by D. N. Hoxa
THE DEAL
Devil's Brother, Book One
D.N. HOXA
Copyright © 2016 by D.N. Hoxa
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Adrian Ward
My father’s voice filled my mind with dread. I wasn’t used to him sounding so weak. With my sunglasses on, I pretended to look at the trees outside the window, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from his face. His wrinkled, pale face, already gone. Fuck what the doctors said. He was dying, and we knew it.
I walked outside before my head had the chance to explode and sat with my brothers on the porch stairs.
“Maybe we should take him to Anderson. They say it’s the best,” Doc said, playing with the cigarette between his fingers.
“With what?” Alan said.
Doc shrugged. “I don’t know.”
We had no money. My brother Murdock—the eldest of the three of us—never did like to think things through before he said them. But Alan did. I never really gave an opinion without being asked, because I was the youngest.
“Maybe it’s time you got a job,” Alan said, nodding at me.
“Who’s going to look after Dad?”
That was the only reason why I was twenty years old and not working. Going to college had never even been an option for me when we found out Dad had bone cancer, but working wasn’t an option, either. Who would take care of the old man? He needed attention almost twenty-four, seven.
Alan flinched.
“Maybe we should rob that guy that bought the Turners’ place,” Doc mumbled.
“We’re not going to rob anyone,” I said, shaking my head.
If you asked anyone in town, they’d tell you we robbed people on a daily basis. The three of us looked like criminals. We’d been told so more than once, especially the past year. We were big, tattooed, and we never smiled. Never talked to people. We didn’t like bullshit, but we were no robbers.
“Do you have a better idea, pretty boy?” Doc said and threw the grass strands he was yanking from the ground at me.
“He doesn’t, and I don’t, either,” Alan said.
“You’re not being serious, are you?” I sat up straighter.
“What else can we fucking do?” Alan hissed. “He’s dying, Adrian. Dying.”
“I can see that! But we’re not thieves.”
“I’d do anything to get that man the treatment he deserves,” Doc said, raising his brow at me. “Would you?”
“Of course I would!” I shouted. “Don’t fucking play these games with me, Doc.”
“I asked you if you had a better idea. You kept your mouth shut.”
“Boys, let’s be reasonable here,” Alan said.“With the money we’re making, Dad’s not going to have much of a chance.”
“Then get other jobs. Something that pays you more,” I said. “We’re not fucking robbers, damn it.”
“We’re not, but I’m willing to become one for our old man. Like Doc said, I’d do anything for him.”
“Do you think he’d want us to go to jail for robbery?” I hissed. I couldn’t believe my ears. Dad would flip if he heard us.
“Nobody said anything about jail,” Doc said. “They’d have to catch us to lock us up.”
“You think they won’t?” I said incredulously.
“If we plan ahead every detail…” he shrugged.
I turned to Alan. He was the one we all looked up to. He was always reasonable. But that day, he seemed to have lost it, too.
“We’re going to consider it,” he said reluctantly.
“Do whatever you want,” I said and stood up. “But leave me out of it.”
“For God’s sake, Adrian,” Alan said with a tired sigh. “He’s our father. We have to do something for him.”
“What the hell do you think will happen to him if all of us end up in jail? Who’ll take care of him then?”
“I don’t care about jail!” Doc shouted. “I care about seeing him get the best treatment there is.”
“You know damn well we can barely cover all those pills they keep shoving down his throat,” Alan spit. “I don’t want to see him like that.”
“You think I do?” I said, laughing dryly. “It kills me, too!”
“I don’t see what the problem is, then,” Doc said.
“The problem is that we’re no thieves.” Could they really not see it?
“But we can be,” Alan said.
“And we will. Anything at all for Pops,” Doc said.
“Anything,” Alan repeated, nodding.
That second, I hated them both for making me feel guilty about not wanting to steal. I went back inside to check on Dad. My brothers didn’t say anything else, but I could practically see them shaking their heads at me, as if I was the one being stupid.
Inside, Dad was in his wheelchair, just as I’d left him, watching a baseball game. I didn’t think he actually saw anything, but he still looked at the screen.
I hated seeing him like that. So pale, so fragile. He was once the strongest man I’d ever seen, even bigger than Murdock. Now, he was nothing but a shell of a man. I really would have done anything to save him. Anything at all. He had spent every single day taking care of us when Mom died.
I was four years old, Alan was six, and Murdock was nine. We knew nothing about nothing at all. He raised us the best possible way. He taught us to work hard, be honest, never be unfair. That was why I couldn’t understand the boys. How could they think about robbing someone?
