Chapter 17
JUDE
Another one bites the dust.
Unceremoniously.
Scratch that. Preston kind of carved him the fuck up. He’s a mess of cut flesh and rotten insides spilling out on the ground of the forest.
His face is disfigured, and a knife is lodged in his right eye while the other one hangs out of its socket, dangling against the exposed bone of his cheek.
“What a fucking mess.” Kane looks at the body slumped on the ground as he sheathes his gun with a silencer in the holster strapped to his side.
The three of us are dressed in black, but Kane is the only one without any splashes of blood on his face or hands.
I’m wearing gloves, but I felt the warmth splattering my neck when I stabbed the scum earlier.
Preston kneels by his handiwork and pokes the corpse on the forehead as if checking for any sign of the life he snuffed out with his bare hands.
When the dead man doesn’t even flinch, Preston grins maniacally, blood streaking his hair like red highlights, staining his teeth, forming rivulets down his face and dripping from his chin.
“You mean a masterpiece.” He flicks the handle of his knife that’s lodged in the man’s eye, making it wobble, then taps his scraped cheek. “You were a good sport, number ten.”
I cross my arms, standing beside Kane and looking down at him. “I remember telling you not to kill my targets, Pres.”
“Finders killers.”
“It’s finders keepers.”
“I meant it the other way. Shut it.” He jumps up, stretching and cracking his neck, still wearing his manic expression like a second skin.
He’s high.
While Preston does love the chase and the high of killing, he doesn’t usually carve them the fuck up as if he has a personal issue with them.
The last time he did this was with that scum teacher we killed at twelve at the boarding school after Kane and I found him sexually assaulting Pres.
Kane punched the teacher, and I held him down, then gave Preston a knife to take his own revenge. He stabbed him in the eyes. Over and over again. Then in the throat.
It was a bloody mess and the three of us looked like extras in a cheap snuff film afterward.
However, the huge smile on Pres’s face was worth it. Especially compared to the dead look in his eyes when we first found him.
Naturally, Kane and I got punished by our dads.
Preston, however, started his unconventional journey with mental illness diagnoses, ranging from antisocial personality disorder to bipolar, psychosis, and a basket full of issues in between.
He was ping-ponged between several clinical psychiatrists who worked for Vencor and was given several experimental medications, courtesy of my father and Julian, until he finally, only recently—and by recently, I mean since we started college—got himself under control for the most part.
I say for the most part because he relapses sometimes.
Kane and I always make sure he’s not alone, because his depressive episodes are brutal, and the last time he went through one, the last year of high school, he threw himself off the roof of the Armstrong mansion and fractured multiple bones. He was lucky he didn’t hit his head and die.
He also tends to be excessively violent and unpredictable, which is why I prefer he joins me on my personal vendetta hunts than go and stab a random person on the street just because they got in his way.
Or supervise Vencor members on their missions, then become theatrical and put them and himself in danger.
It happened last week, when he chopped up the mayor’s aide into tiny pieces, then sent them to the mayor. Yes, the aide did betray Vencor, but the mayor was the one who reported him.
In Preston’s words, “He needs the visual so he doesn’t think of doing anything funny.”
He got punished for that by the organization by being whipped seventy-five times.
Kane and I volunteered to take twenty-five each despite Pres’s objections.
Not only because he would have become a drama king during the recovery period, but, really, we needed to remind him of the consequences of his actions, because they truly seem to fly over his head most of the time.
Despite his constant threats to go find new friends, Kane and I know we’re the most important people in Pres’s life, and as his friends, we have to keep him in check. Which is why I’ve been shadowing him ever since that incident.
I still don’t like that he kills my victims, but tonight’s particular scum was an elementary school teacher who’s facing allegations of sexually assaulting his students. And while nothing was official, the accusations were enough for Pres to go all out.
He wraps an arm around Kane’s neck. “I’m hungry. Make me a mean meatball pasta with lots of carbs that has the potential to send me into a coma.”
“I’m not your chef.” Kane removes Preston’s bloody hand. “And don’t get that dirty blood on me.”
Preston slides his fingers all over Kane’s face, smirking. “There. Much better.”
“You little—”
“Juude,” Preston whines, running toward me, then hiding behind me.
“Just leave him alone,” I tell Kane, resisting a smile at the view of the bloody marks on his face. “You look better like this anyway.”
