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The past few days I’ve been hard, I can feel that hunger building back up in me and getting stronger. Some call it hate or venom. I call it fuel. I can’t pinpoint the moment I lost my conscience, if I’m honest I can’t ever remember havin’ one. I’ve never reached a limit on how far I’ll go. I wonder if a child could be it?
Maybe I should feel some kinda cold shudder at the thought of hurting something so innocent, but all I visualize is the depths of Skid’s despair. He would blame himself, more than he ever could me, if anything were to happen to the precious lives singing away in front of me.
More lives lost because my brother’s love is lethal.
The little laugh I make isn’t for anyone’s benefit but my own. It would be interesting to talk to a shrink and get an evaluation of myself. Tommy’s mom always said I was crazy, told me I was “missing parts in my head.”That’s what ended her up in the fuckin’ river with her head stoved in. She never did learn to control that fuckin’ mouth of hers.
Tension builds in my fingers as I continue to follow the woman who I’m pretty sure is carrying Skid’s child. I stay close through the windy lanes that lead toward town, thinking of all the ways I could hurt her.
I wonder if he really is in love with her, if he could love her any more than he did Carly. Maybe he never really loved Carly at all… Perhaps all my life I’ve got Skid wrong, and he’s just like me,missing parts,just better at hiding it.
What I do know is that this game of cat and mouse that Skid started is about to reach its end. Only one of us can be the winner, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out which one of us that will be.
“Can I grab more toys while we’re here, Mom?” Charlie rushes through the front door when we get back to the house.
“If you're quick.” I roll my eyes as I toss my keys on the table by the door. My pregnancy symptoms must be really kicking in now because the place smells really weird. The disinfectant with a hint of lemon scent hits me as soon as I walk through the door. I follow it into the kitchen where it seems to be the strongest, but nothing seems out of place. My coffee cup from the morning I left the house is still in the sink, growing something furry on the remnants at the bottom, and when it makes me queasy I quickly turn my head away.
“Shit.” I gasp when I see the tower of a man who’s now standing in the kitchen door frame. He’s thick set, like Skid, maybe a little shorter, but they have the same almost-black hair and beard.
“Hello.” He smiles at me almost gentlemanly, and when I see the huge jagged-edged knife in his hand that he’s making no attempt to hide, panic starts to rise from my stomach up to my throat.
“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I’m Tobias, my friends call me Chop.” He casually places the rope he’s holding in his other hand on the table to free it, then steps toward me holding it out like he expects me to shake it.
“I…I…”
He studies my face, his mouth moving to replicate mine as I struggle to get my words out.
“I got everything, Mom.” Charlie’s voice comes from behind him, and when I tilt my head to look past him and see the confusion on my little boy’s face, I manage to force one very important word past the lump in my throat.
“Run!”
“Don’t do that, kid, not if you don’t want your mom to get hurt.” Chop keeps his eyes on mine, not bothering to turn around, just holding the knife up to make sure Charlie sees it.
“Please, don’t. Just let him go,” I beg as fear grips into my chest and makes it hard for me to breathe.
“Can’t do that, sweetheart.” He uses the knife tip to flick the hair out of my face before he reaches toward the table and pulls out a chair.
“Take a seat. I think it’s time for me and you to get better acquainted.”
That’ll be the adrenaline,” Jessie tells me, watching my hands shake as we wait for Tripp’s signal.
He entered the village over fifteen minutes ago and while we’re waiting here just outside the gates, I’m starting to feel real fuckin’ anxious.
“This ain’t my first rodeo,” I remind him.
“First one that’s ever really mattered,” he points out accurately. I may have done plenty of shit like this for the club in the past, but never has the outcome been so detrimental to my future. Toourfuture.
“It’s a good thing, it’ll make you twice as fuckin’ strong.” He slaps me on the back.
“God fuckin’ help ‘em.”
I stare at the gates to the fortress that Abraham has built around his people and want to smash through ‘em. Everyone out here is ready. Tripp drilled the plan into us like a sergeant fuckin’ major when we got here earlier. If he hurries his ass up, all the leaders will still be in their morning meeting. We’ve taken a guess that they are the only ones who know about the cult’s weapon supply, so it’s Troj’s job to round everyone up in the village center, while me, Jessie, and Storm read the sick old men, who control them, their last fuckin’ passage.
I got orders from Prez not to cause a panic here today, our intent is to take each of those men alive. They will be driven away from here in a cage and killed with no dignity and no mercy, far away from theirsanctuary.Their bodies will rot wherever Grimm decides to bury ‘em, and the people who wish to remain here can make their own fuckin’ rules.
I spot some movement at the gate, and when they slightly open and Tripp pokes his head out to call us in, all four of us rush into action. I hear the loud gasp come from behind Tripp when a woman steps outta her front door and spots us, and Troj gets straight to work, sliding up behind her and covering her mouth with his hand so she doesn’t create a panic.
“Sorry for the disruption, darlin’. We ain’t here to hurt ya,” he assures her in a soft, calming tone, before nodding his head at me, Jess, and Storm so we can get to work.
