Chapter Twenty-One
Silence presses thick and heavy through the cabin as I pull onto Main Street.
Streetlights, illuminated and bright, pepper the edge of the compressed asphalt. Businesses were closed, well past regular operational hours, and as my wheels crunch, rolling us down the road and toward the clubhouse, Devil’s Peak had never felt more like a ghost town than it does now.
Death was no longer imminent. It was here, and its scent was sickening, impossible to escape.
I swallow, reaching for the stereo, noticing how even Devil's Diner had closed in the wake of Jade’s death.
“He broke her legs, her arms, then he r-raped…”
“He snapped her neck.”
“The motherfucker just dumped her there, man. As if she was disposable.”
Laiken and Harlen’s words press my insides to my throat.
I should have kept them closer.
I adjust my jaw, feeling the ligaments pop, reaching toward the knob on the stereo again when I spot Colton’s gleaming sapphire blue truck, and Bryce’s gray one beside it, parked at the far edge of Billy’s gas station.
Bryce is at Colton’s open window, palms resting at the edge, leaning in, talking, laughing.
And as we roll closer, shadows from the back seat flicker in the gaudy blade of streetlight.
“Glass Houses” by Bad Omens comes through my speakers louder now, even though neither Harlen or I had adjusted the dial, and before I realize I’ve taken a sharp turn off the road, I’m slamming on my brakes, ripping up the handbrake and throwing open my door.
Heavy footfall comes from behind, the sharp clap of Harlen’s shoes chasing after me.
I move faster.
Colton sees me first, then Bryce, who turns at the same time I shove him out of the way.
Colton’s gaze levels on mine, and even though he isn’t smiling, I catch the way the corner of his mouth twitches.
This excited him. My presence, my fury, my loss.
“Chase, I’m so sorry about J—”
My arms fly through the open window, fists bunching up the cotton of his T-shirt, and before he can say her name, I drag him out of the window and slam him against the back one.
The shadows in the back seat flinch at the impact of Colton’s nimble body slapping against steel. He tries to talk. I don’t let him, as I bring my fist down on his jaw. Then I do it again and again, until all I see is a mess of red.
I jam my hand around his neck.
Blood is dripping from the tunnel of his now marshy mouth. It rolls down his chin, looping around my wrist.
I am numb. I can’t breathe. What happened to Jade, to Laiken, had emptied me, then filled me with something corrosive and rotten.
Colton is battling for air, his gray eyes rolling so far up in his head.
It thrilled me, had me pressing harder, had me bringing my mouth to his ear.
My voice is a raspy, unrecognizable whisper. “If you did this…” I start, and when he gasps for air, I tighten my hand around his neck, press his skull into the window harder, and feel my teeth chatter faster.
My carotid slams.
Bringing my mouth closer to his ear, something toneless follows.
“I’ll bury you alive, you hear me? Not even your corrupt piece of shit father will hear you scream.” I spit my words so quietly, leaving the weight of my promise hovering over him.
His throat spasms in my palm, and I know one more squeeze and I’ll kill him.
And I want to, I’m about to, until I feel a tap on my shoulder.
Harlen is at my back reminding me to tap out, guiding me to spare a life I don’t want to. And it takes everything inside of me to let him go; to step back.
My head squeals with static voices as I throw Colton to the ground.
And I blink through the fury, carrying myself away while an echo screams for me to turn back, to finish him now.
But a force pushes me in the other direction, thrusts me forward, tells me that despite the drugging, the beating, I may have it all wrong.
My feet move on their own, at no quicker pace than they had before, and when Harlen’s shoulder brushes across mine, I hear a noise from behind us, and even though it was muffled and quiet, I knew exactly where it was coming from.
Prideful motherfuckers like Colton James had never been able to hold their tongue.
“Keller!” he shouts, a gurgled mess.
At that, I turn to see Bryce steady Colton on his feet, only, Colton pushes him away, his knees rubbery and weak.
His cheeks are red, blood is everywhere, and apart from the damage I’d inflicted, the way Colton holds himself, with his shoulders hanging forward, tells me he is embarrassed, that I embarrassed him, and it should have felt as good as killing him, but it doesn’t.
I feel nothing.