“Right?” Preston jumps to my side. “Less put together and more like us. I keep creating masterpieces today. Bow down to me, peasants, muahaha.”
“Speaking of masterpieces,” Kane says, tilting his head. “Are we not going to address the fact that one name is still missing from your list of targets, Jude?”
I tense up, but my expression remains neutral. “I told you that’s none of your business.”
“But I want to play.” Preston punches his palm. “Hockey season is taking too long to start, and I’m bored.”
I shove him away with an index finger to his forehead. “Go and participate in the murders with Vencor members. Without drawing attention.”
“But that’s boring! We can only torture for answers, and we’re not allowed to get gory, because it’s too messy to clean up, and my family would be up in my business like bored housewives.
My witch of a grandmother told my dad that I need to be admitted to the mental institution after my harmless fun last week.
Apparently, I’m a liability to the Armstrong name.
Did I mention I despise her? Anyway, I prefer this.
” He headlocks both of us. “The three musketeers doing their own thing, with me as the reigning god, of course.”
I elbow his side and Kane punches his stomach at the same time. He wails dramatically as he releases us. “My talents are not appreciated in this toxic friendship. I need to find me a new gang and throw you all under a yacht.”
“It’s under a bus, Pres.” I sigh.
“I mean a yacht, so you’d be chopped up by the propellers. And you’re not changing the subject, Jude. What’s come of this mystery number seven?”
I flick his forehead. “None of your concern.”
“Suspicious.”
“So are your recent frequent trips outside of town, but you don’t see me commenting on that.”
“I’m fucking my stepmom’s friend!” He makes a motion of slapping the air. “Amazing ass. Gives great head and will give my stepmommy a stroke when she finds out.”
“That’s, like, the worst idea you’ve ever come up with,” Kane says. “And most of your ideas are shit.”
“Nah, this one will really get to her, I’m telling you.
” He bursts out laughing, clutching his stomach.
“Oh my, fuck, I’m getting high just imagining the shock on her face.
” His excitement immediately dies down. “And the usual sighs from Dad. I think he doesn’t care what the fuck I do anymore.
I could be found rotting somewhere, and he’d just sigh. Maybe in relief this time.”
“It’s better that way.” I slap his shoulder. “Regis is too involved in my business. Asshole locked me the fuck up in my room for a whole week, making me have dinner with him every night just because I ignored him for a while.”
“The for a while being since your mom died.” Kane sighs. “But yeah, Pres. Grant’s idea of attention is making me hang from the ceiling for a whole night while dousing me with ice showers.”
“I’d take the locking up and forced dinners over sighs.
” Preston lifts a shoulder, his expression aimed downward, but then he perks up.
“Just kidding. Hate the guy more than his wife. Anyway, let’s eat!
Then how about some late-night training?
That wasn’t a question. You’re coming. Let me get Hayes to clean up the mess.
” He jogs ahead, calling in a singsong voice, “Haaayes, where are youuu? Show yourself, my miiiinion.”
I watch him for a while and then turn to Kane, who also has his full attention on Preston.
“Fucking prick,” I mutter. “Thought he was spiraling for a second.”
“He was for a bit there, I think.” Kane sighs again, dragging his gaze toward me. “Pretty sure he’s either not taking his medication or not taking them properly.”
“He is.” I run a hand through my hair. “I make sure of it every day. It’s just…”
Kane is facing me fully now, the frown appearing monstrous with the blood. “Just what?”
“It’s not working anymore, or it’s losing its effect. The psychiatrist doubled the dose, so we’ll see how that works.”
“Fuck.”
Silence stretches between us for a bit, only punctuated by a distant owl’s cry and the heaviness of the uncertainty of what will become of Preston. Kane and I have been his only non-enablers in his environment.
Which isn’t comforting, considering we’re not your average college kids.
If we hadn’t always been keeping Pres busy and watching over him, he would’ve ended up in a grave a long time ago. And now that the meds are barely keeping him in check, it’s a problem.
A huge problem.
And it’s probably behind the tension lodged in my bones lately. Because I refuse to fail to protect Preston as well.
That just won’t be fucking happening.
“Can your brother work on something innovative?” Kane breaks the silence. “He’s been testing all these off-the-record drugs lately, surely he can tailor something for Pres that’s better than what he’s on.”