by Ryan Casey
Jared opened his mouth to talk but couldn’t fathom the situation. ‘She took off.’ What did that even mean? Where had she gone? Had she been kicked out, or had Raymond gotten to her already? It didn’t make sense. He gripped the bag tightly over his shoulders.
‘That’s…’ He paused as he saw what the man was holding in his hand: Faith’s necklace. The one Mum had given to her. The bronze chain—there was no mistaking it. His eyes were drawn to it, and the man’s eyes followed his gaze before Jared looked back up at him and smiled. They both stared at each other, and they knew.
‘Like I say,’ the man said, still staring at Jared, sneaking the necklace towards his back pocket. ‘She just took off.’
Jared nodded his head and turned away as the man edged back inside the room. As the door began to shut, Jared shoved his foot in, burst through the door, and headbutted the man.
The man winced and fell backwards as Jared thumped his muscular chest, doing all he could to get into the room. They fell backwards into the dimness of Faith’s smoky bedsit when he saw her on the bed, gagged, ankles and wrists tied to the frame of the bed.
Then, intense pain in the side of his jaw as the man’s fist flew towards his face. Jared went crashing into Faith’s desk.
Jared pulled a drawer out of its place and swung it into the man’s knees. He cried out and reached his hands towards his legs, before nutting Jared in his chin. Jared fell backwards towards the floor, Faith mumbling in the background underneath the muffled constraints of her gag. Jared’s head spun as it cracked against the table. He couldn’t move. The colours in his eyes. Deep breath, two, three…
Underneath the desk, he could just about make out the sharp edge of Faith’s nail file.
‘Here’s your fucking Faith,’ the man said, edging back, pumping his chest out as more sweat patches formed on his shirt. ‘She’s over there getting her pussy fucking destroyed. Why don’t you go fucking try it for yourself? Try your sister’s juicy fucking pussy? Huh?’
Jared curled his fingers around the edge of the nail file underneath the cabinet as he lay back against the floor.
The man reached down towards his face. ‘I said, why don’t you go fucking munch on your si—arghhh!’
Jared punctured the man’s eye with the sharp end of the nail file. He felt the pressure of the eye give way like a balloon and carried on pushing, gripping the back of the man’s slippery bald head and pressing it against his other hand until the nail file was almost completely wedged in the man’s skull. He stared at the man’s shaking body whilst he did it and let the warm fluids trickle down his arm.
‘You fucking skunk,’ Jared said. ‘You dirty, lowlife piece of shit.’ He continued to hold the man in place as his protestations grew ever weaker and the blood flow diminished. Then, when the man had stopped moving, he let the body drop to the ground face first, the nail-file sinking further into his head.
Jared spat the blood out of his mouth and brushed his dripping-wet hair out of his face.
Faith looked on, eyes bulging, completely on show.
What was he thinking? He’d enjoyed that. It happened in front of her, and he’d still enjoyed it. But the guy deserved it. The guy was a pig, and he deserved it.
Keep it cool. A necessary victim.
Jared took a deep breath and rushed over to Faith, snapping the plastic cuffs on her wrists, the skin purple and raw. She flinched as he moved towards her, keeping her open eyes on him. She shouldn’t have seen that. She didn’t have to see that. He pulled the gag away from her mouth, drenched in sweat and spit, and he moved back towards the side of the room as he looked down at her frail body. She brushed the spit from her mouth and threw on her scruffed up clothes, not quite able to meet her brother’s eyes.
‘Faith, what the fu—’
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she said, her bottom lip quivering as their eyes finally met.
‘And what the fuck would have happened if I hadn’t been here, eh?’
‘Not this. It didn’t have to be like this. I don’t need you to be such a fucking hero, Jared.’
Jared threw his hands behind his neck and laughed. ‘I don’t believe you. I don’t actually believe you. You come out of the hospital and… and then you let this happen.’
Faith’s eyes watered as she rubbed her chapped wrists together. ‘You think I want this? You think, you think I asked for it?’
‘I don’t think you help yourself.’
Faith spat at Jared’s feet. ‘How fucking dare you. How dare you have the balls to imply… to imply that.’
