Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6)
Page 5
“Actually,” I told him conversationally as I hauled him across the bathroom floor. “I’m just as Irish as you.” Then in rusty Gaelic I hadn’t used in years, I insulted him in a language he would understand. “If only ye had brains, you’d be dangerous.”
I noticed the tension build in his muscles a hairbreadth before he launched himself at me. He was slow, the excess weight and a slow mind making him so. But I was bored with him, and I wanted to play.
So I let him take a swing at me.
It landed poorly on the barest corner of my chin, my beard taking the sting out of the bone on bone contact, the force only enough to turn my head an inch.
But the pain sang through me like a drug, exhilarating and right in a way not much in my life ever was.
A little laugh danced on my tongue as I made to swing again. I rolled to my toes and, just before his sloppy left hook landed, I ducked and came up with a hard jab to his right kidney.
He buckled, a slow sway like a tree just cut through the core of the trunk, and then the timber, his head hitting the porcelain pink tub with a sickening crunch.
Moaning pitifully, he tried to recover his equilibrium, scrambling for the knife that had fallen to the floor when I’d hauled him through the door. I bounced lightly on my toes as I let him grasp it.
He was bleeding from a gash over his left ear.
The same way Bea had bled in the wreck, her beautiful face transmuted horrifically by blood.
I hadn’t allowed myself to think about her at all since I’d last seen her broken, her natural glow tamped out by the artificial yellow lights of the hospital room. I hadn’t let myself think of her blood on my hands, both literally and figuratively as I’d pulled her from the car wreck I’d orchestrated myself, and I hadn’t let myself visit her again, even though I’d done nightly drive-bys of her house after she was discharged.
I was a man who did not allow himself a lot of things, so I was surprised by the difficulty of this particular exercise.
Everything in me compelled me with some strange magnetic force toward the slight girl with a halo of curls who would forever be too good for me and therefore too wrong for me.
This pathetic excuse for a man bleeding on the floor before me was partly responsible for her injury. I could self-flagellate myself as much as I wanted to pay penance for my own guilt, but who was there to extract it from Patrick.
Me.
That’s who.
Something in my chest ignited, my clear-headed rationale wavered, and suddenly, I was on him.
The time for fun and games had passed.
It was time for Patrick Walsh to meet his fucking Maker.
The bones in his hand ground together beneath my punishing grip as I smashed his hand against the bathtub to release his grip on the knife. He grunted and gasped, spittle flying, perspiration breaking out across his pocked forehead. All that energy so inefficiently expended.
In seconds, he was disarmed.
A moment later, I wielded that same knife in my own hand, the dangerous point tipped like a pen to the papery skin of his throat.
Soon, I would write the conclusion of his destiny in the ink of his blood.
“This,” I told him, somewhat merrily, because fuck, but I loved the hunt and that precious, poised moment before the kill. “Is what happens to those who go after The Fallen.”
“Fuck you,” Patrick said before spitting at me, the viscous liquid too heavy to reach my looming face so it landed pathetically on his heaving chest. “And your Fallen fucks.”
“Eloquent, if not boring last words.” I cocked my head to the side and twirled the blade slightly against his flesh, teasing open a small wound and a singular bead of garnet red. “Do you want to try again?”
He opened his mouth to say something, but it was too late.
With a flick of my wrist as graceful and studied as a dance movement, Patrick Walsh’s thick throat split open easily under my knife and his last words drowned in one last, gurgling gasp.
I sat back on my haunches to watch him die more comfortably.
The blood flowed so quickly from his dissected flesh, rushing like a broken tap over his white dress shirt into the waistband of his black slacks, around the sides of his belly to drip steadily––plink, plink––to the laminate.
I watched as his extremities grew pale and mottled like old wax paper, how his breath stuttered, stuttered, stopped, and his chest gave one last rattling rumble before it stalled altogether.
When it was done, I allowed myself one moment of reflection because I knew, if I didn’t now, I would suffer for it later.
“Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, no evil would I fear,” I blasphemed hoarsely. “For I am no longer Yours.”
Bea
They wouldn’t leave me alone. Every moment during my three-day stint in the hospital and every second since returning home to my small, pink heritage home just off Main Street, there was someone at my side. King and Cressida (because they were rarely parted) with their sweet baby, Prince, Harleigh Rose, Lila, and my best friend, Cleo, my sister or my mother and my grandpa. The Fallen didn’t linger long, but some of them came to check in, and Loulou, in a show of excessive protectiveness, even had Ransom do drive-bys at night to make sure I was safe.
I had no space, no privacy, and, most importantly, no Priest.
He was the only one in the entire thirty-four-man motorcycle club not to pay their respects to the prez’s injured sister-in-law. And that included the more irascible shitheads like Heckler, Wiseguy, and Skell.
It would have been a sign of disrespect from any other brother. Zeus would’ve had words with them and they’d come crawling up my stoop carrying a rumpled bouquet or a cold six-pack of beer in apology.
But Priest was different.
