by Faye, Amy
But I let her up, leaving her with a dazed look as I stood and went downstairs. I needed to work out. It had been too long, and my body was getting weak because of it. Eventually, I heard her turn on the TV and sighed in relief. If she had followed me down there, she would have caught my hands shaking as I pulled photos off of that old cork board and tossed them into an old cardboard box, to be thrown away later.
My hand lingered on the photo of Joey Oregon, just a second too long. “Goodbye, old friend.” His was the last photo in the box, which I threw onto the floor and started loading the bar for my bench press.
Chapter 6
Imogael
That kiss was painful.
It wasn't painful like a bite or a burn or a cruel word. It was painful because it took something that was cold, numb and dead and gave it feeling again.
I'm certain I was born with that numbness, and to have sensation in that part of me was… unpleasant. I wanted it to stop. I wiped away the remains of his spit from my lips, but the feeling was there. I turned back to the birds, but the feeling was there.
The feeling was still there. I hated it.
Humans were awful. And curious and interesting. Mostly, though, they were awful because they were so good and though they had nothing like the power I had, they did have the ability to control my thoughts in their own way.
Or, at least, Scott did. I ached to have those lips on me again, so that I could solve them, understand the secret behind their touch.
From somewhere, I heard the flutter of wings. Not the small wings of the birds, but large wings, wings that were familiar to me. I jumped up, looking around. It was getting dark outside, but I could see there was no one in the front yard. No one on the porch.
But there was something on the porch. A black mass, strangely shaped. Looking at it filled me with a kind of dread. I stood staring at it through the window for a long time, feeling that getting near to it was sure to be dangerous. It didn't move, and no one returned to claim it.
I wanted, then, to go home.
Stepping to the front door, I opened it and watched the mass for a while longer. I wanted to be sure there was nothing inside of it that was alive. It didn't move. The night was quiet, and the birds had all gone from the tree.
I felt fear for the first time, then.
Opening the screen door, I crouched down and poked the mass, which had turned out to be a bag much like the one Scott had been carrying when I first met him. Whatever was inside of it was warm and squishy. I smelled the death within, but I didn't call for Scott. I had to know, before he did, so that I could soften the blow for him.
Unzipping the bag, I saw first a hand with slender fingers. Thin skin, wrinkled. Covered with the red of blood. Then arm it was attached to was not attached to a shoulder. Then there was a head, another arm, a neck and bust.
It was Starr. There was a tattoo of a flame on her chest. It looked raised and irritated, as if it were new.
I couldn't soften this blow for Scott. My hand was shaking as I stood away from the bag. “Scott?” I yelled. “Scott, you need to come upstairs right now.”
His feet were heavy against the stairs as he came up, and when he saw my face the blood drained from his own. He stepped to the front door, looked down, and croaked out a groan.
“Oh, God. Jesus.”
His thoughts were flooding with emotions and colors and sounds and memories, and none of it made sense to me. I wished I could have comforted him, but I didn't understand the grief. Not really.
He called out to the sky a loud yell, animalistic and full of pain, and I felt as he felt. The deepest, blackest well of grief. Worse than me losing my wings, worse than anything I had ever before. I reached out to him, touching his shoulder with a gentle hand. His cry turned to tears, turned to silent rage.
Finally, he stood and grabbed the strap of the bag, dragging it into the house and then out to the back yard. I knew that he would bury it when he could, but for that moment he left it in his garage, where it wouldn't make the house smell.
He came back inside and looked at me with determination, stubbornness in his square jaw. “What are you going to do?” I asked.
“I'm going to go play poker,” he replied.
Scott
The secretary at the front of Saejima's building tried to stop me from barging in when she saw the look on my face, but she was easily pushed out of the way as I stomped down that hallway to the secret door in Saejima's office. It clicked open with the removal of a book, revealing the stairs that went down, down, to the secret portion of his basement.
My boot hit the door at the bottom and kicked it in, damaging the hold of the hinges. I knew exactly where those bastards were, and I was ready to fight every one of them. Before they could stand up from their table, I picked up a chair and slammed it down, sending chips and cards flying.
The men in the room shouted and pulled away from the table, pressing themselves against the walls and watching me with fear in their eyes. All but Antonio, Saejima, and Jin. They stayed put, watching me as I blew up at them.
I picked up another chair and threw it Antonio's head, but he dodged it. It smashed on the floor in front of one of the men I didn't recognize, who was standing there in a mustard yellow suit.
“Scott, what the fuck do you think you're doing?” Saejima yelled, pulling his son away from the table and throwing him against the wall so Jin wouldn't get hurt. He stepped closer to me, but I took a swing at him that kept him away.
“Which one of you assholes did it?” I yelled, picking up a third chair. “Which one? Or was it all of you? Did you all work together to take her out of the picture?” The chair hit Saejima's shoulder, knocking him to the floor. He groaned in pain, rolling on the floor and clutching his shoulder. Jin ran to his side.
There were no more chairs that were easy for me to grab. Elise was behind me, watching quietly as I acted, pulling out Joachim and Boaz, my twin pistols. They were gifts from Starr, and I was going to enjoy using them to kill the motherfucker that killed Starr.
