighs is a name I know well.

The name that started all this: Big J

Jordon’s nickname given to him by his cunt brother, Hammer.

Rage, hate, misery, and sorrow saturate my soul.

Fat, wet tears leak from my eyes and drop onto Haley’s pale face.

“Let her go, Six. Come on, man.”

“Don’t fucking touch me. Don’t you touch her or I’ll kill you,” I growl to Lucky, who’s trying to come closer to me.

“Get a blanket. Cover her up,” Parker sobs, but it’s like birds chirping and buzzing around the room.

My mind fragments and tries to reassemble but making sense of this is going to be impossible.

This is Jordon’s fault.

How could he sit next to me knowing what he did to her? My skin itches with the dirty feeling of being near him and not taking his life with my bare hands.

She thought I betrayed her.

She thought I let him live, let him get this close to her.

Every one of those fuckers is going to pay, but I’ll leave him for last so he knows it’s coming, just not when.

A buzz of activity filters through the room and my eyes adjust to the stinging left behind from the tears.

Jude holds his hand out to what looks like paramedics.

He watches me with a furrowed brow and down-turned lips.

Misty is by his side, clasping her hands together as fresh tears stain the pink of her cheeks.

Her small feet shuffle forward a little when our eyes collide.

Her hand reaches out toward me.

“Come with me, Six. Let them see to your girl.”

“I can’t,” I choke, struggling to breathe.

She comes closer, dropping down on her haunches to look me directly in the eyes, her hand still outstretched.

“It’s not how she should be, exposed like this. Let them take care of her for you. She’s gone, Six. That’s just the vessel she inhabited for a while. Come on, you need to shower.”

Bile burns in my throat as the sticky blood tightens my skin—the evidence that this is real and she’s gone.

I’m sitting in a lake of her blood, her misery.

Gently placing her body on the floor, I nod and take Misty’s hand.

Her palm is so warm, I want to fall into her and beg her to make the pain stop, but I can’t—I won’t.

I need this agony to grow and manifest inside me so I can make them pay.

Before I even know I’ve left the room, I’m standing in the shower with Misty taking my clothes off.

She leaves her own on and they cling to her, but it doesn’t appear to bother her. When the jeans I’m wearing drop to the floor, my eyes follow them.

My heart thunders in my chest and sorrow eats away at my insides.

The water isn’t transparent.

It’s red.

It’s hers.

She’s dead.

I collapse to the shower floor and my whole body contracts as gut wrenching sobs pour out of me. I can’t control it or catch my breath.

I’m dying from heartbreak and can’t pull myself out.

Dainty fingers wrap around my shoulders and Misty climbs into my lap, cradling my head against her chest.

She hushing me and telling me it’s all right, but it’s not. Nothing will ever be all right again.

Allowing myself a moment of comfort in her arms, I scream under the torrent of water from the shower spray, then move Misty from my lap and leave the bathroom.

Paramedics are over her body and I can’t bear the thought of her being put on a metal slab and left in the cold, dark hole in one of those freezer doors at the crematorium.

My feet move across the room before I can stop myself.

I push them out of the way and lift her body to the stretcher they’ve brought in with them.

Laying her body down on the black bag splayed open on it, her blood drips from my arm, leaving a trail behind me.

“Six! Six, where are you going?” Voices rush at me, but I don’t pay attention. Grabbing my knife from beneath the pillow of Misty’s bed and snatching some jeans from the chair in the corner, I rush down the stairs while slipping into them and out the door.

Lucky’s calls follow me, but I don’t stop.

I can’t clear my thoughts. Over and over, my mind replays her picking up my gun and pulling the trigger.

Being trapped inside a memory is crippling.

There’s no relief or way to escape.

Killing those responsible is going to be the only way I can break through the consuming feeling of dread and misery.

Jumping from the truck, I race up to the house and nearly take the door off to get inside.

My hands shake as I rush Max, who’s standing in the kitchen with a mug in his hand.

His mouth opens to speak, but I cut him off, crashing him to the table.

Holding him by the lapels of his collar, I have him flat on his back. Wide erratic eyes survey the blood coating my skin.

“Is that blood?” he asks, fear trembling his vocal cords.

Reaching for my blade, I pull it out and plunge it into his shoulder.

Screams echo off the walls as his blood seeps from beneath him.

“You’re a Viper,” I snarl, pulling the blade out and pointing the tip to the corner of his eye. “I’m going to dissect you.”

He’s crying, full-fledged crying, his body trembling and head shaking no. “You’ve lost your mind, what’s a viper and whose blood is that? Where’s Haley? Have you hurt her?” He tries to get up from the table and it messes with my head.

“You were sent here to spy on me,” I bellow, digging the blade in just enough to mark the small, thin piece of skin.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. You’ve lost your mind. Oh God, Haley, have you done something to her?” he cowers, trying to get free from my grasp.

This doesn’t make sense.

My mind screams for me to cut him open and see what’s inside, but Haley keeps popping in there too.

If he really is just a friend and I killed him, it would be like spitting on her grave. Yanking him to his feet, I look into his eyes, trying to penetrate the barrier and get into his mind.

My fist rears back and I punch him, knocking him to the floor.

“Haley just killed herself at the bar. And when I have the proof you’re a Viper, I’ll be coming back for you.”

I just hoped coming back would be possible.

Going after Hammer and the rest of those fuckers could end in me joining Haley in the afterlife—or worse, back behind bars, left to rot away and reminisce of a time I had something more than chaos and desolation.

Things needed to end with Misty.

I couldn’t go into this knowing she’s here, waiting for me.

If I die or go down, I don’t want it to be with her loving me and knowing I love her back. She needs to hate me in order to move on.

Lucky will take care of her and she’s strong, she will heal and move on, and I could live with that if I had to.

The voice in my head tells me it would be better for her if I do die.

Why does it feel like I’m already dying?

Feeling content in your life should never be taken for granted.

Seeing Haley’s lifeless body and her blood coating Six as he sobbed over her will haunt me for the rest of my life and maybe even into the spirit world.

You never know how bad someone is suffering.

When you believe you can bravely go on fighting, winning the battle is only temporary when losing the war is your fate.

I don’t feel anything right now. Movies and TV don’t implicate the truth of what a bullet at close range does to a person.

Blood decorates every surface of my bedroom, staining and haunting everything it’s touched.

I will never get that room clean.