Natural Born Killers (Sick Boys Book 3)

by Lucy Smoke

  move my hips. Up and down and back and forth. Harder and faster until the

  room starts spinning. Until his hands on my hips turn bruising. Dean curses

  and clenches his jaw and then, I feel it. He fucking comes and sends me right

  over the edge. I gasp as an orgasm swallows me up and carries me away as

  his cock jumps inside of me, pulsing and sending me to infinity.

  I fall back down to reality with gasping awareness as I collapse against

  his chest. Panting, sweaty, bloody as shit, my back aching even as I finger the

  lines I cut into Dean's chest.

  "How was that for a little fun?" I comment dryly.

  He laughs, but if he answers, I never hear it because in the next few

  seconds, exhaustion finally overwhelms me and I close my eyes, falling into

  blissful fucking sleep.

  12

  AVALON

  THE MOON SHINES DOWN OVER THE OLD GEORGIA BACK ROAD AS I RECLINE

  against the porch steps of Micki's house, letting the smoke from my cigarette

  drift up towards the sky. The light from inside goes out and then the door

  opens. She doesn't say anything as she descends the steps to take her place

  next to me.

  She's unusually quiet tonight. I get the feeling that there's a lot she isn't

  telling me. A part of me wants to call her out on it. I refrain. Everyone's got

  secrets—including her—I don't need to know all of her business. If she wants

  to tell me, she will.

  Something heavy clunks against the porch step and I look down, my eyes

  widened as I spot the bottle of tequila, a giant ass liter at that. "Damn," I say,

  "must've had one hell of a week."

  She twists the cap off, cracking the seal, and chuckles at my comment

  before lifting the bottle and sucking back the first few gulps. She doesn't stop

  at the first few gulps though. My eyes widen as the once full bottle slowly

  begins to drain. There's a twisted grimace to her lips, but it doesn't stop her. I

  have to.

  "Whoa, slow the fuck down," I say, reaching for the bottle. I snatch it

  from her grip and some of the tequila spills out onto the wooden steps

  between us. The scent of sharp, biting alcohol reaches my nostrils. I might

  have thought she switched it out for water given that she gave no indication

  of how strong it actually was had it not been for the fact that before she'd

  opened it, it'd been sealed … and that smell. "What the hell are you trying to

  do?" I demand. "Kill yourself?"

  Micki sighs and lets the bottle go without complaint. I set it down on the

  other side of me, away from her. "Not tonight," she answers. It's such a vague

  and yet meaningful answer, it catches me off guard.

  "What do you mean, not tonight?" I clarify.

  She shrugs. "Just what I said, kid."

  I scowl. "How many fucking times have I told you, I'm not a damn kid."

  Her lips quirk up. "Hey," she says, ignoring my statement, "I've got an

  idea. Wanna go somewhere?"

  I eye her. "After all that shit you just drank?" I shake my head. "You're

  not driving anywhere, bitch. Let's just hang here." I like it here anyway.

  Patricia doesn't know about Micki—who she is or where she lives. I like it

  that way. This is like my little safe place away from all the shit I have to deal

  with on the daily.

  She smirks at me before reaching into her back pocket and lifting a key

  ring with a dangling rabbit's foot. "Who said I'll drive?" she asks. "I've been

  teaching you, you can do it."

  I stare at the keys as she swings them around her finger again and again

  until the sight starts making me dizzy and I reach out, snatching them away

  from her. It's better this way anyway. It's for safe keeping. "Where the fuck do

  you want to go this late at night anyway?" I ask with a curse.

  Her head lolls back on her shoulders and she stares up into the cloudless

  night sky. "There's a train track bridge not far from here," she says. "Drove

  by it the other day and wanted to stop, but couldn't. I kinda wanna go there."

  I frown. She never leaves her house. The only reason she even has the old

  piece of shit Buick out back is because the last owner of the house left it

  behind. She found the keys under the sink, fixed it up, and got it running. It

  shakes if you go too far past forty-five, but other than that it's alright.

  "I don't know," I say.

  Micki swings her head my way. "Pussy," she calls out.

  "Excuse me?" I glare at her, but she only smiles.

  "You fucking heard me," she taunts. "I called you a straight up pussy,

  bitch."

  "You're drunk," I snap. How the hell had she gotten so drunk so fast?

  Was she doing shots before I even showed up?

  She laughs. "Yeah, but you should still take me," she counters.

  I roll my eyes, fingering the keys I'd taken from her. My tongue presses to

  the roof of my mouth as I contemplate my answer. "Why do you want to go?"

  I ask.

  Micki doesn't answer immediately. Instead, she sits up and keeps her gaze

  on the full, hanging moon in the sky. I look towards it, trying to see what has

  her so enthralled, but to me, it just looks like a bit tit in the sky. Nothing

  particularly grand or magical about it.

  "I just don't wanna be here tonight," she admits quietly after some time.

  And just like that, I know I'm going to cave to her ridiculous request. Why?

