Chapter 48
Chapter forty-eight
Ride The Lightning
Maverick
Iwas like a man possessed. All reason, all mercy, all rational thought left me as I pummeled the man’s face with my fists. I saw red. I saw black. I saw nothing but memories, echoes. My own fears and insecurities flashed before my eyes in nonsensical images that drove me to punch, crush, destroy.
Another hand on my shoulder. Another echoing voice calling my name. But the beast inside of me, fighting for purchase over my sanity, sank its claws in deeper. Hurt. Fight. That’s all it wanted.
I lashed out, struck—the beast inside me winning. My gaze settled on Bad as my fist sailed through the air.
Only he caught my hand easily and dragged me into an embrace. Not so much a hug as a smothering hold meant to starve the flames of my rage of the oxygen that sent them burning out of control.
“You got him, boy. He’s done.” Bad’s deep, gravelly voice grated in my ears, cutting through the haze of rage blazing within me.
But it wouldn’t break. Not completely. Not quite. “Ain’t done yet.” I ground out. My voice. It sounded different. Almost like someone else was talking.
Bad’s voice was soft in my ear, yet stern, hard. “You keep goin’, he’s gonna die.”
“Good,” I grunted, the wild, feral part of me still struggling for a hold. I needed to kill that man. The reason for the beast inside me. The reason for a lifetime of torment. A lifetime of pain.
“If he dies, you gotta one way ticket to prison. Who’s gonna take care of Cheyenne? The baby?” Bad shoved me back enough to look at me, his hazel eyes boring into my own.
Cheyenne… The baby.
Something shifted in me then. Broke. Tore loose. I looked down at what I’d done. At Nate. At the bleeding, sobbing, broken man that I had almost killed. Not the one with eyes the same color as mine.
“It ain’t him, son,” Bad said softly, his hand on my shoulder. “It ain’t him.”
The air left my lungs in an explosive whoosh, chased out by sobs of grief as I realized what had driven me to nearly commit murder.
Oh, God.
I backed away from Bad, shaking as my gaze dipped to my hands. My knuckles were already swelling up, my fingers caked in blood. Tears flooded and blurred my vision as I inhaled a shaky breath and looked up slowly to meet my uncle’s unrelenting stare.
“That ain’t him, and you ain’t either.” Bad pulled me in once more, pressing his forehead to mine. “It’s over Maverick. Just let it go. It’s over.”
Shame and guilt filled me, wrenching the air from my lungs and making my knees weak.
What had I done?