But as I sat across from Dad and called his name, and as he continued to look at the game, never having even heard me, I realized how.
Dad was really dying. I didn’t want to believe it, but he was. He was already half way gone.
I hardly slept that night, but just when I did at dawn, Dad woke up screaming in pain. I knew exactly what to do. I’d heard him voice his pain without control more than a few times before, but it still shocked me. It still filled me with panic, though I knew exactly what to do. I had the numbers memorized. The ambulance. The doctor. Dad’s nurse.
They were used to it, too. It took them less than fifteen minutes to come to our home, fill my dad’s veins with all sorts of medication, and reassure us that he was fine with frowns on their faces. They tried to hide them, but we saw.
And even if we didn’t see, we didn’t really need to. We saw Dad’s face. We knew he wasn’t fine. The cancer that made him scream his guts out in
the middle of the night wasn’t going anywhere.
We knew that, but sadly, that didn’t mean we lost hope.
Hope. Such a vile thing. It got stuck on your skin and never let go, no matter what your eyes showed you, what your ears told you. It was always there, and in the end, all it would do was make the desperation harder. The depression deeper.
We stayed with Dad all day, right next to his bed. Fed him. Talked to him, though he never talked back. Then me and my brothers went out of the house that night while he slept, and we had the same argument as the night before.
They wanted to steal money to send Dad to a fancy cancer research center. As if they didn’t already know that nobody could help him.
But that’s what hope did. It planted stupid ideas in your head and made you want to follow them until you lost yourself completely.
The dream started out as almost all my dreams did. The trees in front of our house were dark and tall, same as in real life. But the black fog that spread fast around the trunks was new. I ran forward for no reason. I really wanted to see black fog, but it took me a while to get there because I was moving in slow motion. I passed the first trees, and after three more steps, everything around me disappeared.
Nothing but darkness. I couldn’t even see my own hands. I started to run without direction, and this time, everything moved as if someone had pressed fast-forward. I knew that the fog had gotten to me, and I hoped to get back to the house before it swallowed me whole.
Then, the sound of a match being lit reached my ears, and I stopped moving. The small flame filled me from head to toe even before it touched the candle that seemed to be simply floating on air.
In front of it was a man. Behind him was Alan and Doc.
I knew it was a dream, but they looked so real. I’d dreamed of my brothers before, but my dreams had never had quite the same quality as this one.
“What the hell?” Doc said, looking around us.
There was still darkness, but the candle lit the place enough so we could see each other. I stepped closer to them.
“What is this?”
Alan shrugged and looked at the man who had lit the candle.
“Hello, boys,” the man said. He wore a black suit with a black shirt and tie. His black hair glistened and his black eyes were darker than the darkness surrounding us. He smiled, and it gave me the impression that his teeth were sharp, though they weren’t.
“Who the fuck are you?” Alan said.
“I’m someone who’s here to make all your wishes come true,” he said, grinning.
“It’s a dream, Alan,” I said, shaking my head. I remembered having heard somewhere that if you pinched yourself hard enough while in a dream, you woke up. That’s what I did. I pinched both my arms so hard I cut myself. But I was still there.
“Exactly. This is a dream. But it’s also very real,” the man said, shaking his finger at us. “So now that we’re here…” he rested back on something we couldn’t see and crossed his arms in front of him. “…I’ll ask you one question. Would you really do anything to save your father?”
I almost asked how he knew that, but then I remembered that it was a dream. Just a figment of my imagination. My subconscious had made all of this up.
“Of course,” Doc said.
“Yeah,” Alan said, and the man looked at me next. I only nodded.
“Wonderful,” he said, showing us his teeth again with his wicked smile. “I can save him for you, if you agree to do something for me in return.”
“Who are you?” Alan asked.
“Oh, I go by many names. But you can call me Devil. I like that one best. Tends to scare people a lot more than the others.”
I laughed. The weirdest fucking dream I’d ever had.
“Right,” I said, but he wouldn’t stop smiling. “You’re the Devil.”
“That is correct.”
“What the hell is going on here?” Alan said.
“Relax. It’s just a dream, brother. It’s my dream, so don’t even worry about it.”
“So, what do you say, boys? Do you want me to save your father or not?” the man said.
“How will you save him?” Doc asked.
“It’s simple.” The man shrugged. “I will simply…not take him. For seven years, starting tonight. And in return, you will work for me.”
“Work for you?” Alan said. All of a sudden, he and Doc seemed hypnotized by this man. They looked at him like he was a ghost, or even worse.
“Guys, just ignore him. It’s a dream,” I said, but they wouldn’t even look at me.
“Yes, work for me,” the man said.