“Scott, hang on,” Elise said, but I ignored her. She had no idea the duty I felt to punish whoever the fuck had killed Starr. I was going to make the fucker pay, and it wasn't going to be a fast payout. It was going to be long and painful.
“Jesus, Scott! Calm the hell down!” Antonio said, taking out his own gun and pointing it at my leg. “Tell us what you're so upset about or I'll take out your kneecap.”
“I found Starr in pieces on my doorstep! God, there was so much blood. There was...” I bent forward, feeling a pain in my chest. “Who could have killed her? She was so careful.”
“Mary in Heaven,” Antonio replied, sitting back into his chair next to the destroyed table. Saejima stood and watched me. My gun was pointed right at him, and yet he still walked right up to me. Past the guns, and into my arms.
As he hugged me, he whispered, “I am so sorry. I know she was like a mother to you.” The display of affection was at once offensive and calming to me. I wanted to pull away, but he held me tight.
The other men in the room, many of whom I didn't know, all watched with fear in their eyes. The poker game was when club presidents from out of state met with Saejima and Antonio, and until that point, Starr. It was where they negotiated for drugs, guns, and favors.
It was supposed to be one of the few places where they were all safe. No fighting. No drinking. No guns. I broke all but one of those rules, and no doubt put a kink in the night's negotiations. I didn't give one flying fuck.
All I wanted was justice.
My arms fell, and my guns dropped to the floor. I was spent. I still burned with anger, but there was nowhere to direct it, because I knew no one in that room had hurt Starr. Most of them had probably never even met them before, and the way Saejima and Antonio reacted? It was unlikely they knew.
“Who could have done this?” Antonio asked Saejima, kicking his foot up onto the table.
Saejima pulled away from me, then stood between
Antonio and myself with his arms crossed. “You've lost men, recently, Antonio. Did you ever found out who was killing them?”
“No,” he answered. “Did you ever find out where your men went?”
“They're still missing, and not a trace was left. We've made our men call in to the secretary or myself every 2 hours. Another man went missing earlier today,” Saejima answered.
Antonio nodded. “As to the question of who could have done it, I can only name one person, and that person is long dead.”
“Joey?” Saejima asked. Antonio nodded.
“But like you said, he's dead,” I said, venom in my voice. “Fucking dead. So who else could ti be?”
“Seeing as they're going after everyone in this area, and there isn't much that ties us together, I can't exactly say who is doing it, but I can say why.”
I crossed my arms. “Why, then? What possible reason could someone have to come after all of you?”
“She was left on your door, Scott. And you're the only thing that ties all of us together.”
I remained silent. What was there to say? I wasn't following his line of thought, and I needed it to be spelled out for me.
“Which says, to me, that you are the real target.” His voice was serious. Saejima nodded, a grim look on his face. The men around the room all watched me as I struggled for an answer. One never came.
It was the only thing that made sense. Starr was dead because of me. Like so many others. Like her. Trouble might have followed Elise, but death chased my heels.
Chapter 7
Imogael
Scott spent hours moping. His mind was a tangible shade of blue, and any time I took a dip into his thoughts, I found myself feeling sad, too.
How terribly boring.
I wanted action. Excitement. Anger and violence. Instead there was a man sitting on the couch next to me, staring off into space. Humans were incredibly powerful and yet somehow were totally controlled by their emotions. Such simple things could take the strongest man and turn him into a miserable lump on the floor.
I was sick of it.
In Hell, when things were bad, there were orgies. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of demons would come together. They would bring some of the damned, and they would all writhe in the pits, surrounded by fire or ice depending on the level they were on. It never solved anything, but it put demons into a better mood. When demons were in good moods, they were more wicked than ever, and could easily solve their problems.
Perhaps Scott would be the same. All I needed to do was seduce him. But how? When he wouldn't even look at me, wouldn't talk to me, how was I supposed to get him to fuck me?
I stood up with my hands on my hips. The movement caught his attention, his glassy eyes falling on me. One of my hands reeled back, and then like a band pulled too tight, propelled forward and struck his face.
“Get up!” I commanded. He only rolled his eyes in response, so I hit him again. “Stop being a little bitch. Do you think sitting on that couch is going to get you anywhere?”
He growled and stood, then. “You don't know a goddamn thing about what's going on here,” he said. “And you better stop talking to me like that or I'll make you regret it.”
“You? Make me regret it? You're pathetic. Crying over some old woman, instead of getting revenge.”
He grabbed me, but I pulled away and gave him a snort. “Don't touch me,” I said, but I stepped closer to him instead of away. He lunged forward, grabbing my braid and dragging me down the hallway. I screamed in pain, but it really felt heavenly.
We got to his bedroom, which smelled like him. He threw me onto the bed by my hair and set to work pulling off my pants and panties, then my shirt and bra. It wasn't a gentle endeavor. My body would have bruises in a few hours.
He seemed to calm down a bit, so I slapped him again. A furious roar made my body shake with a delicious fear. “It's not fair for you to be clothed while I'm naked,” I said, trying to make my voice sound angry and sure of itself.
