Hammer: A Dark Romance

by Loki Renard

  “Wow,” he says. “Never thought I’d see you again.”

  The feeling is completely mutual. Looking at him now, I can’t believe I ever found him attractive. It’s like he’s wearing a human suit. Everything is theoretically good-looking, but the way it all comes together is just... wrong.

  “Come back here, baby,” Rodney croons, leading me away from the pink lights, toward the back of the club where strippers definitely don’t have sex with people in private rooms.

  My skin is crawling. I am so overwhelmed with disgust I could be violently ill right here, but I have to keep up the act.

  “Where have you been, girl?” He asks me the question as he leads me down a hall that feels far too private to be safe. I have to trust that Jake and the guys have me covered though.

  “Someone broke into my place. Fucked it right up. And... I... mean... I quit my job and I’ve been drifting. Just came back into town a few days ago.”

  He looks at me with those dark eyes, trying to work out if I really don’t know it was him. He didn’t see me that day, at least, I don’t think he did. Jake fucked him up before he laid eyes on me. So he doesn’t know how much I actually know. I don’t know how much he knows either.

  “Yeah,” he says noncommittally. “That was fucked up.”

  We’re in a concrete-floored room with black walls. This doesn’t look like a typical champagne room. This looks like a kill room.

  He shuts the door and I hear it lock. When he turns around, his expression has transformed. He looks predatory, almost inhuman. Like a demon inhabiting a man, a creature that feeds on pain and blood and sex. How did I never see how fucking evil Rodney is?

  Because he didn’t want you to, I think to myself. He hid his darkness from me, but now he has no reason to. Now he can finally show me exactly what he is, and what he is, is terrifying.

  “You’re a stupid fucking bitch,” he hisses with a laugh. “Coming back here? You don’t know you’re dead?”

  “Not for much longer,” I say, trying to stay strong.

  Bang!

  Something hard hits the door. I jump, but Rodney just laughs. “They’re not getting in,” he says conversationally.

  “Who isn’t?”

  “Your boyfriends, bitch. You’ve been banging dudes left, right, and center, I bet. Shoulda just done it for me, baby. Then none of this would have happened.”

  “I’m sleeping with one man!” I reply, the sound at the door getting louder and more insistent. “And I love him. Not that you know what that’s like.”

  “I know exactly what it’s like to fuck your pussy,” Rodney smirks. “And imma do it again before I gut you. Maybe after too.”

  Fucking sicko.

  I hear the door being slammed hard, like someone is throwing his shoulder against it. This is starting to get scary. I trust Jake to rescue me, but it seems like a simple door lock might be the thing that gets me killed.

  Rodney was ready for this. I can tell by the triumphant expression on his face, the knowing smirk he’s giving me.

  “How? How did you...”

  “God, you’re stupid.” He laughs at my expression. “You think I didn’t know you were coming back? You think I haven’t been waiting for you, bitch?”

  “But you didn’t know I’d be here. Today. There’s no way you could have known that.”

  “Didn’t have to know what day. And sure I knew it would be here. I made sure here was the only place I could be found. It was only a matter of time until you came to try to fuck with me. You could never let anything go. You could never just cut your losses and leave. When this starts to really hurt, remember that you did this to you.”

  “I wasn’t messing with you. You were fucking with me. You tried to kill me.” I am backing away from him in a big circle. Every time he takes a step toward me, I take a step back. We both know that won’t work for very long.

  “I’m going to kill you,” Rodney hisses. “Slower, this time, than before. You were going to get a bullet. But that’s too good for you...” A knife flicks out of his hand, a hidden blade slipped from his sleeve. “This time, I’m going to take you apart.”

  I feel a chill of horror running through my body. I slept with this man. I thought he cared about me, once. Now I see that there was never anything resembling care, only a sadistic self-interest.

  “You know your fuck buddy put my boy in a wheelchair,” Rodney says. Like I’m supposed to care about his corrupt cop friend now, when I’m about to die.

  “Yeah? Sucks to be him.”