The pair of them were silent for a few moments. Jared turned around to look at the body, lying face flat in a pool of blood on the floor. The door to the apartment was still open.
‘Who was he?’ Jared asked.
‘What does it matter who he was?’ Faith said. ‘Just some guy. Some guy I owed something to. But no, you can’t let me handle that. Do you realise how much shit this could get me into? Do you realise what they’ll do if they find out, to me and to you?’
Jared ignored Faith and looked at his watch: 10:34. He couldn’t afford to stick around much longer.
‘Faith, you need to get away from here. You need to get as far away as possible because you’re in trouble, and—’
‘I’m not the one in trouble,’ Faith said. ‘You’re in trouble. You’ve come into here and you’ve—you’ve…’ She tilted her head towards the body and then back at the ceiling. ‘I can’t believe this. I can’t fucking believe it.’
Jared sat on his knees opposite Faith and grabbed her hands. ‘Faith, there’s money in that black bag. You take it and you go. Go as far away as you can. And when you’re safe and you know you’re safe and away from everybody, you call me and I’ll come find you.’
Faith’s eyes parried around Jared’s face. ‘You aren’t making sense, brother… wait, your—oh my God, Jared, your eye, did it just—’
‘No, that’s another story. Faith, you need to go. I’ll sort this out.’
‘What’s happened? You at least owe me that.’
Jared raised his hands and dropped his head into them, rubbing at his dark hair. ‘I’ve—I’ve done something bad, Faith. Done something really bad.’ He looked up at Faith. ‘I can’t see Raymond right now, and I’ve…’ He heard the clatter of feet marching up the metal stairs outside.
It couldn’t be, could it?
‘Jared?’ Faith sat waiting for Jared to continue, concern in her eyes.
The door of the corridor swung open and the heavy feet pounded against the floor, just as they had pounded against Brian’s driveway, into his house. There was nothing he could do.
They were here.
Jared jumped up towards the open door and slammed it shut, flicking the lock. He took a deep breath and headed back towards his sister as the footsteps stopped. He reached down into the man’s pocket: a gun. Had Raymond sent him? He turned to Faith as fists banged against the door.
‘Faith, you need to take what’s in the bag and you need to get out of here. There isn’t—’ The door banged again, teasing itself from its latch. ‘There isn’t a lot of time. You take that bag and you climb out of the window. Get as far away from here as possible.’ He rolled the gun around in his palm and rushed over towards Faith, shoving the black rucksack into her lap.
Bang.
‘I don’t—I don’t know what I’ll do, Jared.’
Jared grabbed her hands and leaned his head against them. ‘Do what you always do, Faith. Do what you’ve wanted to do for ages. Climb out of that window and go. There’s enough money in there to last you for a while. There’s a phone in there too, just for us. Don’t tell anybody about that number. Now go on—go. You ring me as soon as you’re safe, okay?’
The door clattered again as Faith’s puzzled eyes scanned Jared’s face. ‘Will you be okay?’ she asked.
Jared nodded and smiled as the door finally gave way.
He didn’t have to turn round to know who it was.
‘Jared. You alright, kid?’
Jared turned away from Faith. Sure enough, Raymond stood with his hands behind his back at the door, dressed in a suit not quite big enough for him. Frank was by his side, his hand resting on the gun in his pocket.
Jared lifted his gun.
‘Woah, there’ll be no need for that now, Jared,’ Raymond said, taking a step back. ‘We won’t resort to fucking brutality now will we?’ He looked down at the body at his feet and shook his head. ‘Come on, kid. Snap out of it. You’ve done a good job.’
The gun shook in Jared’s hand. ‘What are you trying to say?’
Raymond stared at Jared, his cool smile ever present. ‘You did a good job. Frank here tells me you killed them all, with a little… encouragement.’ Raymond scratched at his eyelid. ‘Could’ve done with cleaning the mess up though, right? Could’ve done with finishing the job instead of leaving it all to us, eh?’
Jared saw Frank peeking over his shoulder, staring at something behind him. Jared turned and saw his sister stood by the window, clutching the rucksack in her hands.
