Chapter 70 #2
“When are you going to learn—” I hit him in the knee with the steel bar, spinning around and stabbing it into his other side when he leaned forward. “Treat women with some fucking respect.”
Blood splattered from Victor’s mouth. I raised the bar again and brought it down on his face like a golf club. His head shot backward, revealing the key strung up around his neck.
“I’ll take that.” I ripped the key off his neck and swung the steel down between his legs. “Thanks!”
Victor growled with rage as he darted back to the stalls and shoved the door open.
“You need to run,” I told Quinntessa as I unlocked her ankles and unraveled the chains. “I’ll give you a signal and?—”
Her bloodshot eyes glared at me. She ripped my pocket knife out and shook her head.
“I’m not running. My father has made me run all my life, and I’m done running from people,” she breathed, her voice hoarse from screaming.
My fingers wrapped around her wrist. I challenged her decision with slitted eyes.
“If you think for a second I’m going to let my girl fight my battles?—”
“Listen here, girl.” Quinntessa yanked me down by my shirt collar. “If you think I’m going to date your complicated ass after you let me—a woman—die, you’re very wrong. I will tackle you so fucking hard, your skinny little butt is?—”
I grabbed her by the front of her throat and kissed Quinntessa deeply.
“Fuck, do I love it when you curse at me,” I growled, pecking at her lips once more before releasing her. “Come on. Stay behind me.”
“No,” she spat, though she shuffled behind me.
Quinntessa leaned into me as we stood. I felt her grip the back of my pants as I threw the stall door open.
Milo tumbled to the concrete. He tried to stand back up, but his father grabbed him by the neck and brought his fist down into his face repeatedly.
I didn’t have time to run over and help. Victor was standing back up, gun in hand. My feet flew forward when the barrel pointed in our direction.
There was a time Olivia and D’arcy convinced me to do tennis over the summer.
It was one of the worst experiences of my life.
Not because I didn’t enjoy cute girls in skirts and hitting balls with rackets—no, it was because of my papa making fun of me every day for doing something invaluable with my life.
That man sat on his ass any day he wasn’t picking on me. Sure, he had a few surgeries here and there, but besides criminals, there weren’t many people willing to get full facial reconstruction surgeries around here. Criminals needed to hide their faces, not regular small-town folk.
Victor came back around mid-scream. I didn’t register what bullshit he spewed before a knife was thrusted into his chest. He shot the gun out of instinct.
“Oh, my God,” Quinntessa whimpered, yanking the knife out and tumbling back into my chest. Her eyes widened as Victor spewed blood. “I just wanted to watch Glee and eat cake.”
I wasn’t going to say I told her so . . .
“Don’t look. Don’t look.” I covered her eyes.
We were close enough that his cough spewed blood in our direction. I winced as Quinntessa’s freckles partnered with blood droplets. I wrapped my arms around her and turned her away from Victor so she wouldn’t have to watch him drown in his own blood.
“I take it back!” Quinntessa covered her eyes and hid behind the lip of the tall trough. “I’m not built for the streets!”
“I could have told you that!” I picked up Victor’s gun and turned it onto Anton.
She shrieked when Anton’s bullet hit the water basin, the hole bleeding with bloody water directly onto Victor. He fell to his knees, the man who taunted me growing up about the littlest of things, and slumped to the floor.
Milo dragged himself up from the floor and sucker punched his father across the face. A loud crack sounded as his knuckles made contact. He grunted as his father turned and shot him in the stomach, and he fell back to the floor.
I raised my gun to shoot him, but a burning in my shoulder made me fall back into the stall door.
“Quincy!” Quinntessa scrambled up to grab my shoulder. She pulled her hand back and took a shaky breath, seeing blood on her fingers. “You have to apply pressure!”
“Look around. I’m under pressure! Get in the stall!”
I shoved her back down as Papa pointed his gun in my direction. He fired again, and I dove, rolling over Maddox’s body.
Quinntessa thankfully listened to me—for once in her fucking life—and threw herself into the hay within the old horse stalls. When I checked in on her again, I frowned in confusion when I noticed her kicking at . . . at the air before falling violently back into the water basin.
Was she really that clumsy? You’d think a ghost was fighting her or something.
Papa shot at me again, then a third time. I hid inside a stall and let him shoot aimlessly in my direction before running out and darting in another across the way. Quinntessa would have to hold her own for now.
“Come out here and fight like a man!” he yelled, his frustration making his face turn crimson, almost the same color as the blood on his hands.