Leaning over me so close that I could feel his breath on my face, he stared deep into my eyes. “This isn't about what's fair for you. This isn't about you at all. This is about me, and you pleasing me. Got that?”
God, I was so wet. Especially when he started pulling off his clothes anyway, then stood before me in all his glory. His cock was hard and long, his chiseled muscles begged to be licked.
Forcing my thighs apart, he shoved a finger into me. It hurt because it was dry, but that didn't last long as he wiggled the appendage deep inside of me, beckoning me to moan. I gave in, laying back against the bed and spreading my legs wider.
He put another finger inside of me, then started to pound them in and out. Those delicious feelings were building up within me, threatening to burst forward, when he abruptly stopped and stepped between my legs.
“Beg me for it,” he said. “Let me know you're a whore for me.”
I would have done just about anything for him then. “Please, Scott, fuck me, I need it so bad, I need to feel you inside of me. And then I need you to cum in me. Fill me up. Come on, baby, please! I'll do anything.”
“Anything?” He asked. I nodded, gasping as the head of his cock bumped against my clitoris. “Then yes, I will cum in you, but not in your cunt. I'm going to cum in your ass.”
He entered me before I could say anything about that. And he fucked the hell out of me, his hips jack hammering his cock in and out of me faster than I thought possible. I was a mess, thrashing on that bed below him, yelling out in ecstasy. I came, hard, around that cock.
With that orgasm, though, he pulled out of me and brought my legs up. He pushed them together, then spread my ass cheeks. The head of his cock pressed at the entrance to my anus, still slick from my juices.
Slowly, sooo slowly, he pushed into me. I took in a sharp breath as the pain finally registered, but before I could complain he was bottoming out inside of me. And then he pulled back out. That was about when it started to feel good as well as painful. In and out, he fucked my ass, harder and harder. It was… wonderful. Delicious. I had been fucked in the ass before as a demon, but it never felt as pleasurable as that.
What felt even better was when Scott finally released himself inside of me. The way he twitched, and his heat filled me up, was bliss. He popped his dick out of my ass and then crawled over me onto the bed. I crawled up to him and ran my fingers through his hair, feeling a strange fondness for the man.
“Do you want me to leave?” I asked. He shook his head no, so I spent time in the room with him, playing with his hair and listening to him breath until he fell asleep and I could slip back into the living room.
Scott
I was in the basement when the third call came. I was in the basement when the fourth call came, too. I ignored all of them. I didn't want to do anything, and I didn't want to face the world. Nothing that Antonio or Saejima could have said to me would have fixed that I was the reason for another death.
Starr wasn't exactly an innocent, but she didn't deserve to die because of me. I didn't even know why someone would be going after people associated with me. For a long time, all I've been was a negotiator. I made things better for other people, and never stuck my nose in business where I wasn't wanted.
Even the cops liked me, for the most part. They let me do what I needed to do, giving me warnings now and then about what they wouldn't allow from me.
So who? Who could have done it?
Joey Oregon's face stared up at me from the box. I picked it up and examined it. Of all the people in that box, I was most sure of his death.
The box was on the floor, photos in my hands as I sifted through them. The photos of her. The photo of Joey. They were each set out on the floor, neatly, so that I could see them clearly. I thought I was done with them, but I guess I was wrong.
The photos were all out on the floor when Elise came downstairs. She walked over to me, quietly, and simply observed. There had to be something there that I had missed. I couldn't
think of anyone else that would want to hurt Starr or people associated with me. It had to be someone in the photos.
It had to be.
It didn't make sense. The should have all been dead, rotting in graves, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe I missed someone, someone who had the patience to take years to plan their revenge. But who? Who in those photos would have done that?
“What are all those photos for?” Elise asked, sitting on my bench. Her hair was down and free, no longer in a braid. It was strange how much pleasure it brought me to look at her vibrant hair.
I wasn't quite sure where to start. “I was married, once. She was my high school sweetheart. She was blonde and so beautiful. Kind, too. And she had the funniest sense of humor, and a cute freckle on her nose.” It was overwhelming to think about her. My Floretta.
“She was my world, my everything, and I thought that I could settle down with her. Start a family. But I was in a club, a motorcycle club, that took me away from her too often. We fought, sometimes, because of it. I was out of the house because of a fight when it happened.”
“What?” She asked me.
“Joey Oregon happened. The president of Southern Mayhem, the club I was in. We had been friends in high school. Before it happened, Southern Mayhem ruled this whole state. There was nothing we didn't have our fingers in. We ran most of the drug business, had most of the girls working for us. A few politicians in our pockets, whole swaths of the police force. We were the kings of Arkansas.”
“That sounds fun,” she said with a smile. Elise was infuriating, but those lips were so sweet. I wished I could have kissed her then, but she was too far away.
“Yeah, well, after a while Joey stopped liking me and started liking drugs. I guess he probably never liked me much. We were friends of convenience, to be honest. And then, when someone started a rumor that I was fucking his wife, he finally found a way to get me out of the picture. A reason to kill me. I don't think he knew I wasn't home when he...”
