Chapter 50
Scott couldn’t believe he had fallen asleep, he figured his wired nerves would have kept him awake. He didn’t remember falling asleep or even dreaming. And when he opened his eyes, he knew that he hadn’t slept too long because the room was still dark with night. It took a minute to orient himself and when he was able to see within the dark of the room, he realized that Bam was still lying next to him, snoring away.
Back before the world began to implode, before all the chaos and the death, before the pill and the confusion, Scott would often lie next to Bam and listen to her sleep. He loved to hear her breathing, in and out, in and out. It was better than any song, any music that could be created. It was honest and pure. Breathing. In and out. It was life at its barest form.
Quietly wiggling toward the edge of the mattress, he was able to get up from the bed without disturbing her. Silently, he made his way from the room and down the wooden steps toward the living room. He froze. Staring up at him was Lucky Barrett, still awake, still smirking. The man was like the Joker from the Batman comics and movies, always smiling, the smiles growing wider and wider while things exploded around them.
How did the man stand being tied like that, arms around his back, unable to move much? Scott asked himself. And how was he still smirking? It was like a cruel joke. It was like no matter what he did or didn’t do, Lucky Barrett would have the last laugh.
He shook the thought from his mind and continued down the stairs, trying to fake confidence, trying to pretend as if Lucky was indeed under his domain, under his thumb, that Scott was the one who was the one in control, even though he wasn’t so sure how true it was. But to be honest, Scott was sure the he was the one who was tied and bound to a chair by his feet and hands.
“Did you get any sleep?” Scott asked and then forced a giggle. He arrived at the bottom of the steps and then stopped. Leaning against the wooden banister, he bragged, “I slept like a baby.”
“I’m not tired, I guess,” Lucky replied, shrugging. “I could use a sandwich, though. Turkey and cheese…add a pickle?”
“Not going to happen,” Scott explained, beginning to walk again. “I want you hungry and weak. I will make you a deal. I will make the perfect, best tasting sandwich you’ve every hand the moment you tell me what I want to know. Sound good? Sound like a plan?”
Lucky shrugged innocently. “I don’t know what you want me to say, young Walters. I don’t know what kind of answers you believe that I have. I don’t even remember the question. I don’t think I am as intelligent or in-the-know as you may think.”
Scott was instantly in the chair across from Lucky and glaring into his face. “Why are you fucking with my head? I didn’t want any of this. I don’t need this shit. But here I am…a killer…sitting in front of a mass killer.”
“I’ve never killed anyone,” Lucky said.
“True,” Scott admitted. “You have someone else do it for you. You didn’t think that I have done my research? You think that your own daughter didn’t tell me tale after tale about the sick and depraved things that you have done, all for the sake of money and power? You are the fucked up one here, the villain in this story.”
“Are you trying to blame me for what you did?” Lucky asked. “We just met, Scott. How would I have anything to do with you killing people?”
“I killed them in self-defense,” Scott told him. “And you know it. I just want to understand…why…how? It seems so…I don’t know. I don’t understand. I need to understand.”
“Why? Why do you need to understand…anything?”
“How could I not?” Ashe pulled the black and gold container from his pocket and showed it to Lucky. “I took this pill and it showed me how I was going to die. It was…a vision. I don’t know if I can call it God…but I need to be able to call it…something. I need to call it something. And you can help me with that. The pill came from you. Where did you get it? How can it do what it did?”
“Where did you get it?”
“Bam gave it to me,” Scott replied and regretted giving the man any information. “But that doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” Lucky said. “That little pill doesn’t come into your life without a purpose.”
“It came from you,” Scott explained.
“And she took one too?” Lucky inquired, fidgeting his body in the chair.
“Yea. She told me she did. What does that matter?” Scott grew restless and couldn’t remain sitting. He had to stand. Maybe if he moved his feet then his mind would move along with it. But then even when he was moving, mentally or physically, he seemed only to move in circles, round and round, as if trapped in a loop, no end or solution in sight.