  “You always were a cold bitch,” Rodney hisses. He walks with a limp, I notice. I wonder if Jake did that to him, or if someone else he’s shaken down has kicked his ass lately.

  He dashes forward, the arm holding the knife slashing toward me. I scream and dodge away and he misses, but I know he won’t miss forever. I can’t run forever. I can’t risk getting to the door. There’s no way I’ll be able to open it before he buries that blade deep inside me.

  Rodney comes for me again, laughing like he’s enjoying this. I scream and dart away again. I get the feeling he’s not really trying to stab me yet. He just wants to hear me panic. He wants there to be fear with the pain. I can see the way his eyes are lit with a glee I’ve never seen before. He’s so fucking happy right now, killing me slowly.

  Crash!

  The ceiling explodes into a thousand pieces, and Jake’s massive form falls through. I don’t know if he exploded it, or just jumped through a weak spot in the boards. It doesn’t matter, because he’s here, crouched on the floor like Superman.

  Rodney darts forward and slashes at him, gets him on the very first try. A cut opens up above Jake’s eye and begins feeding blood down his face.

  “Watch out!” I screech, far too late.

  “Well, hello, jarhead,” Rodney hisses. “Come to die for your whore, huh?”

  Jake doesn’t say a word. He stands up, his body massive with adrenaline. I feel relief charging through me. Rodney is fucked now. I think he knows it too, because he starts cursing us both out.

  “You’re trash,” Rodney hisses. “And she’s worse. You probably caught every sexually transmitted disease in the city from her filthy cunt.”

  Jake strides forward, blocks the arm that Rodney throws at him, the one with the knife, and just punches him in the face as hard as he can. The sound Jake’s fist makes when it meets Rodney’s skull is nothing short of titanic. It sounds like a thunderbolt, a huge, sickening crack. Rodney drops like the sack of shit he is.

  “Is he dead?”

  “No,” Jake says. “I don’t think so. I think he’s out of it. Open the door for the others.”

  I run to the door and Remington, Rock, and Tristan all pour in. These rooms must be soundproofed as hell, because nobody else seems to have noticed the chaos in here.

  “That him?” Remington asks.

  “Yep,” Jake says, wiping the blood from his eyes and shaking it on the floor. He’s looking down at Rodney in a way that makes my stomach clench. Jesus. I thought Rodney was a dangerous guy. He’s nothing compared to Jake.

  “Maybe we don’t have to kill him. Maybe we can get justice. Maybe we just tie him up and we go to the police and we show that I’m alive and...”

  “There’s no justice going to come of this, Jazz,” Jake says. “Not the kind you’re thinking of. We have to put him out of his misery, just like the others.”

  “But if we made him confess...”

  “Remington, can you take Jazz, please,” he says. “I don’t want her here for this.”

  “No. Remington. No.”

  Remington grabs me, puts his big hand over my mouth to stop me from crying out and begging. It’s not that I care about Rodney. I don’t. I just don’t think this is the way to solve the problem. And if it is, I don’t want it on my conscience.

  Remington drags me out of the room. The last thing I see as I’m pulled away is Jake standing over Rodney, one of his hands grasping Rodney’s shirt, the other pois
ed above his face in that hammer-like fist of his.

  “Wake the fuck up,” I hear him growl. “You’re not going to die unaware.”

  Remington yanks me out of the building through a back exit. I’m crying hysterically, and I don’t know if it’s because I can’t deal with what Rodney was going to do with me, or what I saw Jake about to do, or all of it.

  They take me back to the motel room in a state of shock. Rodney deserved to die, I know that. But there was something about being there at that point of transition, something all too horrifying in the true sense of the word.

  I am curled up in a chair, watching the cartoons Remington decided would be good for me. No amount of bright-colored mice is going to cover up what I just saw, or stop me imagining the parts I didn’t see.

  An hour or so later, the door opens and Jake steps in. I can smell death on him, blood and viscera caked on his skin and clothes. Jesus. How the fuck did he get here without being spotted?

