Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Nyx
LOVE LOOKS PRETTY ON YOU – Nessa Barrett
Saturday mornings are always the hardest shifts, but the tips are good.
My eyes scan my phone as I walk out of the diner, reading the countless texts I’ve sent to my dad.
He hasn’t answered any of them. I don’t usually let my mind wander to why my father isn’t replying, but my body always contracts in the worst way, wondering if the worst has finally happened.
Did he drink himself to death? Did one of his debtors get their hands on him?
Probably Val Brolik, since Chase isn’t here to pay the debt anymore, and no one got in contact with me.
I rush across the parking lot, freezing in my t-shirt since I didn't bother to put my coat on for the short walk. It's not until I'm by my car that I realize the state it's in. The windows are broken, the seats have been torn through with a knife, and the tires are slashed.
"What the hell?" I gasp as my phone clatters to the ground. "Fuck."
I step around the car, my hands gripping my hair as my stomach twists.
"Shame, ain't it?" someone snarls behind me.
It's Bennett. Chase's friend. The mere thought of that group used to keep me meek, but I weirdly don’t feel scared. I’m fuming, feeling years of intimidation burning in my chest.
"Did you do this?" I ask. "In broad daylight too."
He snorts. "I think you spend so much time on your fancy side that you forget no one bats an eye when a crime is committed here."
"It's my fucking car," I rage. "I need it for everything."
He takes a threatening step toward me, and instead of stepping back, I do the same until we're facing each other.
Something has been shifting in me since Chase's death a week ago. A weight is off my shoulders; a fear has disappeared. Achilles freed something inside me, but I’ll never admit that to him.
"No more boyfriend, no more home, no more car. You're one hell of a vulnerable girl, aren't you?"
"And you're one hell of a brave boy for admitting what you did."
I feel unstoppable. I know Bennett is a dangerous man, but I feel braver than him. I know I am. I took more shit than he ever did.
"It's a warning, Nyx. We know what your rich boy did to Chase, and justice won't be served to him on his side of town. Bring him to us and we'll take care of it. Show us who you really stand with."
"You've got some fucking nerve," I snap.
"It never bothered anyone that Chase treated me like shit.
Who stood with me when he cheated on me?
When he made me feel like I wasn't deserving of anything?
When he hit me? None of you. You egged him on because it was funny to all of you.
And now you want me to help avenge him?" I throw my head back, laughing at his stupid behavior. "Yeah, don’t count on it."
His hand wraps around my upper arm so quickly I've got no chance of stepping back. He pulls me closer to him, holding me in a bruising grip.
"Bring him to us. Or the next body they'll find in the trailer park will be yours, bitch."
A touch. That’s all it takes to break my confidence. It triggers something inside me again.
My whole body goes on high alert, failing me as the alarm bells ring and I feel the fear take over. My blood feels thicker, my limbs heavier, and I’m incapable of moving, let alone defending myself.
"If you want me that badly, all you have to do is ask. But I'll warn you, I don't tend to call back once I've fucked you. So think twice before giving me your virginity." Achilles's mocking voice is a wave of relief as it crashes over me.
Bennett lets me go like I never existed, turning to him instead.
I stumble back a little from the gesture and finally look at Achilles.
There’s a cigarette between his fingers, and smoke billowing around him.
His eyes are stuck on something. On me. More precisely, on my arm.
And when my gaze drops, I notice the bruise starting to form.
Achilles tilts his head, a brief look of worry creasing his eyebrows before it switches back to his casual demeanor.
"Pretty Nyx," he says with his smooth voice. "I'd come to take you to lunch. Why don't you get in the car while I finish over here? And pick what you want to eat too."
"Why don't we just both leave?" I say tentatively, now eyeing Bennett's hand as it goes to the back of his jeans. "We'll leave, Bennett," I tell the asshole who broke my car.
Achilles's eyes finally leave my arm, and he smiles at me. That exact fucking smile we all hate. Never quite reaching his eyes, always hiding something.
"I don’t think so, baby. Get in the car."
He drops his cigarette, crushing it under his barely tied Dr. Marten.
