Raylene Walker
T he night was cold. The air was silent. And the only sound that pierced that silence was the sound his gun.
Another empty bullet. Another sob. He wasn’t really sure if she was breathing anymore. But she was crying. So maybe she was alive.
He clicked his tongue and shoved his gun closer, making her cry out in surprise. He shifted the gun and placed it under her chin, using it to lift her head so he could peer into her eyes. Those honey eyes that were once filled with so much vigor, so much rebellion, were nothing but fearful now. Afraid.
He couldn’t help the satisfaction as another sob rocked her body when he crouched down on his knees. He snatched his gun back, and her chin that had been resting on it snapped back down. She was on her knees, her hands bound tightly behind her, her shirt torn to reveal the bruises his men had barely managed to land as she’d fought them off. All that strength, all that courage, where was it now that she finally faced him?
Instead, her head hung low, her entire body shaking as she tried and failed to stifle her sobs. It annoyed a part of him, that she was sitting here, crying, while his niece had been the one to suffer. And yet, there was a larger part that relished her sobs like a personal triumph.
It was me. I brought down the great .
I was the one to break her.
“What do you want from me?” her helpless rasp brought forth another wave of satisfaction, “I haven’t done anything .”
“Exactly. ”
Her head snapped up. But he only scoffed, looking down at the girl he’d once loved as if she were his own daughter. A mistake he was going to rectify now.
“What are you saying?” her voice was rough, but it lacked its usual bite. He threw his head back then, barking out a gruff laugh before snapping his head back down to stare at her. He saw as she curved further into herself at the malice in his eyes.
“I heard from my brother.” He said, making sure to keep his tone quiet, but no less deadly. They called for her every flinch, “that it was you who was responsible for Lia’s death.”
“What?” she breathed, and a flicker of fear died in her eyes, lighting a spark of fire in its wake. He despised that flame, “I didn’t push her down the stairs. She committed suicide.”
Her words tumbled out in a rush, and they seemed to stroke his annoyance at her obliviousness.
“She was murdered .” He growled, and she flinched back, shaking her head, new tears running down her cheeks as she whispered.
“No.”
“Yes,” he purred and twirled the gun in his hand, “She was hunted by the enemies you made.”
“Enemies?” she whispered, so timid. So quiet.
“My brother told me everything. About your foolish plans, about your nightly escapades to the local arena. And how you managed to make enemies out of people that were never meant to be messed with.”
His voice shook desperately when she said her next words,
“I never–”
Whack .
Her head snapped to one end dangerously, a loud snap filling the air, as she gasped. As she started sobbing through her teeth again and he shook out his burning palm. His eyes twitched in annoyance,
“Don’t lie Raylene.” He snarled, and she cried harder, shrinking away from him, “The night you were gone, they came in search of you. Guess who they found instead?”
Her cries were so loud now that he could slowly feel the red seeping from the corner of his eyes.
“What enemies?” she managed between her sobs, her entire body convulsing. She didn’t look up, not once as she asked again, “Please Cole,” she rasped, “Who was it?”
He scoffed.
“The Santos. Or that Alessandro, the one who leads the motherfucking Lions. It was one of the two.” He said, his gun shifting in his hands as he looked up at the ceiling. Grinned like a bloody maniac before snapping his neck down at the quiet girl in front of him. Her sobs were so subdued that he couldn’t even hear her anymore. His head cocked to one end maliciously,
“ Scared, Walker ?” he taunted and laughed when she didn’t say a word, didn’t even shake, “You know you don’t mess with the Lions.”
He dropped his voice to a deadly whisper,
“Because just when you begin to trust them,” his smirk edged as she remained still and quiet, “They rip out your fucking throat.”
It was quiet for an entire minute.
An entire minute of waiting so his words sunk in deep. Hit right where they wanted to. But she remained so still. So quiet.
Was she fucking dead ?
And just when he was about to ask her another question, he heard it. It made him blink in surprise. Question his very sanity. Because right before him, lying battered and ruined on the ground, Raylene fucking Walker started laughing.
Cole flinched back so fast, he almost fell to the ground. He scrambled back in surprise. Not as Raylene shook on the ground, her head touching her knees as her shoulders shook, her lips parted in maniacal laughter.
“The fuck?” he snapped and rushed back ahead, shoving his gun back into her forehead and jerking her into a sitting position roughly. She was still laughing when he slammed her against the walls and dug the gun into her scalp,
“Shut the fuck up.” He snarled, but she just laughed harder. On her knees, with her entire body bleeding and injured, and just laughed like a delirious bitch . Chills awakened on his hands. He let out a harsh breath and was about to shoot her brains out just when those unamused honey eyes snapped right to his.
