Chapter 21 – Ava Jade #2
He was an asshole. It was easy to tell. Something in the drunken swagger. In the way he carried himself. In his snarling upper lip and the way he tossed back violent swigs of his beer, seeming to grow more enraged with each one he finished.
His buddy came and took the truck, honking twice before he pulled out of the lot.
Billy Parker had a lot to mutter about that guy.
Apparently he was a no-good piece of shit, but Billy was really hoping he’d score for them both.
I wasn’t able to get the best look at his face, but Billy was a tall, lanky guy.
With lean muscle and a pin-up girl neck tatt.
His skinny legs swimming in the bootcut jeans he wore.
He ditched his Motley Crüe t-shirt sometime past eleven, working bare chested, a dusting of dark brown curling hairs on his chest making him seem somehow even more pale than he was.
I was about to call it and head home, drawn by the promise of a joint and bad horror movies, when I heard a car veer off the main road and into the lot.
I wiggled in my little hidey nook to get a better look, finding a silver sedan slowly rolling through the parking lot.
I ducked my head as it passed Parker and Sons, but I could still make out the shapes of three figures inside.
Where the hell were they getting all these different cars from?
I mean, I had my own ideas, but their supply of borrowed vehicles seemed to be endless.
The car vanished around the edge of the lot, and I closed my eyes, hearing the faint sound of an engine rumbling somewhere in the distance. I was willing to bet they’d parked out behind that closed down pharmacy. That was where I would’ve parked.
The idling stopped.
I held my breath.
The bang of the door being kicked into the opposite wall rattled the building and rang in my ears.
I sank impossibly lower, drawing out my phone as I waited for the perfect shot.
“ Oh, Billy boy! ” Rook rasped, and three reapers spilled into the shop.
Dressed all in black, they appeared to almost blend into the shadows. The stark white of their Scream masks with their hollow black eyes and overexaggerated smiles making their heads seem to float in midair.
Dammit.
Unless they said something to give themselves away or removed the masks, any footage would be pretty much useless.
I ground my teeth as I switched my camera screen to record and nestled it against the corner of the metal trolley to get a clear and unwavering picture.
A clatter from the meat cooler and rushing footsteps.
The tallest of them, Corvus, threw his foot into the cooler door before Billy could lock them out, not even flinching as it thudded against his boot. Between their dark bodies, I saw Billy Parker fly backward, knocking into the hanging meat before slipping to the floor with a shout.
“Billy, Billy, Billy,” tutted Rook, stepping past Corvus and popping his knuckles.
Grey entered last, and I guess luck was at least a little on my side because no one moved to close the cooler door behind them, offering me a fairly clear view of what went on inside.
“We warned you, Billy,” Corvus drawled, his voice a detached rumble.
Billy put up a good fight as Rook stooped down to grab him off the floor. He squirmed, alternating between grunts and curses, but one good fist to the face and the drunken butcher was too dazed to fight anymore.
“Hold that hook,” Rook said, his masked face tipping up to the curved piece of shining metal in the track on the roof. Grey obliged, gripping the topmost part of it to steady it as Rook lifted Billy with ease.
My stomach turned as he slid Billy onto the hook, the metal biting through the skin of his back. Through his muscle.
Billy screamed, an awful drawn-out sound that ended in a sob only to start again.
Scream after scream until his throat was raw and he choked up bile.
Until his back was coated in red and it began to pool on the stained tiles below his hanging feet.
Until he stopped trying to reach the hook with wildly flailing arms, realizing he couldn’t dislodge it himself no matter how hard he tried.
“You about done?” Corvus asked
He kicked a milk crate under Billy, enabling him to stand on his tip toes to alleviate some of the pressure no doubt shifting the bones of his shoulder blade. Ugh.
“P-please,” Billy pleaded, his arms hanging in defeat. “Don’t kill me.”
“We’re not going to kill you, Billy,” Grey said, crossing his arms over his chest, making his fitted long-sleeve black t-shirt bulge around his biceps.
My mouth went a little dry, and I chastised my aching cunt for wanting another taste of his cock.
Even now. Even while I watched them torture someone, she still thirsted for him.
I mean, I knew I was fucked up, but...that had to be some next level shit. Maybe Aunt Humphrey was right; I needed therapy. Copious amounts of it.
“We explained this to you last time,” Corvus droned. “That was strike one. This? This is strike two. Your last warning.”
