“You fucking asshole!” Wick snarled.
In his euphoric haze, Billy managed to smile at him, an evil little grin that made Wick realize that if he didn’t kill the bastard now, Abbott would never be safe. He looked down at her. She seemed to be breathing a little better, but sweat poured off her. All the words Darrell had said about drugs rolled through his mind in a second, the painful addiction so many had, especially their brothers and sisters in arms. It disgusted him, the fact that maybe he was one of the people that had hurt Abbott, simply by dealing the drugs and being part of the problem. It was a bitter lesson to learn. He bent and laid her carefully on the floor before walking over to Billy.
He stared at the man for a long moment, hate swirling through him. Justice wouldn’t serve this man, wouldn’t be enough punishment for the hell he’d put Abbott through. Wick held no qualms about killing the man, but putting a bullet in Billy’s brain wasn’t good enough, and Jeff’s warning flashed through his mind. No, he certainly couldn’t shoot the bastard.
His gaze landed on the tin foil that still had about one tenth of a gram on it. Next to it were all the other packets, along with some scattered pills. Wick hadn’t a clue what the pills were, but they probably weren’t plain old aspirin. Billy clearly had plans on staying in this house for a while, getting high while Abbott slowly died.
Wick crouched down and opened each packet, revealing the heroin. Methodically, he prepared all of it for injection. He knew from general research, back when the Forgotten Rebels had been talking about getting into the meth business, that overdosing depends on the person’s tolerance. Billy’s, no doubt, was extremely high. Once it was in liquid form, he drew it up into the syringe, filling it, and placed it at the vein in Billy’s arm. Without an ounce of remorse, he plunged it in.
Billy opened his bloodshot eyes and their gazes locked. For a heartbeat, neither moved and then Billy lunged toward him. Wick stepped back, and Billy simply fell onto his face. It took a moment for him to push up since he was so fucking doped up, but when he did, he smiled with evil malice.
“You dead,” he slurred. “I’s fucking gonna kill you.”
“Fuck you, Billy,” Wick said calmly. “You won’t be alive much longer to kill me, let alone bother Abbott anymore.”
Billy pushed himself back into a sitting position and looked at the empty aluminum foil packets on the table. Slowly, his head swiveled to the syringe on the couch cushion. Wick saw comprehension flitter over the stoned look on his face.
“What did ya do?” he asked in a horrified whisper.
“I killed you,” Wick said in bland tone. “You’re too good for a bullet and this way you’ll be just one more junkie who overdosed. I’m betting you chased those pills with heroin so God only knows how long you have. Do you know that when you go to sleep the body naturally remembers to breathe, but when you overdose on heroin, your body forgets? You do deserve a more painful death, Billy, but this is way more fitting because you’re trapped. You can’t do a damn thing to stop it. Just like Abbott, for eleven fucking years.”
Billy stared at him for a moment, and then a high pitch whistle came out of him, that resembled something like a laugh.
“Re’ember this place?” he slurred. “This is where I found her. My girl.”
The words made Wick want to press his gun to the fucker’s forehead and blow his brains out, but all he did was lean into Billy’s face and sneer.
“She was never your girl, and when you meet the devil when you get to hell, tell him I said hello.”
Wick stood over him, watching with wicked glee as Billy’s breathing became shallower and shallower. He never took his gaze off him and slowly, Billy’s eyelids drooped. He relaxed so completely, a urine stain saturated the front of his jeans as he lost control of his bladder. Little by little, his chest slowed it’s up and down movements, until Wick couldn’t see it compress at all. Still, he waited, staring at him and thinking he should be feeling something, like a sense of vengeance. Instead, he felt absolutely nothing. Not remorse. Not joy. Not relief. Billy Walker was dying.
Dead.
He could never hurt Abbott again.
How long he stood there, he didn’t know, but a noise from the front door reminded him that Abbott needed help. With that realization, all the dead emotions he’d held trapped broke free. He flipped off Billy’s corpse then turned away, hurrying back to Abbott. He whipped out his cell phone and called for an ambulance. He didn’t have to worry about any EMT reviving Billy Walker. Wick knew death when he saw it, knew how the yellow wash to his flesh was from the blood draining from the top of his body as gravity pulled it down. It was all the confirmation he needed to know the asshole was truly gone.
As Wick knelt beside Abbott, the sound of distant motorcycles could be heard and he knew Kix was coming. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except Abbott. Her skin was still red, and a rash had started on her arm, but the sweating seemed to have subsided and she was breathing. That’s all he cared about. Picking her back up, he walked out the front door and waited, carefully sitting own on the porch step to wait for help.
About twenty minutes later, the sound of an ambulance rent the air. It was time to put the past behind them, start fresh. He’d lost a lot when he let go of her the first time, but never again. He held his future in his arms.
