by Ace Gray
“What?”
“Tell her I love her, okay?” I looked down at the calluses on my hand.
“Oh hell no.” He broke away from Horse and stood by my knees, shoving his hands on his hips as he flexed and puffed up in front of me.
“Thanks for nothing.” I went to shove off the hood and circled away from him when he stopped me cold with a truly strong and sturdy stiff arm to the chest.
“The first time that girl hears I love you it’s coming from your lips, not mine.” He let his arm go a little limp. “I’ll tell her that she’s everything, though. I’ll tell her that you’re trying to prove it.”
I couldn’t help but smirk as I studied his shoes.
“That’ll work,” I added as I rubbed the back of my neck.
He grabbed my shoulder and pushed me back so that I could meet his eyes. “You get back and you tell her that. She needs to hear it.” He smiled at me for the very first time and my heart thudded because of Conrad. Not because I wanted him but at the idea that both Horse and I had happy and it was worth fighting for. “Make sure you bring him with you.” He jerked his chin toward Horse then seamlessly turned toward the station.
Horse slid next to me on the hood of the car and we watched Conrad buy a ticket then get on a train. He blew out a loud exaggerated breath as the train pulled away.
“Cole, you ever feel like you’re saying goodbye for the last time?”
“Every time.” Something pummeled at my insides.
It kept going crazy as we drove to Elmwood. Jimmy was sitting on Nonno’s step watching the sunrise. The rumble of the engine told him we were there but he didn’t flinch. I watched him closely from the car not wanting to interrupt.
The sky was turning into warm and liquid gold over the top of the neighborhood houses. There was a pair of shoes strung over the power lines in the middle of the street and, as we sat there, the pink faded around them so they could shimmer too.
“Should we do this?” Horse asked softly, noticing the moment enveloping us.
“Not yet.” I leaned back and stayed fixated on the sky as blue filtered into the rays of gold.
I was taking a man to the slaughterhouse and unlike all the times before, it felt weird. Wrong even. Maybe I did have the moral compass Horse had accused me of earlier.
Right now, Jimmy was just a man. He played with a pen and a scrap of paper in between taking in the sunrise panoramas. The views were likely the last ones he’d have of any space that wasn’t Mickey’s horrific lair. For a split second, I thought about killing him myself. It would serve Mick’s purposes but I’d make it quick and painless. And somewhere like this, filled with the simple beauty of a new day washing over the same old street.
But I couldn’t do it and make the plan work. Bile rose in my throat.
Finally he stood and Horse wordlessly stepped out to make room for him in the backseat. The heaviness in the car was almost stifling when I pulled away from the curb and pointed towards Mickey’s.
There was nothing left to say. No words fit the situation. None ever could. It was a vacant blackness that settled in and wrapped around my soul. When I parked, it threatened to consume me. We filed out, with me lording over Jimmy as we’d planned. Monster playing the executioner rather than man saving his world. The role made me choke back puke.
“Cole, you have to give this to her,” Jimmy said urgently and under his breath as he shoved the paper he’d been toying with into my hand.
As discreetly as I could, I looked down to see lines and lines scribbled across a page but it wasn’t the chicken scratch that caught my attention. It was a doodle on the flip side.
The Celtic cross was familiar, too familiar. I remembered inking it into Connor a few weeks ago. I still had Elle’s intricate copy. One of the few drawings of hers I could keep without the fear of her identity being figured out.
“Jimmy, why did you draw this cross?”
“Drawing it helps me feel like I have some control over what he’s gonna do to me.” He jerked his chin at the front door.
“What do you mean? This symbol means something to Mickey?” I asked as dread settled in and tore at my stomach.
“Yeah, he chose this a few years ago, as his mark. He was on some cocaine bender and decided that he’d seen God. God told him the way to ascend and follow in his footsteps. It’s when this whole madness started.” He blew out a deep breath. “I feel like facing that symbol is a way of facing his madness within.”
“It can’t be a coincidence,” I murmured to myself recalling each line as I carved it into skin.
