Chapter 20
CHAPTER 20
BETH
O ne of the masked men tosses a full-grown man, duct-taped and hog-tied into the van, his body tumbling as he screams into the duct tape covering his mouth.
“Help!” the man bellows into his gag, and I stare at him. Maybe this is a hallucination?
Everyone piles back into the van, and the one in the driver’s seat–possibly Oisin–speeds away from this…kidnapping? Is that what’s happening?
“Butterfly, look at me,” Nigel mutters as he sits beside me and pulls off his mask. My gaze jumps between the gagged and bound man and Nigel. A mixture of confusion and disbelief muddles my thoughts. “Look. At. Me,” he demands, and my eyes snap back to him, gulping down my ball of nerves.
“Who is that?” I ask, my voice trembling slightly.
“It’s Tan Tan!” Charlie says, peeling off his mask before throwing it at their victim. “Ain’t that right, Tan Tan? It’s your last ride, Tan Tan.”
“Stop calling the fucker Tan Tan,” Oliver growls as he shoots daggers at Charlie.
“It will catch on eventually. Beth will definitely remember the name Tan Tan,” Charlie jokes before winking at me, but my playfulness has completely drained.
“Tanner Vaughn,” Oliver says before Ronan elbows Charlie in the gut to shut him up. “He was a math teacher at the high school two years ago until he was arrested. He was released earlier today from prison.”
My brain whirls from whatever is happening here.
“Do you wanna know what the sick fucker did?” Oliver asks, with an antagonizing energy about him, but I get the feeling it's whatever Tanner Vaughn did that put him in this mood.
“Ollie, stop,” Nigel warns as his arm tightens around my waist, but Oliver glances briefly at him before moving his eyes back to me.
“Tanner’s ex-wife filed for divorce and was awarded everything, including custody of their daughter, Ana, but his ex-wife was gracious. She elected to give him three out of four weekends a month. She only took the second weekend, so Ana might have some type of normalcy, still getting a decent amount of time with her dad.”
Oliver pauses for a moment but then kicks Tanner in the face, the man crying like a baby.
What do you know…maybe even psychopaths have feelings.
He takes a seat as Tanner wails on the floor.
“He got his first weekend and didn’t take Ana home to her mother. Instead, Bianca–the ex-wife–had to go to the hospital for her daughter because her father savagely beat, raped and sodomized the poor child. They had to stitch her back up. She was only five years old and this piece of shit only got two years behind bars because he was released early for good behavior.” Oliver is highly affected in his speech, even though his expression seems impassive. He’s trying to hide it, but he hates Tanner for what he did to Ana.
“I didn’t!” Tanner screams through his gag as he thrashes on the ground.
What kind of twisted fuck does something like that to their own daughter?
“What happened to her?” I ask, my words barely over a whisper. “Ana…what happened after that?”
All eyes fall on me, including Tanner’s pleading eyes. I have no sympathy for him. The only ones who seem to understand why I ask are Oliver and Nigel. I feel Nigel's eyes as I hold Oliver's gaze.
I locked the incident away so I wouldn’t think about it, but maybe that little girl has the answer for how to move on, how to get over it.
“She was traumatized, for fuck sake. What do you think happens to a little kid that goes through something like that? Her mother had no choice but to put her into an RTC program for abused children. The little girl is afraid to leave, afraid her father will return and finish the job.”
I flinch from his words.
Okay, so maybe he didn't actually understand why I was asking.
Nigel glares at Oliver and kicks his leg as if to tell him to stop talking, but everything is clear now.
Justice didn’t get served for Ana Vaughn, and the Bastards are taking that justice into their own hands. This isn’t a punishment. It’s an execution. Nigel didn’t want me to get out of the van because, if I did, I could be considered a suspect in this pedophile’s murder.
The Bastards don’t punish people who break their rules. They kill them.
* * *
When we return to the warehouse, Nigel lets me get out of the van, which surprises me. I’m still in a bit of a haze as I walk inside while Charlie and Oliver do a mixture of dragging and carrying Tanner Vaughn inside Warehouse Five. The prick yanks and tugs on his restraints as he screams for mercy.
At this point, I’m kind of numb, but I know I’ll be able to process all of this later. Right now, I just need to mentally prepare myself for witnessing Nigel, Oliver, and their friends commit murder.
I’m really worried about my moral compass right now. I won't be surprised if there is an undiagnosed mental illness since my dad was always giving me an array of tests, like he was trying to figure out why I was different. He always seemed stumped after those tests. Once he said, "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were on the road to psychopathy."
I lean against the wall as Oliver undoes the duct tape and Charlie restrains the pedophile with taxing effort. Ronan has to assist poor Charlie in keeping the man still while Oliver grabs a piece of rope dangling from a hook hanging from the ceiling. It looks very similar to the kind I’ve seen in butcher shops on TV.