“I love you, Miss Abbott Carney,” he whispered close to her ear. “And I’ll tell you again when you wake up. So you better wake up, baby. Hear me?”
He kissed her forehead as he watched the ambulance, and the other bikes, approach.
Chapter Thirteen
Heart hugged his aunt tightly, wishing he could stay longer, but she had practically pushed him out the door, stating she needed alone time with Uncle Tim’s ghost. Heart wasn’t sure if she was being serious or not, but she was a stubborn old bat, so all he could do was hug her back then get on his bike and cruise home.
“You be good, hear me, boy?” Aunt Terry said sternly.
“I’m always good, Aunt Terry.”
She harrumphed and slapped his shoulder. “You young boys think you invented lyin’? I’ve done said every lie in the book, so don’t you be tryin’ to fool me.”
He mashed his lips together in an effort not to smile. She was a tough Missouri woman, born and raised in the same small town where she had resided with her husband for fifty years. Terry had been his grandfather’s sister, and had taken Heart in when his father had decided to almost beat him to death in a drunken rage. To say she and Uncle Tim had been his guardians was an insult to how they’d instilled honor, integrity, and loyalty into him.
“No lies,” he said solemnly. “You know Wick doesn’t stand for that.”
“I do,” she said with a sniff. Aunt Terry gently patted his cheek. “I told him a long time ago to make sure you live up to your potential. Now go on, scat. You don’t need to be babysitting some old broad and her ghostly husband.”
“Don’t say that,” he muttered. “Spooks me the hell out.”
“Ah, ghosts don’t bother me none,” she said. “It’s the living that causes more pain and suffering. Death is just going to sleep in one world and waking up in another.”
He sighed, knowing it was time to get the hell out of there before she pulled out the Bible and started reading scripture. Every punishment he had in life began the same fucking way, with a lecture from one of the Apostles. Heart raised one of her fragile hands and kissed the knuckles.
“Love you, Aunt Terry,” he said.
“Love you more,” she replied. “I’m older.”
It was something she said to him all the time. He gave her one last hug before turning and heading to his bike. The engine fired up, the roar echoing through the hills as the powerful machine vibrated with life. He gave her a last wave, flipped up the kickstand, and began the long drive back home to the Forgotten Rebels.
Summer in the Ozarks was usually hot and humid, but the shading provided from the tall trees helped keep him cool. He stopped
at noon, to fill up with gas and grabbed a bite to eat before continuing his descent through the mountains. As twilight fell, he decided to stop somewhere for the night because he didn’t like being hit with a ton of bugs wanting to commit suicide.
The next morning, he headed out early. His shades helped keep the sun out of his eyes. As he rounded a bend, he throttled through the turn when suddenly a doe jumped from the underbrush directly in his path. The doe froze, eyes wide with fear, and Heart had nowhere to go but down.
“Fuck!” he yelled, just as he turned his front wheel too sharply. It was either hit the stupid animal or take his chances with the asphalt.
As he went down, his last thought was he never thought his life would end by a fucking deer. Of all the idiotic ways to die, this one topped the cake. His half-helmet banged on the unyielding ground as his body flopped like a rag doll. Blissful oblivion had him escaping the pain, and he knew no more.
Chapter Fourteen
Two weeks later…
Abbott sat astride Wick’s legs, completely naked, her hair flowing loose around her face and shoulders. The position thrust her breasts out, toward his mouth, and he eagerly accepted the invitation. His lips and teeth took over the delicious torment, sucking on each nipple until they stood raw and turgid.
He collected her hair in one hand and yanked her head back, not causing pain but allowing him better access to slide up with his tongue, taking nibbling bites along the way until his mouth met hers. His tongue swept in to duel with hers, as if he were trying to exert some type of dominance. But Abbott was more than happy to surrender to such bliss.
He trailed his fingers over her hips and then across her thighs to find the warm wetness oozing from her pussy. Abbott shuddered, and his fingers delved deeper to find her special spot. Her hips rocked and she could feel his hard cock sliding between her crack while his fingers teased her clit.
His body was big, all hard muscles over smooth skin. His cock jutted between her thighs like a steel rod. She reached behind her to grasp it, tracing the lines and contours, learning how it responded to her touch. She captured some of his pre-cum with a finger and brought it to her lips. She loved how he tasted.
He reached over to the nightstand and opened the drawer to pull out a condom and then guided her to kneel up so he could slip it over his cock. Then he helped lower her down.
Excitement gripped her stomach as she sank down, her pussy practically grabbing and pulling him inside. He held her still for a moment, to allow her to adjust to his girth, before his hands moved her hips. Back and forth, very tenderly and slowly, until her passageway eased at his girth.