  Because I fucking get it. Micki keeps her private life to herself, and no matter

  how many times I come over and we talk about my shit with Patricia or

  Roger or whoever the hell my mother's fucking this week, she never includes

  shit about her life. If she does, it's always in the vaguest of terms. It doesn't

  take a fucking genius to guess, though; she's just as trapped as I am. Who the

  hell lives in an empty, barren house all alone at the age of eighteen, after all?

  She's got a story, just not one she's willing to share, and I'm not willing to

  push for it. We're friends for now. Friends by circumstance. Friends by

  understanding. But no more.

  "Fine," I finally say, pushing up from the porch and stabbing out my

  cigarette against the wood. She doesn't complain. She never does. "Let's go."

  Micki smiles and pushes to her feet. She grabs the bottle and heads back

  inside, appearing minutes later with empty hands. We head around the side

  of the house, to the half rotted out barn that houses the ancient Buick she

  uses to get her groceries and disappear to God only knows where. The barn

  is so old, there's no electricity so we have to figure our way out in the dark. I

  smack into the front fender with a curse but use my hands to feel along the

  car until I get to the driver's side door.

  As old as this motherfucking car is, it's difficult to open the door even

  though the locks aren't engaged. I spend a good minute or two fighting with

  the rusted shut door until it pops open and the light inside flares to life. Dim

  as it is, it's something and it helps Micki to find her way into the passenger

  side.

  "Turn left on the road," she says as soon as the car is geared up and

  thrumming to life—albeit a bit too loudly.

  I put the old Buick into drive and ease out of the open barn door and then

  circle the house before hea
ding for the road. For the longest time, we sit

  there in radio silence—only briefly interrupted every few minutes as she

  relays directions. The grim yellow headlights wash over the road, but for all I

  know, they're not working. The rest of the road is pitch black. No cars come

  towards us and none come behind us. It's almost as if we're all alone out here

  in the dark.

  Two lost girls on a back country road with nowhere to really go back to.

  For a second, I wonder what she would do if I just kept driving. Past the train

  track bridge, past Plexton, and beyond. I could take us out of here, out of this

  piece of shit town, this state, and somewhere far, far away. Where none of

  our demons could catch up to us. Maybe then, when I sleep the world

  wouldn't always sound so loud.

  "Here!" Micki says quickly as we curve around a bend in the road,

  interrupting my train of thought and stopping the track my brain had

  suddenly gone on. Her voice brings me back down to reality, and I realize

  that I'm just a child like all of my teachers say. Just like she calls me. Because

  only a child would think they could outrun their past.

  The headlights catch on the edge of the darkest entrance to another back

  road that I've ever seen. I glance at Micki out of the corner of my eye. "You

  can't see the tracks from here," I say.

  She doesn't respond to my comment. Instead, she merely says, "It's further

  down," as she leans forward in her seat.

  She's excited, which is so odd because Micki is rarely excited about

  anything these days. For the last month or so she's been such a fucking

  morose cunt. She won't tell me what's wrong, but I keep catching her doing

  things I don't understand. She's tossing more and more shit away that she

  should probably keep. Drinking more than I've ever seen her drink before.

  Smoking like she wants to ruin her lungs as quickly as possible.

  I suddenly hate that I've agreed to do this. I don't feel comfortable.

  Something feels off. My heart starts to pound as I turn onto the road and we

  head a little ways down. There's nothing around but trees for the longest time

  and then the road opens up and there it is. An old train track bridge.

  It's unused, that much is clear. Even before we park the car and get out, I

  can see that there's no road beyond it anymore. It's been years, if not

  decades, since this thing was in use. The big metal beams are orange and red

  with age and rust. The moonlight that casts down on them makes them

  appear like long fingers clasped together, weaved into an almost boxlike

  shape.

  "Come on!" Micki hurries towards it.

  "Wait!" I call out, moving after her. "How do you know it's safe?"

  She stops at the edge, turning back to tilt her head at me. "Nothing is

  safe, Avalon," she tells me. "Don't worry about whether or not something's

  safe. Just do it. Take the rush. Give in to the adrenaline."

  "I don't know," I say. This doesn't seem right. There's too much she's not

  saying. I don't mind a few secrets, but this seems dangerous.

  My heart kicks up another notch as she turns around and makes it onto

  the track bridge. I follow behind her, thankful that I left the headlights on so

  it gives us a little more light to work with. I step across the railroad ties that

  have all but rotted away and keep to the side of the bridge. Down below

  there's nothing but darkness. Water rushes nearby, but there's so little light

  that goes that far, it's hard to tell if it's deep or not, if there are jagged rocks

  at the bottom waiting to rend our flesh into shreds or not.

  The pounding of my heart screams inside of my chest, wailing to get out.

  It thrums in my ears even as I lift my head and watch as Micki jumps from

  one impossibly thin board to the next.

  "What are you fucking doing?" I scream. I'm angry. I hate my life. I hate

  where I am. I want out, but I'm not fucking suicidal.