‘The girl—she’s missing,’ Raymond said. ‘And I have a feeling you know more than you’re letting on to. Is that right?’ He crept over to Faith’s bed and brushed the dust-coated metal bedpost, before blowing a cloud off the end of his finger. ‘You must be Faith? How rude of me not to introduce myself. I’m Raymond. I’m sure your brother has told you all about me. He’s told me a lot about you.’ He turned and smiled to Frank, who looked Faith up and down.
She clutched the bag into her chest. ‘He’s told me enough,’ she said, before edging further back towards the window.
Jared’s cheeks burned as the silence cut through the room. Raymond pushed himself up from the bed and rubbed his hands together. ‘You see, your brother is in a bit of trouble with me. He has some money of mine, I believe. Now, your brother, he’s—mind if I have a glass of water?’ He turned the tap on and eyed up the mouldy glass before placing it back down on the side. ‘Actually, I’ll pass. Anyway, your brother—he’s a good man, only I believe he has something of mine. We can forget all this if he gives it back to me. Understand, dear?’
Jared turned to Faith, his heart and head throbbing. She held on to the bag like a kidnapped child, clutching something that didn’t belong to her. ‘Just go, Faith,’ Jared said. ‘Just go. I can deal with this.’
Raymond chuckled, walking up to Jared. ‘Jared—don’t be so rude. You’re interrupting my conversation with your sist—’
‘Don’t go near her.’
The words felt alien as they left Jared’s throat. Raymond widened his eyes. For a moment, Jared saw redness inside them, a sense of loss and misunderstanding, but Raymond blinked it away and laughed. ‘Look—I know it’s only natural a big brother should want to protect his sister. But you have something of mine. Faith: Give me the bag.’
Jared’s stomach sank as he looked up at Frank, who watched from a distance, tickling the trigger of the gun. He turned to Faith. ‘Just go, Faith.’
She looked between everybody, slowly edging towards the window. The bag began to shake in her hands.
‘That’s right,’ Raymond said. ‘Just hand the bag here, and we can get this done with.’ He waved his hands and gestured at Faith to pass him the bag.
She edged it towards him.
Then, she threw herself out of the window and onto the fire escape of the building opposite.
Jared didn’t have time to think. He pulled the gun out and fired a shot at Frank, the bullet crashing into his neck. Raymond looked on, wide-eyed and baffled.
‘Jared, don’t—’
That was when he fired at Raymond’s leg.
And fired again.
Raymond tumbled towards the floor, clutching his bleeding leg. He looked up at Jared with manic, furious eyes as he rolled on the floor.
Jared stuck his head out of the window. The echoing of the shots still cut through his head. Faith. Was she okay?
‘Faith,’ he shouted. She was nowhere to be seen. There was no movement, just metal fences and cars. He turned back to Raymond, who clenched his knee and cried out as he rolled on his back.
‘I—I’m sorry, Raymond. I’m sorry. It’s just, I’m sorry. I had to.’ He couldn’t bear to look Raymond in the eye as he struggled on the floor, battling for words. He’d understand though, why he did it. He’d understand in time, and things would get back to normal between them. Wouldn’t they?
He stepped over Frank’s body and leaned down towards him. He was gargling blood, fighting for words, as the bullet wedged in his throat. Jared put his fingers on the wound and shook his head. ‘You really thought you’d get away with what you did, did you?’ he said, poking towards his eye.
Frank’s throat wheezed as he tried to lift his neck up, his eyes bulging and straining as he choked on his ruptured jugular.
Jared reached over to his sister’s pack of cigarettes, which lay on the floor beside the upturned table. He pulled one out, lit it with Faith’s lighter, and inhaled. ‘Think again,’ he said.
He stuffed the glowing end of the cigarette into Frank’s bleeding neck.
The block of flats paid little attention to the forty-four seconds of pig-like screaming that followed.
Chapter Sixteen
He didn’t have time to clean up after himself. Raymond could see to that, providing he didn’t bleed out.
He hoped he wouldn’t bleed out. It didn’t have to end that way.