Oliver binds Tanner’s hands with the rope, making sure it's extra tight, before forcing the bind over the hook so he’s hanging like a split pig.
Nigel walks up to Tanner, hesitating as he looks my way before ripping the duct tape right off Tanner’s mouth. I cringe from the symphony of skin being shredded by the sticky strip.
Tanner screams as his eyes snap around, crazed with fear.
“Please, please, miss!” he cries out, and my head snaps in his direction as all eyes fall on me. “Help me! They’re crazy. I didn’t do anything to my little girl. I love her. Please, believe me.”
For some unknown reason, they let him speak and don’t interrupt him at all. Instead, they stand back, watching my reaction closely.
I slowly stroll over to the dangling man, carefully observing his reactions and expressions as they change with the breeze. My eyes dart across his face.
I might consider him handsome if I was in my thirties. He doesn’t look how I imagined a pedophile would, but how do you pick a pedophile out of a lineup? If there is anything you’re taught growing up about predators, it’s that they are always the people you least expect and the people closest to you. Who is closer to a little girl than her father? I was close with mine, but one thing for certain is that my dad never would’ve done what this prick did.
Poor Ana Vaughn probably has paralyzing nightmares about her experience. I’m surprised her mother didn’t kill him for what he did, but then she would’ve violated the rules, and poor Ana would be an orphan. Who better to protect her from the world’s evils than her mother?
I shove my hands in my jacket pockets and silently breathe, watching his pleading, deceptive eyes. Then, I kick him straight between the legs so hard I feel a crunch where my foot lands.
Practically feeling the guys cringe around me, Tanner bellows in agony as he thrashes against his restraints.
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I help you,” I hiss contemptuously. “Not even the Holy Spirit will help you. God doesn’t look kindly upon those who mess with children, and I’m pretty sure incest is a sin.” I turn on my heels and walk toward my prospective spot, but I stop short when Tanner’s voice booms.
“You fucking bitch! I’m going to destroy you.”
And the innocent mask drops. That’s how it usually goes with narcissists. Once they realize they aren’t going to manipulate their way out of a situation, they throw a grown-up-sized tantrum.
I’ve been called much worse than a bitch, so his words don’t bother me, but I’m also not the one who looks absolutely murderous.
At that moment, I notice the small table next to Tanner full of torture devices. My blood runs cold as Oliver grabs a knife off the table and presses it to Tanner’s throat, silencing him instantly. All color drains from Tanner’s face as his body stiffens.
The anger radiating off Oliver even has me shuddering and the look on his face is absolutely menacing.
“Don’t…you ever…threaten her…again. If you do, I’ll make this last all night. I will separate your flesh from your bones and show you what it's like to smell your skin burning. I will remove your eyelids, place you in front of a mirror, and force you to watch as I dissect your body to maximize your pain. I’ll make it last all night, Vaughn. Do I make myself clear?” he growls in his face.
The way the sound reverberates throughout the warehouse has the heat in my belly transforming into a full-blown fire. The flames lick up my spine and down my legs as I watch the town psychopath go absolutely feral in my honor.
I haven't gotten turned on since yesterday, which is a big deal, but that did it. I'm soaking through my panties and my jeans. My pussy is screaming for the beast to get over here and fuck me before he destroys Tanner Vaughn, but I think I'm the only one who hears it.
I know I’m a bit sick in the head to be turned on by this, but it’s my sex drive, and I own it. I like when Oliver gets all violent, especially when it has something to do with me. It’s his possessive and commanding energy that gets to me. My insides melt and purr in unison and all for the psycho that isn't the one who's bed I'm forced to occupy.
* * *
Tanner Vaughn is dead, or at least I think he is. The man hasn’t moved in ten minutes, just dangling from his restraints, red lines dripping from his flesh. The floor is drenched in blood below him, but most of it flows toward the drain in the floor ten feet away from him.
This was all Oliver’s doing. It was his rodeo. For some reason, he seemed to take this way more seriously than I expected. I can only assume that Ana Vaughn means something to him or possibly her mother, Bianca. Maybe they’re a part of his family?
Or… It’s because Tanner Vaughn threatened me. I saw the absolute rage that filled his normally dead eyes the moment the pedophile screamed in my direction. I don’t think I’ve ever seen murder written so clearly on someone’s face before.
Oliver did way worse to Tanner than I’ve ever seen happen in any horror movie, but this wasn’t a movie. This was real. Oliver did all of those things, including cutting off Tanner’s dick and forcing him to eat it. That almost made a few of the guys sick, but not me.
