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The buzz of my cell on the bedside table wakes me. But despite the nightmares, I’m not ready to wake up. It’s still dark out, and after a night with Ares in my bed, my body needs the extra rest. But I’m not someone who can leave a message unopened. It’ll scratch at the back of my mind until I look at it.
Blindly, I reach for it, wondering if it’s Ares.
But it isn’t.
Reading the message, my stomach drops, and a rush of nausea chases away any lingering thoughts of sleep.
In the shadows of my bedroom, I sit up and push my hair out of my face. Goosebumps pebble my skin as I stare at the words on the screen.
Unknown: Tick tock, Aurora. Your time is running out.
A fresh zip of nausea tears through me, and I throw the cell phone onto my bed and stare at it like it just bit me.
An image of Donnie swings before my eyes, and I feel the haunting sensation of his fingers trailing along my skin and the stench of whisky and sweat in the air as he took and took and took from me. Then I think about my brother and the coffin, and a ghostly shiver travels down my spine. They’re fractured memories tainted by time and pain but still as real as if they happened only yesterday.
Tick tock, Aurora. Your time is running out.
Reaching over to the bedside table, I open the drawer and pull out the Ruger lying beside a bottle of Advil and a tray of contraceptive pills. The gun is loaded, and I know how to use it.
The question is, when will I?
ARES
“I’m not going to lie to you, boys. This is some of the craziest shit I’ve seen in twenty years of being in law enforcement.”
Sheriff Pinkwater slides a stack of crime scene photographs across the table we use during Church. It’s a long, rustic table made of red oak taken from one of the local forests. Usually, twenty-one patched members of the club sit around it. Today, there is only Jack, Paw, and Shooter, who is the club’s VP and Jack’s right hand, and me.
When Sheriff Pinkwater reached out and asked for help with a case he’s investigating, Jack insisted we talk with him first before taking it to Church.
Pinkwater looks uneasy. “As you can see, what we’re dealing with is mighty gruesome.”
There are seven crime scene photographs.
The first one is of a young woman lying half-submerged on the riverbank, dead. Her eyes are half open, her skin pale, and her lips a ghostly blue.
“Her name is Kandy Kurtman. Twenty-two. She was a sex worker from Fortune City. Used to be a bank teller but fell on hard times when the bank closed. Worked the streets to pay her rent.”
I’ve known a few Kandy Kurtman’s in my life. There is no shame in doing what you fucking got to do to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head.
“What happened to her?” Shooter asks.
“Got picked up by a John on a Monday night three weeks ago, was found in the river the following morning. Cause of death was strangulation.” He reaches across the table to show us the image beneath it. “But this was done to her post-mortem.”
In the second picture, Kandy is on her back, and across her naked stomach the word lust has been slashed into the soft, slippery flesh.
“Jesus Christ,” Shooter mutters with a shake of his head.
“The medical examiner couldn’t identify exactly what they used to carve the word, but she said it was a double-edged blade.”
“Like a dagger,” I say.
“Or a tactical knife. But yes, something like that.”
The next photograph is of a man in a three-piece suit hanging from a rope in what looks like an expensive apartment in the city. His face is badly beaten and cut, and bloody dollar notes are stuffed into his mouth.”
“This is Michael Merchant. A con artist and petty thief. He recently got himself involved with the Hermanns out by Green Holler way. You heard of the Hermanns?”
Everyone’s heard of the Hermanns.