The blood crusted in the crevices of his palms as he powered back down the highway in the heat of the afternoon sun. The warmth misted on the road ahead, spiraling upwards like a fountain of water. What had happened to Faith? He’d looked for her—looked around the cars, underneath them—but she was gone. Fortunately, the bag was gone too.
And Raymond. The look on his eyes as Jared shot him in the leg. Defenceless, betrayed by the man he’d poured all his faith into. Jared was just one of the others now—just another failed protégé.
He took a deep breath as the bike swerved round the corner and back into the village. He ditched the bike outside his uncle’s house and stormed into the reception area past the onlooking crowd of villagers. He charged down the corridor and towards the room at the end. He needed to see his uncle. He needed to tell him about everything, try and get in touch with his sister somehow. He needed to get away from it all.
As he opened the door at the end of the corridor, he took a step back and blinked with his one good eye. She… she couldn’t be. Could she?
Cindy sat up in bed, eyes open, her arm attached to the drip. Jared stumbled through the doorway as she turned to face him. His uncle sat beside her and twisted his neck slowly.
‘She’s—you’re alive,’ Jared said, looking between her and Mustapha and smiling. He noticed the tears rolling down her cheeks and the bloody marks on her belly.
Mustapha rose and pulled his gloves off, walking towards Jared and placing them in his hand. ‘She’s on a sedative to keep her calm. She knows—about her kid. The baby. There—there was nothing I could do. Strangely, her baby saved her life. Took the full hit of the bullet, and… well, you figure the rest out for yourself.’ Mustapha patted Jared on the shoulder as he looked over at her. She didn’t speak, only cried, her weary eyes wandering around the room. ‘Come on,’ Mustapha said. ‘You need to rest now, Cindy. We’ll talk in the evening when things will make a lot more sense.’
‘Thanks… thanks, doctor.’
Jared nodded at her but she closed her eyes and slipped her head back onto the pillow. Mustapha locked the door behind them, exhaling a sigh of frustration. ‘You have some explaining to do.’
The smoke from Mustapha’s cigarette dipped over the balcony, disrupting the sun-drenched sky above the village. There was a sleepiness about the scene below, the sound of children shouting as they played outside, the cries of the market easing off as day turned to night.
Jared toyed with the phone on his knee: Still no word from Faith.
‘She’ll call, Jared,’ Mustapha said. ‘Just give her time. There’s nothing dicking about on your phone can do to help the situation.’
‘That’s easier said than done.’
‘I suppose, but you need to snap out of things. You got into this mess on your own. You did what you could to get your sister out of it. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t—you’ve done what you can.’
Mustapha scratched at his shoulder. Jared didn’t need to see underneath his shirt to know what he was itching at, even after all these years. Burns were the worst kind of scars.
‘Did—did you kill him?’ Mustapha asked, coughing on his cigarette smoke and diverting his eyes towards the ground.
Jared thought back to Raymond’s begging face, the confused eyes. ‘I don’t know.’
Mustapha scoffed. ‘What do you mean you don’t know? You either killed him or you di—’
‘No. No, I didn’t. But I don’t know. He’s bleeding out. Someone would have to find him.’ He looked at his phone again as it buzzed—just an email notification, some junk or another. ‘I don’t know.’
Mustapha tapped the end of his cigarette onto the tray in front of him, coughing again, trying not to make his emotions obvious. ‘You do realise you can’t stay here, Jared. Not after last time. I couldn’t take that risk, not again. What’s your plan?’
Jared worked his fingers through his hair. ‘I guess… I guess I’ll move on—we’ll move on, eventually. But things don’t have to be the same this time, Uncle. Things can be different here. Back then, that was different because he knew that was where I was from. He had contacts there. This place—it’s different.’
Mustapha let the last puff of his cigarette sneak out through his nostrils. ‘I’ll give you until Monday morning. I have a friend of a friend who might be able to sort you out with a place for the time being, but no promises. With or without your sister. Monday, alright?’
Jared’s shoulders slumped. Monday morning: That gave him tomorrow to find Faith. And then he had to try to explain things to Cindy. He could do this. He had a chance, and he could carry it out. ‘Thanks, Uncle.’
