Red (Black #2) (2 page)

I’ve lived with this feeling for the last five years. I’ve felt somehow damaged, somehow unfixable. Like something is missing, but what? That’s the question.

The people around me try to help me rid that feeling, try to tell me how important I am. How much I’m missed. How they’re worried about me. None of it feels real, it felt wrong. Was what they said the truth? I know these people well, they lie, cheat, steal, and kill. How accurate is their word?

Personally, I don’t think it’s worth much.

Though, they seem to be all I have in this world. Even though, I believe I need no one. I have this feeling that I’m content when I’m alone. It’s quiet, and there are not so many demons. When I’m with people, I think fake, unrealistic, not my type of people.

They try to make me believe. Otherwise, I’ve seen it in their eyes. They want me to believe whatever it is they’re saying. It’s hard, though, when deep down it’s embedded in my bones that I feel they are lying.

Five years I’ve been with them, five years and I have always questioned. They always answer, with a quick look at another person. I pick up on it all. The side glances when I speak, which isn’t often. The way I watch their hushed whispers. Their body language, like they’re always on guard around me. Someone who’s meant to be their brother.

The doubt is sinking in more and more and I intend to find out why. Why the doubt sticks to my bones like glue. Why I feel something, or possibly someone is missing.

Broken…

That’s what I am, pieces of me never to be fixed. Pieces shattered into a million fragments.

Broken…

How do you fix such a thing when you’ve tried so hard to do so?

I say
I’m okay
, say
I can get through this.

I’ve simply been
coping
not living.

Day by day, that’s how I take it. Even after five years, so many pieces are broken.

One day they may fix themselves, then again, maybe not.

Maybe that’s the way I’m meant to stay? Maybe that’s my punishment?

Maybe I’m meant to stay broken, for a lifetime of pain.

Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound of my heart beating hard in my chest.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Even louder, the sound of his heart beating from his chest. His neck is under my boot, his eyes as wide as saucers. He’s terrified and he should be.

He tries to speak, but words can’t leave his mouth, gasoline is currently being poured down his throat. He gags, he spits. Nothing works as it goes down into his despicable body. His body starts thrashing, his hands try to grab for my legs. They are nailed to the wooden floor, three nails in each hand. Blood coats the floor. He’s almost torn free, his flesh being broken and torn in the process to stop the gasoline.

I stop and step back, he cries out in relief. Spitting out whatever is left in his mouth.

“I knew they would send you,” he speaks, his eyes look to mine then back up to the ceiling. I don’t answer him. Talking is not something I like to do in general, let alone when I plan to torture someone to death. “I was a fool to believe you wouldn’t find me.” His eyes close. “Your reputation proceeds you, Trace.”

His eyes reopen, he looks to me and starts speaking again. I don’t like him, I don’t like what he does or what he stands for, and he deserves everything that’s about to happen to him. “They do say, once a fool, always a fool, right?” He starts coughing, the gasoline reaching his lungs.

The hammer comes down onto his knee cap. The sound of bones snapping is the sound of hurt and pain. It’s everything he deserves and more. His screams stop, and when I look up to him, his mouth is hanging open, his eyes squeezed shut, blood leaks everywhere from his body. He has passed out, the pain too excruciating for him.

I hear my phone ringing, it’s on the table behind me. I want to ignore it. I choose to ignore most of the calls that have come in since I have been here, the phone constantly vibrating and ringing. It starts again, consistently.

“Is it done?” Are his first words.

“It will be.” Then I hang up. He won’t like it, but he
will
deal with it.

“No more, please,” he begs. Turning to look at this pathetic man strapped to the floor, his eyes are full of tears. His eyes don’t hold me for long, he knows why he is here. I grab the photo I have in my pocket, he watches me cautiously unsure of what is to come. I bend down and hold the photo close to his face, so he has no other option but to look at it.

“I didn’t touch her. I don’t know who that is.” He just gave himself away, the girl in the photo could have meant anything, except his first words were, “I didn’t touch her,” that’s where he went wrong. He notices it straight away. His head starts shaking, the hammer in my hand feels light, like a knife. I lift it and smash his right hand. He cries, just as I suspect, the young girl would have cried. He deserves worse.

The father of the young lady has connections and money. This man dated her, then used her. He didn’t realize who her father was, and how well he’s known. So now he pays the price, in blood.

I stand and walk to his other side. Just as I lean down, he leans up, his face so close to mine, his breath stinks from the gasoline I poured down his throat, mixed with the copper smell of his blood.