“That was cute–”
Slam!
Her head snapped to one end, a dangerous sound as he stumbled away from her with the bloody gun in his hands. For a moment she went utterly silent. Smile dropping, eyes widening. Silent.
Then she looked up. And his entire body went still.
That gaze.
All it promised was torturous death .
“So, it was the Lions,” she whispered, tugging at her bonds. Cole scoffed, even as a terrible feeling climbed up his spine, his stomach dropping .
He could hear the warnings in the back of his mind like damn sirens. She’s dangerous, he could hear his brother saying, don’t provoke her, Cole.
You provoke , and you don’t get out alive.
Well, fuck him.
“You can’t get out of here, Walker.” He snarled and Raylene smiled again, looking up at him with blood dripping down from the side of her face.
“I got here because I wanted to.” She sang, quietly as if she were talking to a child, “And I’ll leave when I want to.”
“Bullshi–”
Raylene just turned her head away, and with a malicious twist to her lips spat out blood on the ground. Smeared the red by rubbing her lips against her shoulder. His hold on his gun tightened. There was a sadistic twist of her head when she sighed and looked back up. Gone was the helpless girl. Gone were the tears.
She’d played him , he realized terribly, and he’d fallen into her trap like a rat .
“You’ll keep me here?” she murmured, her head tipping sideways, “You?”
He hissed at her in response, shaking as he did so. She’s bound , he told himself, she can’t get out. I can kill her. She grimaced as he leered closer to her face, forcing that glimpse of rage of the lightest courage to rise in his eyes. It didn’t seem to matter though.
“I got you here, didn’t I?” he said, and she raised her brows. This close he could see her dead eyes flicker with a promise of revenge. Promise of death. She didn’t open her mouth to respond.
She didn’t have to.
Everything happened within a second .
And although it seemed it was happening too fast, he felt every drop of blood in his face drain when ’s hands snapped out of her bounds with a loud rip . It was too slow for him. She didn’t even rise up.
All she did was lean back on her outstretched hands and lift her legs in the air. With all the force he couldn’t even imagine she had, she kicked him square in the chest and there he went. Flying back. Somehow, he couldn’t even bring himself to scream as he was pushed away.
When Cole slammed against the concrete walls behind him, an echoing sense of ringing started in his ears. He felt the snap of his bones, the pounding of his heart and that pain?
It exploded.
Cole gasped, his breathing harsh now as the crunch of footsteps carried themselves towards him. He groaned in the dust and looked up.
And there, right in front of him, stood Raylene. Quiet as a ghost.
Staring down at him as if he were a mere pest in her way. And just when he thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. Cole didn’t shake when his throat threw up a sticky substance up his lips. Didn’t even flinch when a sudden roaring began in his ears as he slowly raised his fingers to his lips.
“Oh right,” she said then, just as he brought down his fingers from his lips and saw the red coating his fingertips, “That’s me returning the favor.”
A look of horror crossed his eyes, no, no, no, no this couldn’t be happening . This cannot be happening . But it was. Because Raylene was suddenly crouching down in front of him with a grin on her face.
“You think I wouldn’t know about my own sister being murdered?”
Her voice was so soft, so quiet. But no one could ever miss the rage that simmered underneath that innocence.
Cole grit his teeth, his bloodied fingers clenching ,
“You believe that I could ever believe those foolish lies your brother spun for my mother?”
Oh god, what sort of hell had he fallen into?
“Oh, I love that expression.”
Cole shivered again, so completely useless as her laughs rendered him frozen, “You were never meant to be here, Cole.” She whispered, mocking him, “It was always meant to be your brother at the other end of my gun.”
Almost as if on cue, the cool surface of her gun pressed against his forehead. A sudden rush of hatred washed over him at her silent words, “Don’t you see that he used you as bait?”
“Don’t you understand that you were nothing but a useless brat sent to his death?”
That snapped his thread of sanity. And with the hatred coursing through his blood, Cole snarled and went right for ’s throat. Fuck this, he thought as he saw her eyes narrow. As he saw her fingers press the trigger.
When the bullet went through his head, Cole had only a second to think. Only a second to curse this entire world and damn to hell.
He wasted it to hear whisper with his blood on her face,
“You shouldn’t have come, Cole.”
And left the world like he’d never been there before.