I witnessed Oliver Doyle brutally murder a man and I barely flinched. Some truly demented and depraved part of my soul got off on witnessing the town psychopath in his element. Listening to Tanner’s screams of agony was just a bonus.
I was captivated by Oliver’s savagery and the way he sliced and burned Vaughn’s flesh. I couldn’t look away, and I don’t know what that says about me.
It isn’t until the others leave and I’m left there staring at Nigel that everything sinks in.
He's a killer. He’s the non-canon love child of Batman and The Joker, a vigilante hero who would go to the lengths the green-haired devil would. All of the Bastards are.
This, right here, is the cost of breaking the rules. People who don’t follow the rules must pay with their lives. He brought me along tonight so I would see this and know if I told him the truth, my mom would never be able to hurt me again–if I told anyone what he did to me, this is what he would go through.
I love my mom. She may have become someone I don’t recognize, but I know the woman who raised me. I could never put her in danger, especially when I know how bad the danger is and…the same goes for Nigel.
Nigel doesn’t say a word as I stand rooted to the spot. He doesn’t even seem to notice me as he grabs an entire bottle of bleach from the floor and twists off the cap, dumping the whole bottle over the pool of blood on the floor.
Ronan, Charlie, Oisin and Oliver have already removed Tanner’s body and wrapped him up in a tarp before leaving with it. The only evidence left that anything happened here is being destroyed by Nigel. He stands by as the blood turns lighter and lighter as it mixes with the bleach and trickles down the drain.
My nose burns from the scent of the bleach and I cover my nostrils to stop the burn. I need to go outside and get away from the fumes before something terrible happens.
How often does it come up to tell someone that you are deathly allergic to bleach?
I rush out the open door and fall to my knees, trying to drag as much clean air into my lungs as possible, but it’s already too late. I inhaled the fumes.
The burning of my nose and throat turns into full-on flames as I sputter, clutching at my throat.
My access to breathable air diminishes until there’s nothing left for me to grasp, and the realization hits me. I’m going to fucking die if I can’t get to my EpiPen. I can barely see, and I won’t be able to get to the truck fast enough.
“Beth!” I hear Nigel calling my name as I grip my throat. If I could, I would tear the flesh open just to get a single breath and be able to tell him what I need.
If you can talk, you can breathe. Thanks a lot, Einstein.
That’s what Shawn used to always say about his panic attacks.
I open my mouth to try and force something out, but not even a squeak comes through.
This is it, isn’t it? I’m going to die outside this warehouse at only eighteen. On the bright side, at least Nigel is here with me. I'm not alone.
His fingers graze my cheek as my head spins, and I wonder how many more heartbeats I have left.
Then, I feel the hard prick on my arm, one I know pretty well.
My EpiPen. Nigel figured out what was wrong, and he… saved me.
The way movies portray it is grossly inaccurate. It isn’t instant relief but a slow loosening of the airway. I try to drag in more air, but my throat protests.
Nigel pulls me into his arms, and I hold on tight to him as I focus on his breathing, using it to ground me until I can breathe better.
“I’ve got you, butterfly,” he whispers, and I nearly cry at the burst of emotion in my chest.
“You…figured…” I struggle to push the words out with my raw and inflamed throat. “...it…out.”
“It wasn’t hard. You were turning red and clutching your throat. Good thing I had an EpiPen in the truck.”
He didn’t grab the one out of my bag?
“What did it?” he asks, his voice soft and disarming.
“Bleach,” I rasp as his fingers run through my hair, helping to soothe me.
“You’re allergic to the smell of bleach?”
I could explain myself if my throat wasn’t in such agony. I could tell him that we’ve never had the allergy conversation, so there’s no way he would know something like this would happen.
He presses his mouth to the top of my head before sighing. “Any other allergies I should be aware of? I’d hate to nearly kill you again.”
I almost laugh, but the pain in my throat stops me and I shake my head.
“Good. Since we’re on the subject, I’m allergic to potatoes.”
My eyes widen in shock. Did he say… potatoes ? That’s a first. I’ve never heard of anyone being allergic to potatoes. That means Nigel has never had french fries or anything else that requires potatoes. That sucks. I love potatoes.
“It’s not a life-threatening allergy, baby. Not like yours.”
Even though my body is weaker than a limp noodle, Nigel lifts me and tries to help me walk to the truck, but it’s impossible. I almost died, and my body hasn’t completely recovered from that cliff. He lifts me into his arms and sets me into the truck cab before closing the door. I can’t even summon the energy to put on my seatbelt.
There was only one other time this happened to me and I was a baby, so I don’t remember the effects it had on me. I’ve never felt so weak and unable to care for myself. It’s the most embarrassing thing ever, feeling like I have to depend on someone else to take care of me.