Needing to move, she rocked her hips. Wick made a moaning-hissing noise that she took as a good sign, so she rocked her hips again and leaned over to snip his earlobe which jump-started his hips to pump faster. In and out they hammered each other, and Abbott wasn’t sure if it was him out of control or her, all she knew was how incredible it felt to be with him. His balls slapped against her ass as he moved her faster. She gripped her pussy walls around him so tightly there was a sucking sound as he pulled in and out.
“Ah, Chadwick,” she breathed just as her climax hit, coursing through her body with exquisite pleasure.
“Abbott,” he gasped just as his body surged against hers, shuddering with each spill inside her. After a moment, he relaxed back down and pulled her sweaty body with him. She could feel both their hearts beating frantically.
“It just keeps getting better and better,” she murmured, kissing his chest.
“Yeah, it does.”
She took a deep breath. She needed to talk to him. See if he found her disgusting. “I want to tell you why he hunted me.”
His hands tightened imperceptibly on her. “You know I don’t care.”
“I care,” she said. “I need to purge the guilt.”
“You have nothing to be guilty of.”
Her stomach clenched with anxiety. “Yes, I do. A few months after I ran away with Billy, I discovered I was pregnant.”
He flinched and her heart almost shattered.
“I couldn’t have his baby,” she whispered, feeling the shame and dread wash over her again, like it had so many years ago. It was an ache she probably would never be able to get rid of entirely. “He was a monster. Doing and dealing heroin. I knew he made money illegally, but I didn’t know about the computer hacking. Now it made sense why he had a dozen laptops but back then I was oblivious. Lost in my own misery. All I knew is that I couldn’t be a mother to a child I would end up resenting because he or she would tie me to him. So I made an appointment at a clinic and I … I aborted it.”
She took a deep breath. She wouldn’t cry because she’d cried buckets years ago, when she lay in the stirrups and knew she was making such a monumental decision to end the life a baby. All the pro-lifers had it dead wrong. It wasn’t an easy outlet for her mistake, a quick way to fix a problem. She had died a little that day, and any lingering innocence had been stripped away. She had left that clinic with a broken heart.
“What do you think of me, Chadwick? Do you think I’m a horrible person?”
“For what?” He snorted. “Deciding not propagate that asshole’s DNA?”
“I killed a child,” she said again, and this time, she couldn’t stop the soul wrenching shiver.
His fingers buried in her hair and he gripped it firmly, bringing her face up to his so he could kiss her deeply. When his lips left hers, he shook his head.
“You aborted a fetus, not a child.”
“Semantics.”
He covered her lips with a finger, silencing her words.
“You’re a good person, Abbott. Never doubt that. Don’t let him take anymore away from you than he has. Don’t give him any more power. You are not a killer. Sometimes good people have to do harsh things, but it doesn’t label you a bad person. Understand?”
“I’m trying,” she said.
“What you did, you had to do to survive. Given the choice I would’ve preferred to slice Billy Walker apart, inch by inch, and I would’ve enjoyed doing it.” He shook his head. “I’ll do anything to protect you. I’ll kill, I’ll lie, and I’ll steal. I didn’t fight for you eleven years ago, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you now. I love you so damn much, Abbott. I don’t care about the choices you made in the past, all I care about is a future with you because I can’t live without you.”
The vacuum holding her hostage finally broke and tears flooded her eyes. So much time wasted. So much pain and suffering. Deep down she knew Chadwick was right. She wasn’t a killer, but it was going to take a lot of healing to get past what she’d done. Being on the run hadn’t allowed her time to grieve.
One thing was certain, though, was that the world was a brighter place without Billy Walker there to darken it.
Wiping her cheeks, she hurried off the bed to her backpack, searching inside for the little box she’d been carrying around for years. In a separate zipper compartment, she found what she was looking for. The paper had long since fallen off, but she had salvaged the long faded bow and had super glued it on the plain box.
She held it out to him. “It was your Christmas present, that day.”
“Oh, Abbott,” he said as he took it.
She held her breath as he opened it and stared at what lay in the center of the white tissue.
He reached for it and held up a gold ring. “Were you going to ask me to marry you?”
“Back then it was more of a promise ring,” she murmured. “But yeah. The meaning was the same.”
He held it out to her. “Put it on me.”
With trembling fingers, she took it. He held up his left hand. When she went to slide it on, he halted her.
“Ask me.”
She licked her lips and stared him in the eyes. “Will you … ah, will you marry me, Chadwick Edwards?”
“You bet your sweet ass I will.”
She laughed and slid the ring on. Then he linked their fingers a
nd kissed her knuckles.
“I fucking love you, Abbott. I always have and I always will.”
“I love you too,” she said softly. “I’m yours, Chadwick. Now. Always.”
He smacked her ass playfully. “You better believe it. My old lady. And I’m going to take proper care of you for the rest of our lives.”
“Promise?”
“Oh, it’s a promise.” He cupped her pussy. “I’m going to make this pussy purr.”
And he did exactly that.
The End
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Other Books by Beth D. Carter:
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