“What can’t?” Horse asked trying to pull me out of the haze that was settling in.
“It’s too exact. Too perfect,” I continued muttering.
“Cole, come on. Talk to me.”
“Three weeks. He’s known for at least three weeks.” I could barely get the words out.
I remembered parading Elle into Fulton Market Kitchen. Introducing her to Connor. The whole evening was etched into my memory as the night I’d learned more, the night I tripped over myself and fell in love with her. But now it had a bitter rancid taste to match what was happening to my stomach.
“Who’s known what?” Horse got loud and forceful.
“Looks like Judas finally came to his reckoning.” A new voice was behind us, every bit as cold as my insides had gone.
“Yeah, we’ve got Jimmy.” Horse puffed up at the kid that was standing behind us. The same one I’d threatened to kill weeks ago. Now I really thought about it.
He looked me over and when my shoulders slumped his wicked laughter pierced the early morning street.
“No, I’m talking about Cole.”
34.
Elle
The soft knock at the door startled me just as every sound outside had for the past three hours. They’d been gone so long it was easy to convince myself any number of things had happened. Horrible vicious things just like what had happened in here last night. If riding in the car with her corpse hadn’t made me heave, I wouldn’t be stuck here alone and with my whole world missing in action.
Whoever it was knocked again, still gently at the door.
“Elle? Elle, are you in there?” It was a vaguely familiar voice and I stood up from the couch and crept over to the door. “Elle, it’s Connor. Cole needed to get a message to you and apparently, I’m the only one that knows you’re in the city.”
That was all it took for me to rush toward the door and whip it open.
“Oh, my God, is he okay?” Panic welled in my chest and I couldn’t hide it in my voice.
“Yeah, everything’s okay but Mickey knows where you are. You have to come with me.”
“You know about all of that?” I blew out a deep breath of relief knowing I could speak freely.
“All of it. Every last detail.” He smiled warmly at me, reassuring the knots that had bundled up inside me.
“Let me just make sure they didn’t forget anything.” I forced myself into the bedroom even though I had to steady myself at the door.
“You okay?” Connor had followed me like a ninja, I jumped when his voice was right behind me, his breath warm on my neck.
But it wasn’t his closeness that made my skin goose bump or hair stand on end.
“I just need to check that nothing from the body…” I cut myself off short and snapped my hands back over my mouth to try and reel the words back in.
“A body? That’s good to know.” He chuckled huskily behind me.
The reaction was so wrong I spun to look at him. He had wild and dark eyes, just like the eyes that would be forever etched in my brain. Her eyes were soulless like that. I went to scream, hoping that this time someone would hear, someone would come help, but he shot behind me and covered my mouth and nose in a swift movement. His other hand came to my throat and squeezed.
My hands flew to his hand and clawed, my body knowing the difference between his and Cole’s touch instinctually. But hard as I clawed, hard as I dug,
or tried to bite at his palm, I couldn’t get free.
“Shhhhh.” He nuzzled against the back of my head. “It’ll all be over soon.”
My vision was edging in like it usually did, the buzzing in my ears was back. But unlike Cole, that wasn’t the moment that Connor let me gulp for air. He kept squeezing and my body started to respond to the lack of oxygen. Or rather stopped responding at all. I still batted at him but they were sluggish half-hearted movements.
“Almost there.” He squeezed a little harder and all I could do was go limp with little more than a heartbeat left to move my body.
“Perfect.” Connor’s hand left my throat to fondle in his pocket. I still couldn’t breathe with his hand stopping my nose and mouth from sucking in air. In the picture frame above the bed, the blurry image of a man with a syringe registered just a moment before he carefully inserted the needle in my neck.
I wanted to scream at the pinch, or worse, at what it meant for me, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move or breathe, I could only think of Cole and pray.
“Sleep under a China White sky for a little while, Elle. I’ll see you on the other side,” he whispered in my ear before planting a tiny kiss on the side of my head.