There was a feared awe and reverence surrounding the club’s enforcer. He was their death dealer, their toll collector, so there was respect there, but also a slight chill. Death was a word in every outlaw biker’s lexicon, but for Priest, it was almost a mantra. The other men couldn’t relate to him as easily as they could to each other.
And Priest, whom I strongly suspected after years of study was a clinical psychopath, could not begin to relate to them.
So he was given special dispensation from the normal social rules of the club. He flitted in and out like a ghost, never questioned, answering only to Zeus and, more recently, to King.
I’d always thought that for Priest, love wasn’t impossible so much as it wasn’t translatable. Whatever loyalty or kinship he felt for The Fallen and its brethren was communicated through action.
He’d hunted and tortured a man for Cressida.
He’d beaten the information out of an old enemy, Warren, who had betrayed Loulou to The Nightstalkers MC.
But would he ever show up at a hospital bedside or sing “Happy Birthday” in chorus with everyone else at one of the many parties held in the clubhouse?
Absolutely not.
These were the musings of a girl who had been obsessed with a mystery of a man for half a decade.
Before the accident, I’d be content with my daydreams and wanderings. I felt my obsession would always be intractably unrequited.
But now…
The cold viciousness in Priest’s eyes as he’d slit Brett’s throat and anointed my feet with his blood. The gentleness of his large, death-dealing hands cupping my broken body to his chest as he shielded me from the car blast and the tension in his jaw as he stared down at me, wrecked by the sight of my injuries…
Didn’t that have to amount to something?
I wanted to ask him.
I needed to know.
At the very least, I felt compelled to thank him properly. Not only because he’d saved my life and deserved that regard, but because the burgeoning psychologist in me wanted to see how he would react.
How would a man more used to death than life react to a woman thanking him for saving her?
The unasked qu
estion burned in me like a banked fire.
“What do you think, Delilah?” I murmured to my sweet ring-necked dove as I hand-fed her from where she perched on my shoulder.
She cooed happily in response and preened as I gently ran a finger down her silky throat.
“I think he might like me too,” I agreed on a whisper as Harleigh Rose and Loulou laughed over something in my kitchen. “I think it’s about time we find out.”
Carefully, I scooted to the edge of the couch I lay on then eased myself into a standing position in a way that wouldn’t agonize my ribs. Delilah bobbed and weaved in the strands of my hair as I moved to her cage, but she was blessedly quiet as I released her in its spacious confines.
“Wish me luck,” I told her as I closed the latch.
A ragged meow drew my attention to Sampson, my one-eyed albino rescue cat, who sat by the back door watching me judgmentally.
“Don’t give me that,” I scolded as I moved toward him and collected my white Converse from beside his swishing tail. “I’ll text them before they know I’m gone. I just need space.”
Sampson turned his snub nose up at me and then stalked off, clearly unimpressed.
I laughed softly at his attitude as I gently turned the knob on the old door and cracked it open just enough to slip through without making it creak on its lightly rusted hinges.
As soon as I was outside in the burning orange twilight of the autumn evening, I regretted not having a coat, but it was too late to turn back.
Free and giddy with it, I circled around the house to my trusty vintage pink Fiat. It was the bane of the brothers who worked at Hephaestus Auto because it was always breaking down, requiring them to send someone to pick me up and cart it back to the shop for another bout of work, but I loved it too much to give it up for something more practical.
I retrieved the spare set of car and house keys I kept hidden in a fake rock by the driveway and made my escape.
The curtains twitched as soon as I started my car, but I only waved blindly at the house as I reversed into the road and took off.
I laughed as I hit Main Street, and my stereo finally kicked on, appropriately spilling out the “Dark Side” by Bishop Briggs.
I didn’t have a destination in mind. I just wanted the drive to be alone and reflect further on how I would get Priest to notice me enough to want me. After stopping at Evergreen Gas to fill up my car, Mary, and grab a jumbo bag of Fuzzy Peaches, I cruised along the water. It never failed to amaze me how gorgeous Entrance was. To the east, the Rocky Mountains exploded from the earth like the spiny backs of great dinosaurs fossilized in the soil. To the west, the glittering expanse of opalescent blue ocean beneath the rough-hewn cliffs of the coastline. Between the two, sprawling forest teeming with wildlife that had grown so accustomed to humans, we often had bears, deer, and cougars trolling through the streets on their way to greener pastures.
I adored it, every single inch of it.
This was why I chose to commute to university down in Vancouver instead of live on campus. I wanted this beauty as my backyard, and the love of my family to ornament it further.
I had so much goodness in my life, it was almost a shameful overabundance.
Despite growing up largely ignored by my parents with a sister who’d battled cancer twice, I was blessed more than most people ever would be.
I owned my house—thanks to the inheritance from my disgusting father—I attended one of the best universities in the world, lived in one of the most beautiful places, and had the loveliest, though perhaps unconventional, family.
So why did I have this niggling malcontent?
I popped a fuzzy peach into my mouth, savouring the sweet tang as it dissolved on my tongue and decided to be honest with myself.