“If she knew what it did, then why did she trick you into taking it?” Lucky asked.
“She didn’t trick me,” Ashe argued. Did she? No. He would not question Bam. She was the only rock that was keeping him from being pulled by the strong-handed current away from land and out into the depth of the cold, grim sea.
“It doesn’t matter,” Scott insisted. “She got it from you. It all comes back to you. Everything comes back to you.”
“It comes through me,” Lucky revealed. “The pill didn’t start with me.”
Scott began a shorter pace, more controlled. “Where did it start? Where did it come from?”
“I have no idea,” Lucky responded.
Scott halted his laps, but didn’t confront the man. By the expression on Lucky’s face, along with the short-lived absence of the smirk, Scott knew that the man could actually be telling the truth, for once. Lucky Barrett, the mobster with the yellow car and yellow tie, had given him a straightforward, truthful answer. But even though it was an answer, the revelation wasn’t what Scott wanted to hear. He wasn’t sure what exactly he had wanted to hear, but he knew that he needed something more solid, something for him to actually touch and grab hold of.
Lucky Barrett began to give Scott a cold stare. “How did my sweetheart Amber get the pill? She has been avoiding me like the plague ever since she became an adult. And I have kept my distance from her, as well. So…how did she come across our little pill? They are not passing it out at the street corner, my dear boy.”
Scott was silent.
“On top of that, how did she know about the meeting at the park, the one in which you crashed with extreme prejudice?” Lucky continued to question. “I’m pretty sure that the information came from my sweet daughter. Think about it for one simple second. She is a Barrett, after all. And a Barrett doesn’t even take a shit without a plan or purpose in mind.”
“She is nothing like you or the rest of your family,” Scott barked.
“I am in this chair,” Lucky stated. “Maybe that was the end game all along.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Nature versus nurture,” Lucky stated. “The nature of a person can be hard, if not impossible, to deny. Nature can be a real heartless bitch, sometimes, my boy.”
“I know her,” Scott insisted.
“Do you? Don’t be so sure, young man,” Lucky said. “Everyone is like an onion, with layers, and all we know of them is a layer or two down, but we rarely see the deeper layers, the ones that stink and bring tears to your eyes. I’ve known many people in my lifetime, but I have also never known a single other person, outside of my own self.” He paused briefly. “How do know she even took the pill herself?”
He thought about that, too. Bam had taken the pill three days before he had come to him with it. He had not been present to see her do it. What did that mean? Did it mean anything? Of course it didn’t. He once again became mad at himself for letting doubt seep into his mind like a dark sludge oozing through the cracks that Lucky was trying to create. It would not work. Bam had taken the pill, too. Why would she have lied about it?
“Why would she have lied?” Lucky said, mirroring Scott’s own
thoughts. “Are you a killer, Scott?”
Scott was caught off guard. “No,” he choked. “I’m not a killer.”
“Why do you think you killed someone, then?”
For a moment, Scott couldn’t speak. He just began to pace again, his feet clopping against the wooden floorboards. “What do you mean? I know that I killed someone…because I killed someone. I put a gun to my roommate’s head and pulled the trigger. I can still see the blood exploding from his scalp. I can see all of the blood that I’ve spilt over past days. My hands will never be clean of it. Never.”
“Are you sure?”
“Am I sure what?”
“Are you sure that you killed anyone?” Lucky asked. “If you are not a killer…then why would you kill someone? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Scott agreed. His mind felt like it was full of static. The buzzing surged around in his head, shocking his thoughts. He wasn’t the kind of person that would murder…but he knew that he had killed Owen, the two thugs, and most likely Lucky’s hired gun.
“You took a pill,” Lucky began. “One that you didn’t understand. What makes the most sense, Scott? That you had vision of your own death, which put you on a spree where you have shot and killed three…four people? Or that you are having a bad trip, caused by some nasty drug you just ingested? Are you on a mission from God, Scott, or some higher power that granted you an out of body experience before revealing to you the details of your own death? Or are you in your apartment, dealing with a bad trip brought on by some wicked, dirty drug? Think about the events since you took that pill. Really think about it. Do you see what I am saying?”