Just as Connor pulled the needle from my neck, my world went dark.
I didn’t remember getting here, wherever here was. I couldn’t shake the fog from my brain to figure it out.
Slowly, I made myself take stock of the situation. Whatever I was sitting on was warm and it moved up and down in shallow little bursts like my breathing. The room around me was dark, almost pitch black except for a few blood red lamps and flickering candles that cast an eerie light on faces. Lots of faces. They were all watching something just in front of me, something highlighted in a blinding spotlight.
The bright white was disorienting and the figures bathed in light blurred when I looked at them. I lifted my hands to rub my eyes, hoping it would help me see clearer.
“She wakes.” A voice was right behind my ear, and the hiss of the words vibrated against my back.
I was sitting on someone’s lap.
“Finally, I get to meet the perfect Elle Laroux.” The man behind me spoke again, this time letting his hand wander freely across my body, grabbing my breast then diving between my thighs and stroking me through my shorts.
I screamed.
The figure I hadn’t been able to make out on the floor before snarled and tried to shoot toward me. My eyes focused this time.
On Cole.
He was shackled and chained to the floor in front of him. It didn’t stop him from trying to snap the steel and get to me.
“Not a fan of my hands on her, Cole?” The man behind me laughed and it was the most purely evil sound I’d ever heard.
“Don’t you fucking touch her, Mick.”
“It’s us you want.” I would recognize Jimmy’s slimy tone anywhere but I couldn’t hate it today, not when it came to my defense so vehemently.
“It’s all of you.”
He seamlessly stood up from behind me, depositing me on a chair that felt more like a throne.
“I want the ledger from you.” He walked right up to Jimmy and without hesitating, kicked him in the face. I gasped and my hands shot to my mouth as Jimmy’s body wobbled. He only managed the most pitiful sound before he crashed to the floor. It wasn’t until that moment that I noticed he was tethered like Cole.
“I want loyalty from you.” He wheeled on Cole as fury peaked in his voice.
Micky crashed his elbow across Cole’s jaw then his hands flashed to his throat and squeezed. His knuckles turned white as he squeezed and Cole turned a beet red. Once or twice Cole sputtered, a deathly sound mixed with little droplets of blood.
“Stop!” I screamed without even thinking.
Mickey didn’t even waver, he just turned to me and smiled.
“You’ve bedded Judas, you know he likes this. He gets off on almost-killing you. Wanna know where he learned it?” He raised his eyebrows and smiled before turning back to Cole.
He turned darker, twisting and bucking against Mickey’s grip, as Mickey slowly laid him down on the floor. When Cole was flat, Mickey straddled him with his back to me.
I shoved against the chair, desperate to spring to Cole’s defense but big hands wrapped around me. Big hands that I recognized.
“Horse, let me go. He’s going to kill Cole.”
He said absolutely nothing in response, his grip simply got tighter.
“Oh sweet lass,” Mickey said as he slammed Cole’s head into the floor then let him go. “I would never kill him that quickly.” He rose up from Cole and turned toward me, leaving Cole to roll to his side, gasping for air.
“You’re going to kill him though, aren’t you?” I asked, my voice less shaky than I would have guessed.
“Maybe.” He shrugged then leaned over me where I was pinned to the chair. “Despite what people think about me, I’m not an unforgiving man. I’m willing to come to a compromise if I get what I want.”
“And just what do you want?” I tried to shove my face into his but Horse still held me tight.
“Like I said, the ledger from Jimmy, unless of course you have it. Loyalty once and for all from Cole.” His eyes glinted in the weird light cast from the mixture of the spotlight and the ambient red glow.
“And?” I could feel the weight of something more in the room.
“And you of course.” His hand slipped up my leg, easily sliding up the leg of my cutoff shorts and a single finger flicked my clit.
“Don’t touch me!” I screamed and kicked against him. Horse still held me but now I felt his fingers digging in. He was trying to diffuse the situation rather then run head on at Mickey.