Snot dripped down Billy Parker’s face, mingling with the drool leaking from his gaping mouth. “I won’t…” he said, the words choking off on a pained intake of breath. “I won’t ever touch them again, I swear.”
Silence in the meat cooler.
“ I swear, ” he repeated. “You’ve...you’ve made your point. Now please, please just let me down.”
“Oh no,” Rook said. “We’re nowhere near finished.”
If it were possible, Billy went even paler. His eyes, wide and round, terrified as he took in Rook.
“What was it you did to your little Ashley two nights ago?” Grey asked, his voice so cold, so different from the playful cocky tone I’d come to know as his. “Oh, right. You broke her arm.”
“And to Stella?” Corvus asked. “Go ahead and tell me what you did to your five-year-old daughter.”
Wait... what?
Billy began to sob quietly, hanging his head as my thoughts raced to catch up with exactly what I was witnessing here. This was clearly not what I thought it was. This wasn’t gang business at all.
My chest burned, ignited by the accusations they were slinging at Billy. By his inability to deny them. If it were true, this coward of a man broke his daughter’s arm. And apparently that wasn’t all he did. Nor was it the first time.
My eyes burned and a muscle in my jaw twitched, remembering the time my mother hurt me. How it’d felt. The man at the train tracks. The feeling of helplessness after the initial shock subsided. Of being too small to do anything to stop it. Too weak.
“Say it!” Rook demanded, gripping him brutally by the arm and pulling downward, making the metal skewer in his back dig deeper. Billy whimpered, trying to pull away, and I hoped it fucking hurt.
“I…”
“Say it, motherfucker,” Grey growled.
“I...I hit her.”
“And then what?” Corvus prodded, his voice dangerously level.
“And then she fell,” Billy croaked, his voice a hoarse mess of broken sounds. “She...she hit her head on the table and p-p-passed out.”
“Go on, you piece of shit. Then what? ”
“I…”
Rook gave Billy another sharp tug and his eyes bugged out of his skull as bloody foam gathered in the corners of his grimacing mouth.
“I locked her in her room,” Billy blurted, the words overlapping so I wasn’t even certain I heard him correctly. “For two d-d-days.”
“Without any food,” Grey finished for him in a snarl, his body going taut, his hands flexing at his sides.
Corvus stepped forward, but stopped, digging his hand into his back pocket as an audible buzzing broke the tepid silence.
“Hold that thought,” he said, lifting the phone to his ear.
I held my breath as he left the meat cooler and walked toward the front of the shop, tugging off his mask. “Yeah,” he said as he answered the call. “I’m a little busy at the?—”
His words cut off as a garbled voice on the other end of the receiver interrupted him.
I rushed to check the angle of the camera, to see if I caught him removing the mask, but he was just out of frame.
I reached out to tilt the camera, but then he turned sharply toward me, pacing along the bank of refrigerated display cases.
Fuck. I couldn’t stick my hand out there without risking him seeing it.
I’d have to pray he wandered back in view without that mask on.
“It’s late, what are you doing calling me right... shit . All right. Yeah. Yeah, I have a sec. What is it?”
Corvus paced behind the counter, and I flattened myself against the side of the meat cooler, willing myself to be invisible.
“I told you, Max, I’m not interested. I can’t be away that long.”
The voice replied on the other end of the call, distinctly feminine despite the name, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“Well, I’m not most people, am I?” Corvus’ voice was growing more irritated by the second, his steps quickening as he paced the short length of linoleum flooring behind the register.
“Merch? I don’t fucking know. I’ll have Grey make something.”
Corvus stopped suddenly, and I dared a peek around the edge of the display case to find him pinching the bridge of his nose as he inhaled. “I might have something new. Do you think we could…yeah, all right. I’ll try to make it. Thanks, Max.”
He hung up, and I whipped my head back around and closed my eyes as he lifted his gaze, praying I was fast enough. That the shadows were thick enough to keep me concealed.
Shit.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He cleared his throat, and I almost cracked a tooth for how hard I was clenching my damned teeth.
“All right,” he said, sighing, and his heavy footfalls retreated, heading back to the cooler. Mask back in place. “Where were we?”
I blew out a breath, tucking my blade slowly back into the strap at my ankle.
“I think we were just about to show Billy here what happens when he doesn’t heed our warnings,” Grey replied, and I heard a sharp intake of air and looked through the shelves of the trolly to find Rook smelling the guy. He shuddered.
“Please…” Billy pleaded again, his voice distant now, heavier.