Scott did. It became of jumble of desperate images and actions.
“Surreal,” he mumbled.
“Unreal,” Lucky stated. “Not just surreal…but unreal. As in…a hallucination. As in…none of this is happening, right now. Isn’t it possible? Isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Scott accepted. “No,” he corrected. “I don’t know. Fucking quit it.”
Lucky began to howl. It almost sounded like a wolf. And it made Scott’s hair stand up on his neck. “This is too easy.” He continued to roar. “You dumb fucking kid. Thank you for all the fun, though, Scott. But our time is almost up. You can’t show up with your gun blazing and take a man like me without any type of consequences. That…my boy…is unreal. I have a plan for everything. Everything.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I appreciate the pill and understand the implications…the consequences of events, because things unfold like a chain, seemingly random but not. With practice, I have armed myself against possibilities…of all shapes and sizes. I have learned to arm myself against…destiny…if you want to call it that. I have become one well-thought-out son of a bitch,” Lucky said, his laughing fit dying down. “It comes from years of dodging bullets.” He glanced down at his arm. Scott halted his pacing and followed Lucky’s line of sight. There was a small scar on Lucky’s upper arm, one that Scott had easily overlooked. “GPS device. In the meat of my arm. If I were to ever get abducted, my friends would know. They will then monitor the police while cleaning up any loose ends they deem necessary. They will throw the police off my adductor or abductors trail, because I do not need the cops to come to my rescue. And then, once things are clear…they are to come…and get me.”
“How are you going to explain that to the police? Our blood will be on your hands,” Scott informed. “No getting around it.”
Lucky came back with, “I’m sure that I could come up with a scenario that explains why my kidnappers are dead.”
“What if your men get here too late? What if I had already killed you?”
The uproar of laughing returned. “I would have seen it coming,” he replied. “Even if there was a slim chance of it…I would have seen. The pill would have showed me.”
“But our future is not set,” Scott said. “I was supposed to be killed by Owen. And I changed that. I could still decide to kill you.”
Suddenly, the single lamp that was lighting the living room went out. Light was instantly sucked away, leaving blackness in its place, engulfing the entire house. All flowing thoughts turned still inside of Scott.
Oh shit.
“Too late,” Lucky reported, continuing to chuckle.
Bam was upstairs asleep, vulnerable. She would be unaware of what was about to take place. Everything inside of Scott told him to get to Bam at any cost. If Lucky’s men were making their way into the house, like snakes in the dark, he had but a few seconds to get to her and hunker down for the looming fight. They would have to barricade themselves in the bedroom with their backs to the wall. It would be their only chance.
Where was the handgun that he had had early? Scott tried to remember.
A little yellow illumination barely broke through the room’s curtains, coming from a streetlight across the road, giving Scott’s eyes just enough for his pupils to slightly expand. He could make out the outline of Lucky, who he believed was still facing him. Scott couldn’t fully see Lucky’s head but he was sure that the man was staring, maybe even glaring. His help had arrived. He was indeed king of the castle, with all the power in his mighty grip.
Going to Bam would involve leaving his prisoner behind, but he didn’t have much choice. Killers were at his doorstep and Lucky Barrett would have his way, or so Scott believed. But he would make sure to give them hell in return. He might just make it out of the whole mess alive.
Not likely, he immediately admitted.
Rustling sounds came from the kitchen. Creaking. Shuffling. Scott tensed. A footstep? Possibly. Scott took a step toward the staircase. Another step. The gun was upstairs, he recalled. Damn. He took another slow step. The figure of a person suddenly appeared in the entranceway between the living room and kitchen. Scott instantly went into a startled action, bolting toward the steps. As he rushed he heard a soft explosion of air. A gunpowder flash. Something hard fractured the hardwood at his feet, barely missing Scott’s body.
Scott took the steps two at a time, as fast as he could manage, up and away from the man and toward Bam.
Ashes to Ashes Page 50