  The same can't be said for her. I should've never brought her out here, I

  realize. This was more than a mistake. This was just me wanting to keep the

  only fucking friend I had and in order to do so, I had to placate her with

  things that she wanted even if they weren't good for her.

  "I'm having fun," she calls back.

  "No, you're not," I scream. "Get your fucking ass back in the car. We're

  leaving. This was dumb."

  Micki laughs and the sound of it sends shivers down my spine. It's the

  laugh of someone who's completely lost touch with reality. My head turns as

  if on a pike and I catch sight of her, too far down for me to reach now. Half

  of her face is illuminated in the light of the moon—the headlights too far

  away to even touch her. She looks like a mixture of a trailer park princess

  and a forest beauty who's lost. Her blonde hair kinks and shifts over one

  shoulder as she lifts her arms above her head, standing on a single slat, and

  sways to a beat that I can't hear. Her eyes are shut and her face tilted

  towards the darkened sky.

  "Micki?" I take a step towards her, but she doesn't respond. Not right

  away.

  "It's quiet out here," she says finally. I stop to listen. She's right. It is

  quiet. There's always some noise—even at the trailer park. Even if there's no

  drunkard outside, yelling and singing old show tunes, there's still the sound

  of the refrigerator or the electricity that shivers along the walls when a light

  is on. Everything has sound. And though it's not completely silent—there are

  still the sounds of small animals hiding in the underbrush yards away

  scurrying this way and that—it's quieter than I've heard it in a long time.

  My heartbeat finally begins to slow. I move along the slats towards her.

  Her eyes open and she meets my gaze for a brief moment before holding out a

  hand. I don't know why I take it. It seems risky to do so, but I do it anyway.

  The risk, I'm finding, isn't something I'm all too scared of.

  "It's not dangerous," she tells me. "Not as long as you're in control."

  Am I in control? I wonder silently, almost absently. I turn my face up

  towards the moon and take in the sight. What is she seeing that I can't?

  It doesn't feel like I'm in control. If anything, it feels like my whole life is

  spinning out of my control. What can I grab onto? What can I do that will

  keep me feeling like I'm on stable ground? Micki lets go of my hand as a wind

  blows through the metal beams above and around us. The cold air slaps me

  in the face, shoving my hair back from my face as I squint into the darkness.

  Everything around me looks like a cage but feels so open, and I realize

  I'm not scared anymore. I don't know where the fear went, but it's gone. I'm

  on this bridge because I want to be. Not because Micki forced me. No one

  forces me to do shit. I do what I want.

  I take another step, my eyes centered past her on the end of the bridge.

  It's several yards away with several dozen slats in between where I am now

  and where it opens up into a dark forest. An old gravel road moves beyond it

  where once, I assume, there had been more tracks, but in the time since this

  place has become irrelevant to society, nature had retaken that road.

  Greenery eats into the grav
el and even up that side of the bridge.

  My feet carry me towards it. I jump towards the next slat and the next and

  the next, until there's no wind in my face, just the air moving around me the

  faster I go. Micki calls out to me from behind, the sound growing further and

  further away as I open my mouth and swallow a fresh breath of air.

  I start to run. The faster I go, the more I feel invincible. My feet don't

  hesitate. I hit slat after slat. The wood shakes underneath me, but I just don't

  give a fuck. I laugh aloud, spinning as I hit the end and take a look back.

  Micki stands there, watching me, a frown on her face.

  Why the fuck is she frowning? She started this. She led me here.

  How the hell had I thought she was so far across when really she's still so

  close to that other end and I'm standing right on the precipice of nothing. Of

  the woods. Of completely and utterly erasing my existence to my past. My

  thoughts come back, full circle. Dying is not the goal. Getting away is. Away

  from Patricia. Away from that musty old trailer of hers. Away from the

  feelings of inferiority.

  A sinister thought grips me tight. Hate is a powerful emotion. It slips

  through my veins and curdles in my blood. It's hot and cold in the same

  instance. My breath slips in and out of my chest, scorching through my lungs.

  I hate this place. I hate the way it makes me feel—dirty and grimy. As if I'm

  less than everyone else. As if I'm worthless.

  I want to cut it all away. Rip it out of my skin as if it's branded inside of

  me. Even if I do that, though, I still find myself wondering … will it really

  change anything. Can I completely leave this place, or will it always travel

  with me?

  "Avalon?" Micki's voice carries across the space between us and I glance

  at her. "You coming back?" she asks as if she's not sure. The girl who was so

  vocal about wanting to come here is gone and it's like her normal self is back.

  I snort. How can she expect me to just go back to normal when she's the one

  who brought about this change in me? I laugh, and the sound of it carries

  into the air, echoing off the beams, but Micki is my friend and so, I'll go back.

  For now, I'll return. Tomorrow, though, is a different story.

  "Yeah," I call out to her. "I'm coming."

  13