“Talk you prick, fucking speak!” Crunch, the hammer slams down on his other fist.

“I am going to crush every bone in your body, I’m going to make you feel pain that you once delivered, plus ten times worse.”

“You already have,” he cries.

“I haven’t!” I reply as the hammer comes down, smashing his elbow.

I crush as many bones in his body as I can while he screams, cries, and passes out after every blow. When it’s time and there’s nothing else left—no fight in him—a bullet is lodged in his brain.

“It’s done,” I say watching the floor which is completely covered in red. Blood splatter covers my face, my hands, and my body. Thankfully I wear black so it isn’t easily seen as I walk out into the sunlight and head straight to my car. Leaving behind that man in his dance studio, soaking in his own blood.

A demon lives inside of me. Some call him
Satan
, I call him
Damaged
.

You see, there’s something dark inside me, so dark that I don’t fully understand it. Even after five years, I’m still trying to work out what that is.

Her hands slide down my body and I try hard not to throw her from me. Her hands touching me. It’s a game of will if I don’t throw her. She presses her tits to me and as she does so, her short brown hair tickles my chest. She looks up to me, realizing nothing is happening. It’s becoming more and more like this. The need I once had for her is slowly vanishing, becoming less and less. Her eyes penetrate mine, the blue so vivid springs me into action. I grab under her arms and haul her up to me. She laughs, it’s annoying. I sometimes wonder how we’ve lasted this long, then her mouth wraps around my cock and I know.

“Come here.” My voice husky, and wanting her. She smiles bright, her dimples peeking out. I lean in and kiss them, one each side. Her hand slides between us. Grabbing my cock, she squeezes it, making me even harder than I was before. Her lips want to be back there, she always starts with sucking my cock.

“I love you, Trace,” she whispers in my ear as she bites my earlobe and positions herself on me. Her head lifts and she drops it backward, gasping as she does. I move my hands to either side of her face, grabbing and pulling it to me. Her eyes open, she looks at me with pleasure and love. I pull her in further and kiss her mouth, she opens granting me access and starts to move.

There was a time five years ago that I didn’t believe a word she said. That the words she spoke about me didn’t seem to fit or seem to fit me. Though, I grew to believe her. She was a constant, there every time I needed her, and she was there when I was in and out of consciousness. She looked after me when no other did. So I had to believe what she was saying, and something about her seemed so familiar.

I still haven’t given her those words, those words she whispers to me every time I hold her, fuck her. They just can’t seem to come out. I tried once, I did, but it stuck in my throat like a knife slicing me open.

Her scream tears from her throat, pleasure courses through her. She lays her head on my chest, circling my heart with her small fingers. We’re in our bed, in a home I’ve been in for five years, one I’ve never remembered. I can’t seem to remember anything—nothing has come back, nothing at all. The doctor said it would take time, that familiarizing myself with certain things would help. And she has tried to do that. She shows me clothes that used to be mine, guns I used to own. But nothing’s come back, and I hope to hell someday it will.

Or is it better not knowing? Not knowing what I did to deserve the punishment that I was given. The shot to my back, it almost killing me.

“You leave soon,” Savannah complains into my chest, her fingers stop their tracing and she wraps her hands around me. I push her to the side, not forcefully, just enough that she knows to stop touching me.

“I’ll be back.”

“I know. I just hate you leaving me.” Her bottom lip pouts. I go to speak, unsure of what I should say—words are not my favorite thing. Then, because some fucked up universe is giving me a way out, a heavy knock comes on the door.

“Trace, get your ass downstairs.
Now,
” Kane barks through the door. I grab the closest thing I can and throw it at the door. He laughs and walks away. She’s the first to move, knowing we have to go down there or the knocking won’t stop. She knows better than me.

She slides shorts on over her naked ass, so short I could see her pussy if she bent over, especially since she doesn’t have anything on underneath. She grabs the closest shirt, pulling it on, it stops just above her belly button. She doesn’t need to cover anything, her body is one of the best I’ve seen. Curves in all the right places, tits bigger than a handful and an ass like a stripper. She turns to me watching her and throws my pants and shirt at me. I stand naked, sliding on my pants then shirt, while she does the exact same thing, watching me. My cut is next. She walks it to me in her hands and stands behind me placing it on.

“Time to party, baby,” she says shaking her ass then sliding on her heels, opening the door not waiting for me to follow. I grab my gun, pocketing it, and follow her ass out the door and into the music that blares from the bar below.