  He looks through us all. Nobody says a word until he does.

  “I’m going to get cleaned up.”

  He goes into the bathroom and I hear the shower running. I imagine the blood running down the drain. He’s done it. It’s over. Rodney is gone and my life is no longer in danger.

  I’m surprised that the mood in the room isn’t more celebratory. I thought these guys take some glee in having killed the bad guys, but I am not the only one who is solemn tonight. They’re having beers, but in that cold, silent, stare-at-the-wall way, and it finally starts to make its way through my head that they don’t like this. They’ve never liked this. Doing this kind of work chips away at their humanity little by little, but they do it because when they do what they need to do, men like Rodney don’t get to make innocent people their victims.

  A long time later, Jake emerges from the shower. He’s shaved his beard. I don’t know if that was a smart move, but I know why he did it. He wanted to get the little bits of Rodney stuck in it away from him. He has done something unspeakably horrible. But he did it for me.

  I get up and I hug him as tight as I can. “I’m sorry,” I whisper in his ear. “I am so, so fucking sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” he says, pulling me close and holding on to me as tight as I hold on to him. I can feel his need for me. It’s not sexual. It’s spiritual. He’s hurting in his soul, just like they all are. I can’t fix it for all of them, but I can do something for Jake, curl up with him like a kitten and try my best to make him feel better with my presence.

  It’s a short night. We turn in really early. The plan is to leave first thing in the morning, get out of the city.

  I’ll be happy to never set foot in this city again.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jake

  I wake up with Jazz clinging to me like a koala bear, fast asleep and drooling on my shoulder. The sight of her makes my heart happy. I slept like a baby last night, solemn, but satisfied. We confirmed the kills on all three of the sick fuckers, and though I can’t tell Jazz, I took some satisfaction in seeing the life leave Rodney. She’d probably think that makes me a monster. I think it makes me a man. I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect her. I’d kill a hundred men if it meant she was okay. She might not like that, but she’s going to have to deal with it.

  We’re spending our last few hours in the motel room before we take the rental van back out. We’re going to drop the guys as far up the mountain as we can, then carry on our way. New city. Somewhere to start over. At least, that was the plan. I don’t know what it is anymore. I don’t know if Jazz even wants me anymore.

  Tristan turns the television on to cover the awkward silence that falls between as all as we pack to leave. There’s a lot of weaponry to account for, and we don’t want to leave anything behind.

  A newsreader flashes onto the screen and immediately makes everything worse.

  “We return to the story of three officers reported missing after failing to meet with superiors. Efforts to find Rodney Granger, Ethan Wisloski, and John Fielder are underway.”

  The news cuts to crying family members. Rock mutes them.

  “Ah, shit,” Tristan says. “How the hell were they missed that quickly? I thought you couldn’t even report someone missing for twenty-four hours.”

  “That’s an urban legend,” I say. “Right. Let’s load up. It’s time to get out. Now.”

  Breaking News!

  A banner rolls across the screen. I unmute the television, a horrible churning feeling growing in my stomach.

  “The bodies of missing officers have been recovered from the Detroit River. A third body is missing, but presumed dead.”

  “Ah, fuck!” Tristan curses.

  Everyone turns and looks at Tristan.

  “You did weigh them down. Right? Concrete around the ankles?”

  “Uhm...” Tristan says. “I put bricks in plastic bags. I couldn’t find concrete. I cable tied them on.”

  “I don’t think you cable tied them on very well. Either that, or you were seen...”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Rock interrupts. “It doesn’t matter what happened. They know they’re dead and...”

  “A manhunt is underway for Jake Lister, along with several ex-military associates, who are believed responsible for the murders of the policemen.”

  “Okay, how the fuck do they know that?” Tristan curses. A second later, the newsreader answers him.

  “Camera footage from a secret body camera worn by the final victim showed the brutal murders as they took place in real time, streamed to a service that had been set up by the victims, who appeared to anticipate the attack.”