“For seven years?” Doc said.
“Precisely. Seven years.”
“What kind of work?” Alan said.
“For God’s sake, Alan!” I shouted, but they didn’t hear me, or they pretended not to.
“Just…work. It pays really well, I assure you.” The man grinned.
“And you’ll save our father?” Doc said.
“I will.” He didn’t miss a beat.
“This is bullshit!” Nobody looked at me.
“So, do we have a deal, boys?”
“This is just a fucking dream!” I shouted and pinched myself again. I needed to wake up because the man was freaking me out. I’d never been afraid of anyone before, but he was something else.
Alan finally turned to me.
“It’s just a dream,” he said in wonder. “So what could go wrong?”
“Deal,” Doc said the next second.
“Deal,” Alan followed. The man turned to me.
“What do you say, Adrian?”
I laughed dryly. “You want to make us sign our names in blood?”
“Oh, no need for such formalities. Your word will bind you, as mine will bind me.”
My brothers looked at me like they expected me to say it already. This was crazy. I felt it in my gut that I needed to wake up as soon as was possible. Alan was right, it was a dream, and nothing could go wrong in dreams. No matter what happened, you eventually woke up, and my gut also told me that I wouldn’t be able to open my eyes until I said that damned word.
“Deal,” I said, and the man smiled. He smiled, then the fire from the candle spread on his body before we could blink. He was burning from head to toe, yet we could still see that smile of his.
The next second, I woke up.
Sweat covered every inch of me. My bed and pillow were dripping wet. It was hot in Wisconsin in July, but not this hot. That stupid fucking dream was still in my mind. My arms caught goose bumps at the thought of it.
The Devil. I’d dreamed of the fucking Devil. And I needed to forget about it as fast as possible.
I hurried to the bathroom and washed my face with cold water. Dad had to take his pills in ten minutes, and his breakfast had to be ready right after, so I took the fastest shower ever.
When I opened the bathroom door, Doc and Alan were there, looking at me almost the same way they’d looked at the man in my dream.
“What the hell?” I almost jumped back.
“Take your shirt off, and turn around,” Alan said.
“What?” A dumbfounded smile stretched my lips.
“Just take your fucking shirt off, Adrian!” Doc shouted.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” I said, and when Alan reached out for me, I stepped back. They followed and locked the door behind them.
“Do you remember the dream?”
My whole face went numb.
“What?”
“The dream. Do you remember the fucking dream, Adrian?” Alan said.
“What dream?”
It couldn’t be. They weren’t talking about my dream, were they?
“The dream with…with him,” Doc whispered, as if he was afraid.
“The Devil. The guy with the suit,” Alan said. “Do you remember it?”
I couldn’t function well enough to give them an answer, and they didn’t waste a single second. Alan grab
bed my shirt and took it off me, and I couldn’t move a single muscle. I had no idea what the hell was going on. All I could think of was that it couldn’t be.
“Shit,” Doc hissed when they turned me around.
“What?”
“Look,” Alan said and put me with my back in front of the mirror above the sink. When I turned, I saw exactly what shit meant.
On my back, right between my shoulder blades was a tattoo of a black star with fucking eyes in the middle.
“What the hell? What the fuck is that?”
Panic enveloped me from head to toe.
“We have it, too.”
Alan took his shirt off. So did Doc, and they turned around. The same tattoo was between their shoulder blades. A filled black star with two eyes in the middle and horns. A fucking goat. It was a fucking goat if you looked at it from close enough. You could barely make it out, but it was there.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. My legs were barely holding me.
“It was real,” Doc said. “The dream was real.”
He was ready to burst into tears, and we were no better.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, but was he? What were the odds of the three of us having the same dream—and the same tattoo on the same place the next morning?
“This shit is the sign of Satan. I’ve seen it on TV. I’ve fucking seen the star and the goat,” Alan said.
I covered my face and breathed deeply. This wasn’t real. This was probably just a stupid dream. Like a dream within a dream. Inception. I’d seen the movie. Whatever it was, it was going to eventually stop. All I had to do was not freak out.
The boys were saying something, but I didn’t care to hear. I put my shirt back on and walked out of the bathroom.
“Hey, where are you going?” Doc said, and they both followed me.
“Dad needs his medicine and his breakfast. This is another stupid dream. It can’t be real,” I said. “It’ll be over soon. I’ll have to wake up at some point.”
I opened the door to Dad’s room, but he wasn’t there. I’d put him in his bed the night before, and now he wasn’t there.
I turned to my brothers. “Where is Dad?”
Doc pushed me aside and walked in. “What the fuck?”