"Please," I insist. I just want us safe. "Achilles, this isn’t SFU; it's not the South Bank. You're far from where you grew up. People who look for trouble die."
"Don't try to save him, Nyx." Bennett snorts. "He's already a dead man."
Bennett slowly pulls out his gun, pointing it at Achilles's chest.
"Put that shit away," I hiss, looking around us.
There's not much in the empty parking lot, especially since The Basement is underground, so there are no windows on the main floor.
There are a couple of guys leaning against a car, probably dealing.
The second they see what's going on, they get in their car and disappear.
None of their business, why would they get involved? And so what if someone dies?
Instead of recoiling, Achilles takes a step closer to Bennett. And another one until he's pressing his chest against the muzzle of the gun.
"Achilles," I panic, chest seizing. "What are you doing?"
"No one cares about murder in the middle of the day around here, rich boy. I'll kill you."
"Or so you keep saying. And I'm waiting," Achilles answers lazily. "Or did you want to make sure your other friends are with you just in case?"
For the first time since I've known Bennett, I see his hand tremble as he holds the gun. Achilles doesn't miss it either.
"Ah. It's hard to make decisions without Chase, isn't it? That's why you always cut the head off the snake first. Then it's fun to watch all the little boys run around wondering what to do next."
My heart thrashes against my ribcage as I wonder what kind of suicidal move he's pulling. Bennett presses against his chest, finger on the trigger, but nothing happens.
"Are you wondering what happens when someone as important as I am is murdered?" Achilles keeps taunting him. "How badly in trouble you'll get? How many cops I have in my pocket? If you'll ever see the light of day again?" He shakes his head. "You won't."
He slowly wraps his hand around the barrel of the gun. "You don't know me, and that's a shame. Or you'd know I'm the most suicidal motherfucker around. Kill me for all I care. Then you'll be thrown in jail, and it'll be one less man putting his hands on my girlfriend."
The way he says his last sentence makes me swallow back any fear for him. He's not scared, at all. If anything, I'm the one who should be scared by the obsession in his voice when he says the word girlfriend.
"Kill me, Bennett," Achilles sing-songs mockingly like the psycho he is.
It's not a gangster facing a rich guy out of his depth anymore. It's a lost boy in front of a complete psychopath who's not scared of anything. Not even his own death.
When Achilles presses his chest harder against the gun, Bennett drops his hand, taking a step back.
"You know," Achilles chuckles. "Chase squealed like a pig when I slit his throat. I wonder what noise you'll make when I get you alone."
For someone usually so big and threatening, Bennett makes himself ridiculously small as Achilles places his hand at the back of my neck to guide me toward the car. Not a fear in the world that he's turning his back to a criminal holding a gun.
"In you go."
Too shocked to utter a single word, I sit in the passenger seat and watch him as he opens the driver's door.
"One last thing," he calls out to Bennett.
Still outside the car, he reaches for something under his seat, and I'm too slow to comprehend what it is until he's pointing a gun at Bennett.
In a voice so cold the air could freeze around us, he says, "That's for the bruise on her arm."
The shot resonates loudly in the quiet lot, followed within a millisecond by my gasp. In the middle of the day, Achilles Duval shoots the man who hurt me.
But he didn’t kill him.
Bennett’s screeching, holding his left arm to his chest as he curls into a fetal position on the ground.
"Don't move, mon trésor," Achilles says as I watch him walk back to Bennett with wide eyes.
I'm shell-shocked, incapable of moving or saying anything.
Achilles helps him up, and Bennett has no choice but to lean on him as he keeps crying out.
"Fuck, man…fuck…" he whimpers as Achilles puts him in the back seat of his car.
"You'll be fine," Achilles answers simply as he gets in the driver's seat. "I'll take you to a hospital."
"I'm bleeding out," he cries. "Shit! Motherfucker!"
"Tsk. So rude."
I feel like I'm back to my teenage years, when crime would happen all around me, especially at North Shore High, and I’d just try to make myself as small as possible.
My thighs are tensing, my legs pressed against each other.
I reach for bubblegum in my bag, popping it in my mouth before rubbing my hands together anxiously.