“Actually—” I jumped up and shot twice at his shoulder from behind the slightly open sliding door. “I’d rather fight like a woman.”
Papa grunted with each hit. I didn’t give him time to recover, sending a bullet one after the other.
I knew my father. He was a strong man who picked kills over skill.
It was his mistake in the end. His back slammed down to the ground, and I shot again near his head, ensuring he’d stay down with a warning.
I’d always been a better shot than my Papa.
The handgun shook violently in my fingers as I placed my combat boot on his chest. I dug my heel in and glared down at his swollen face.
My father lay before me, his hands slowly raising to mock me in a surrender position.
There was blood gushing from both wounds in his shoulder, turning his button-up shirt a deep wine.
It pained me to witness, but I reminded myself of all he’d done to my family over the years, every ounce of fear and pain he’d instilled in me from birth.
He didn’t try to escape me, at least not physically. His lips curled into a devilish smile, chest bouncing under my boot as he chuckled in short-lived amusement.
“Alright. Alright.” Papa smiled. “You’ve proven you’re worth your stars.”
I didn’t respond. The gun in my hands didn’t drop an inch, and I was trapped between struggling to breathe and fighting to hold my breath. I peered down at him until his smile drooped.
“Eleanor, get off me. We must discuss the deal we made.”
“Deal’s off,” I declared.
“Fine.” Papa rolled his eyes. “Once you wrap up your end of the deal and put the girl to sleep, then?—”
An animalistic growl ripped through my throat. I swore my eyes went black as I watched nervous ticks appear in his matching eyes.
“Eleanor.” Papa clenched his jaw. “She will destroy us. She can’t be trusted!”
“Shut up,” I hissed. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Have I taught you nothing? Have I taught you weakness?” Papa scoffed. “You had potential. You had darkness. You fought the light for so long. Vengeance. You always breathed the right of revenge. Slaying enemies, beheading animals?—”
“I said shut up!” Memories of my horrific childhood flashed by.
“The father needs you. You have disappointed our dark father once again, and you’ll never feed him enough. The devil will always find you. You’ll never become any less than garbage. Useless. Useless! You have learned nothing! Nothing!”
Papa’s hazel eyes looked just like mine—dark, deadly, and filled with so much bullshit, I knew this would never end. He’d never stop and apologize. He’d never give up. I had a gun pointed at his head, and he was blaming me for his life’s failures.
The gun was heavy in my hands. I caressed its trigger as my father’s screams rang in my ear.
He was screaming at the top of his lungs, blood pouring from his shoulders, his face bright red in anger.
When he got up, I was going to die at his hand.
He’d kill me and then hurt Quinntessa, or make me watch Quinntessa die and then kill me slowly.
He’d want me to suffer on his own timeline.
“You dare betray your father? Our dark father? You made a deal! An oath! We are your blood.” Papa tried to rip my leg off his chest, but I dug my weight into him.
“For what? Love? You would give up power to love some princess of the law? You are a princess of thieves! You are royalty. You are a true legacy!”
“She’s under my protection. I will protect her.” I gritted my teeth.
Papa laughed at my response and shook his head.
“And how do you plan on doing that? You’ve ruined any chances of earning your stars. You will be cast to the absolute bottom of?—”
“By killing my demons,” I interrupted him. “Aren’t you proud of me, Papa? You always taught me to kill my demons. To take power when I see it. To never give mercy and take what I want. Power is nothing without the spillage of blood.”
Papa’s face paled as I fixed the gun on him, all emotion on my face washing away.
“Don’t you choose that whore over your own family,” he croaked.
“Wrong. She is my family,” I snarled at his words. “And I will protect my family. Unlike you.”
“Elea—”
“This is for Momma.”
The gun in my hands exploded with vibrations. I watched the bullet crack open his skull and send his head slamming back into the ground. Blood splattered everywhere as tears fell from my eyes. My heart pounded and shrieked for mercy.
Dominik.
Another gun shot.
Anastasia.
Another gun shot.
Jamison.
Leo.
Estelle.
I would use every goddamn bullet left in this gun. I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. Even after wailing sirens hit my ears, it felt impossible to stop.
“You don’t control me!” I sobbed, my hands shaking as his voice echoed in my ears.
Every time he hit me. Every time he punished me for being less than he wanted.
Every time I watched him hit my mother. Seeing him put his hands on my child.
“I am Quincy Quintana, and you will accept me as your fucking star!”