“When you’re mine, I’ll touch you wherever I want, whenever I want to.” He pushed his finger into me and despite Horse’s unspoken warning, I went wild, writhing and flailing in the seat.
“I’ll never be yours!”
Cole weakly fought against his bonds.
“We’ll see about that.” He pulled his finger from me and pushed it between his lips. “I think I can make you.”
“You won’t make me anything!” I spat in his face as soon as I screamed.
“Watch.” He wiped my spit from his face and turned on Jimmy and Cole. “You say stop and I’m assuming it means you’re willing to make a deal.”
He started in on Jimmy, fists flying over and over to his abdomen like Jimmy was a punching bag in the gym. Then he moved higher and worked over on his jaw. When a few teeth scattered across the floor I almost screamed.
“Calm down, Fucktart, we have to let this play out.”
I wanted to scream at Horse but then another wicked laugh caught my attention. I turned to the side to find Connor draped over a chair, casually kicking his foot where it was hung over the armrest.
“This is great.” He smiled so wide it distorted his words. “I wish I had popcorn.”
Jimmy screamed a blood-curdling sound and my eyes snapped back to the floodlit stage. Things had gotten much worse for my stepdad. An eye was swollen shut already as blood trailed down from his lips where he was crumpled on the floor. Mickey kicked him again in the back then looked up to meet my eyes overtop of the suffering body.
“No feelings for dear old dad?” He made a horrifying silly face as he let loose one more kick, this time into Jimmy’s balls.
Jimmy vomited a mix of blood in response and I felt puke come up in my mouth.
“Fine. Have it your way, Elle.”
He walked from Jimmy over to Cole and latched into his hair, yanking his head back. With Cole open and vulnerable to him, Horse’s fingers dug into me again. I latched onto his hands and dug right back.
Mickey twisted Cole’s face so that the already bruising spot was facing upwards. In an animalistic move full of twisting, writhing muscles, he crashed his elbow down on Cole’s jaw three times in quick succession. Then he repeated it on his cheekbone. The entire room heard the answerin
g crunch.
But Cole managed to stay quiet and his eyes focused on me until the moment he couldn’t open his right eye anymore.
“Nothing?” Mickey looked over at me. “Not for the man who hid you? Who forfeited his life for you?” He cocked his head evaluating me. “Heartless.” He purred with approval. “I like heartless. Siobhan does too.”
I flinched when he said her name. I couldn’t help it.
“That name means something to you?” He lifted his eyebrows up. “Interesting,” he mused.
“She mentioned a body,” Connor piped up from beside me.
“A body? Cole…” he turned back and had the audacity to chastise Cole like he’d spilled on the carpet.
Before any of us could respond, Mickey grabbed a knife from his boot, raised it high and plunged it into Cole’s thigh. His answering scream made my blood run cold.
“No.” Horse finally shot out from behind me. “He didn’t kill her.”
“What is this, Horse?” Mickey rounded on him.
The word stop was on the tip of my tongue but Jimmy silenced me from his pile of filth on the floor. “Don’t Elle. Your mom fought for so much more.”
I swallowed the words but I couldn’t swallow the tears anymore.
“I killed her.” Horse pushed himself in Mickey’s face and tried to stand even taller in front of the devil himself.
Mickey looked over Horse but didn’t say anything. Instead, he grabbed a gun he’d had hidden in the back waistband, pointed it at Horse and pulled the trigger.
My heart stopped. My breath was gone more now than it had been when I blacked out earlier. I couldn’t hear Connor’s laugh or Cole’s screech from the floor until it was too late. It wasn’t until the word Stop! flew from my lips that the world snapped to.
Horse had stumbled back and was holding his thigh, the matching spot to where a blade still stuck out of Cole’s. He was alternating between grunts and cries of pain but he was alive and trying to stop the bleeding.
I bolted from the chair toward him but Mickey caught me before I could get to him. His arms wrapped around my midsection and towed me back against his body. A warm gun pressed against my arm and a stony erection against my ass. I scrambled wildly against his grip.