  I switch the television off. “Okay, so. He was wired. The other ones might have been too. They lo-jacked themselves. They knew we were coming. I guess this is their final fuck you.”

  I grab Jazz and the guys all start piling into the van we rented. Just in time too. We’re pulling out of the parking lot when the first set of sirens breaks through the tension.

  “They’ve found us,” Remington growls.

  Tristan is driving. I hope he does a good fucking job, because he’s the only thing keeping us out of prison at this point.

  Jazz makes a whimpering sound. I pull her against my chest and make sure our seatbelts are on. This ride is going to be bumpy.

  * * *

  Jazz

  I’m in a police chase. With a pack of murderers. This, I realize, is what I was afraid of all along, that the violent solution to the problem would only end in more violence, and that we’d all end up dead as a result. I’m so fucking afraid that I can’t feel it. I can’t feel anything. Everything is numb as I sit pressed up to Jake’s side, praying for a miracle to get out of this.

  I’m surprised how slow Tristan drives. I thought he’d be careening everywhere, but he’s heading out of the city at a pretty reasonable speed. This motel is on the outskirts, which means it’s not far to the motorway, but he doesn’t head for the massive concrete overpasses. He turns off and makes for the rural lanes, smaller roads, more easily blocked, I think to myself, before realizing I don’t know fuck all and can’t really have an opinion on this.

  “There’s a bird!”

  At first I don’t understand Rock’s panic, then I realize he’s not talking about a bird. He’s talking about a helicopter that is running over our heads, following us.

  “Get to the forest and go,” Jake says. “We’ll lose them in the wilds, for sure.”

  “We got no chance of getting that far,” Rock shouts. “There’s ten cars behind us.”

  Sure enough, the sky is lit up blue and red in the rearview mirror, and when I turn around, the whole world is lit up with those colors. How the hell do we get out of this? I can’t see how this can possibly end in anything that isn’t disaster.

  Pew!

  Pew! Ting!

  The van starts making weird metallic noises.

  “They’re taking shots from the helicopter!”

  Surrender just became completely out of the
question. Whoever is up there is determined to put us down. They don’t give a fuck about due process, the law, or justice. They just want us dead. Because we are the bad guys. Except we’re not. We’re fucking not.

  I look over and see the look in Jake’s eyes. It’s haunting. He’s hard and he’s cold and he’s ready to do whatever it takes to survive, even if it means fighting off a whole patrol.

  “You have that rifle, Rocky?”

  He hardly has to ask before the big long gun is passed to him. Jake lowers the window just a fraction, enough to get the barrel through. He aims skyward and pulls the trigger. Nothing happens.

  “Hold the car steady, Tristan!”

  “I’m doing my best!” Tristan yells back.

  Jake lines up another shot. I am peering up from behind him, watching the helicopter. A flash from up above precedes another bullet slamming through the car, really fucking close to Tristan’s head this time. They are going to kill us. There’s no doubt about it. It’s a matter of who manages to get a vital shot first. I see Jake squeeze the trigger, and almost immediately, like magic, a piece of rotor flies off the helicopter. The whole thing goes into the kind of spin nobody wants to see. It’s a sickeningly fast spiral.

  Meanwhile, Rock has knocked out the back window and has an insanely massive piece of weaponry pointed out it.

  “Plug your ears!” he shouts a second before he starts unloading into the cop cars behind us, aiming at radiators and tires. I am shoved down to the floor, pushed into the foot well, and held there as the battle rages above me.

  It doesn’t last nearly as long as I thought it would. Maybe two minutes. That’s all it takes for the cops behind us to decide that they’re actually not that keen on risking their lives to catch us.

  “They’re falling back. Go. Go fucking fast. Back roads and under cover. Quick as you can,” Jake orders. “Jazz, stay down. Don’t fucking move until I tell you to.”

  I do as I’m told, crouching down on the floor, taking quick, panicky breaths. In the absence of a view, my mind plays the events of the day over in quick, vicious succession. I find myself holding onto Jake’s leg, my fingers grasping at his trousers for comfort like the small, helpless thing I am.