I was lonely.
Not lonely the way I often wondered if Priest was lonely, as in without companionship.
It was possible for the most popular person to feel essentially lonely, even when surrounded by a group of friends.
I felt isolated because I was deliberately keeping the truth of who I was in my heart from those closest to me.
Yes, I was a good girl, a churchgoing, straight A-receiving, animal-loving blond with a serious penchant for all things pink and girly.
But I was drawn to the dark like a planet pulled irrevocably toward a black hole.
I wanted more than sunshine and flowers.
I wanted to hone my edges against the whetstone of danger, test my mind against those who thought contradictorily to me. It was the reason I was studying criminal psychology.
And I couldn’t decide what had come first, the chicken or the egg.
My obsession with Priest or my obsession with the deviant.
As if in answer, the universe offered me a gift…
The sight of Priest’s all-black Harley Davidson motorcycle partially obscured behind a dumpster in Purgatory Motel’s parking lot.
Instantly, my hands were moving on the wheel, turning my little Fiat into the lot.
It was dark now, the sunset only a smudge of grime grey light on the edge of the horizon, and the parking lot was poorly lit by three lampposts, only one of which was working. I shivered as I got out of the car, the fear and cold coalescing to pump adrenaline through my blood.
I liked this too much, I knew. The lack of safety.
But more and more over the years, I’d taken these risks, and I knew one day, these timid acts wouldn’t be enough.
I’d want more.
I blinked at Priest’s bike before walking over to the only lit room in the motel block. In all my years of knowing him, it occurred to me that I still had no idea where he lived. Maybe he stayed permanently at this pink shit stain of a motel.
The thought saddened me and spurred me forward.
I knocked at the door, but no one answered.
My heart was in my throat, my skin rippled with goose bumps.
There was something in the air here like static. Something that told me not to enter the room at all costs.
So, of course, I did.
The knob turned easily in my hand, but the door fell completely inward as I opened it, the entire panel crashing to the floor and alerting whoever was inside to my presence. It had obviously been knocked in before.
I froze in the doorway, my foot suspended in mid-air.
“Hello?” I called out softly. “Priest, are you in here?”
There was no response. Only the low throaty hum of the fan in the bathroom, a wedge of pink light triangulated against the opposite wall.
The air was stale and musky, but beneath, there was a different odor, something sharp and antiseptic as the hospital I’d just convalesced in.
Something like bleach.
My heart was in my throat, pumping so madly it was difficult to swallow. I dipped down to grab the little knife from the strap around my ankle, hidden by my frilly white sock. It had been a gift from Priest a long time ago, after I’d nearly died in a cabin fire with my sister, Harleigh Rose, and Mute. It was one of two gifts he’d ever given me. I kept it on my person all the time, even when I went to bed. It was a flat, straight blade affixed to a wooden base carved into an elaborate Celtic cross. My fingers curled easily over the hands of the cross, so it sat balanced in my palm.
This was the first time I was using it.
As I crept closer to the bathroom, my ears strained so hard they almost vibrated with the pressure.
Still, nothing.
With the toe of my shoe, I gently pushed open the bathroom door.
I don’t know what I expected, maybe a monster to jump out from behind the shower curtain.
Nothing happened.
The gaudy pink shower curtain was partially closed, but sheer enough that I could see there was no one lurking in wait.
The room was empty.
No monster, no Priest.
A wave of shame and disappointment ran through me like a ghost, leaving only a cold, clammy sensation all over my body.
I was just a girl.
Apparently, a pathetic one with a death wish.
My shoulders sagged, and I suddenly felt exhausted, my injuries and the long day catching up to me in one nearly mortal blow.
I turned to go when something virtually imperceptible caught my eye in the mirror, just a glimmer of pink light on metal. Slowly, my heart a dead weight in my chest, crushed by the weight of my held breath, I looked back over my shoulder at the mirror across from me.
And screamed.
Because a man all in black was on the other side of the door from me, wedged between the wall and the shadows cast by the open door so that I hadn’t noticed him at first glance.
It was only the telltale flash of a gun pressed to the wood aimed directly at my head on the other side that gave him away.
I screamed so loudly the sound seemed to tear through my lungs, shredding them like tissue paper. I only had time for that, the single bright exclamation of panic, but it was truncated by the hooded man.
The door flung into me, forcing me to stumble backward from the bathroom. Before I could recover my equilibrium, he was on me.
The iron cold weight of his hand wrapped around my throat so tight I could feel the force of each distinct finger. Using his momentum, he forced me against the wall opposite the bathroom and pinned me there like a butterfly caught in amber.
I don’t know why I didn’t struggle.
There was something there in the air, something heady and intoxicating. It was in the shallow drag of breath I swallowed before he squeezed my neck even tighter.
The scent of cloves and tobacco.
My body registered the scent before my mind did, relaxing like a ragdoll in his hold even though it made it harder to breathe.
Because I knew instinctively, this man wouldn’t hurt me even if it was in his nature to hurt everyone else.