“I’m fine, man,” Colton directs his words at Bryce, spitting a clot of blood and a tooth to the concrete.
Colton drags his eyes back, flicking his gaze over his brow line until they land on mine.
He tries stifling a smirk, and at the sight, I clench my fists, shove them into the front pockets of my jeans.
He speaks again, and this time, his words are for me.
“I am truly sorry, man,” He pushes a hand to his chest, straightens, spits on the ground again.
“What happened to your sister…” He wipes over his mouth with the back of his arm, collecting a glob of blood and saliva, shaking his head.
“That’s truly, truly fucked up,” he says each word with a heightened lilt, clicking his tongue against his back teeth.
It puts fire in my lungs.
I hold onto the flames though, the same way I hold onto the urge to rip his head from his shoulders, because the truth was, I didn’t know if Colton had done this.
He was too prideful and boastful to create such carnage in solitude.
When he beat on me, he didn’t beat on me alone. Colton liked an audience; he didn’t want to be unknown.
The monster that had done this to my sister, and to Laiken—and to the girl two years before—didn’t care for an audience. His name didn’t matter, nor did his face, it was in which state he had left them that did.
That was his stage of blood.
And something deep down in the bowels of my guts knew that while Colton was a sack of shit, he wasn’t guilty of this crime.
“We need to leave, man.” Harlen whispers.
And I spit toward the ground, knowing that if I don’t take that step forward, I’ll take one step back, and the truth was, I didn’t know if I’d be breaking Colton’s neck for Jade, or for me.
The pallid gleam from my headlights snag on the grainy and porous gray brick of Devil’s Peak MC clubhouse.
I flick them off, cut the engine to my truck and kick out my door, finding what balance I can on my feet.
Rusty and Skinner are striding toward us, and I can see Rusty’s mouth is moving but it’s as if the sound travels through water.
“What the fuck happened?”
I scratch my chin, drag my hand beneath my nose, and look at Harlen who doesn’t look at me, his eyes on the ground at his feet. I respond with a weightless shrug because the blood that coated my knuckles and my face didn’t matter, because Colton James didn’t matter.
Rusty exhales, and this time, he asks what’s important. “How is she doing?”
The question tilts my insides, and with a breath I can barely chase, I shake my head, my chin pressing to my chest. My hands are trembling; I don’t know what to do with them.
I flick my eyes up, meeting Rusty’s hazy-blue ones.
And when he asks the question again, I can hardly find enough voice to say, “The girl I used to know died last night.”
My words grind through my teeth, and I brush my thumb across the entrance of my nose when it drips, cleaning it off on the front of my jeans.
Rusty’s head falls between his shoulders, and after pushing his curls back behind his ears, reaches for my shoulder. We don’t look at each other when he grabs me, squeezing my bones tightly before stepping away, cussing beneath his breath.
Silence wraps like barbed wire around the four of us.
No one speaks again, not until Skinner moves in beside me, hitting his blunt, offering it over.
I’m still trembling when I reach for it, placing it between my cracked lips.
And when my chest fills, Skinner turns, kicking at the wheel lightly while exhaling a stream of smoke through his slightly crooked nose.
“Gonna find out who did this to your sister.” His voice is low.
I turn my head, meet his light blue eyes, see the promise in them. In every line, every scar cut across his face.
He sucks on his front teeth and shakes his head, speaking again, “He’ll know exactly how she felt.”
My skin prickles at that, fierce and sharp.
I drop my chin, take another hard pull from the blunt.
I knew Skinner meant what he said, because Skinner didn’t talk shit, he dealt with the shit.
I raise my gaze, take it to Skinner, then to Rusty, then back again. “Thanks for staying with her.”
I press my eyes closed, exhale through my nose.
Harlen had told me on the drive over here that both Rusty and Skinner hadn’t left Devil’s Tunnel until a crime scene was established. They stayed with Jade, even though she was long gone.
I owed them my life for that.
Rusty steps forward, pulls my forehead to his. Our skulls grind together. “I wish we hadn’t been too late, son.” He holds me a moment longer before stepping away.
I shiver, take another hit of the blunt, then I dart it to the ground, grinding it out. Same here.
Laiken’s broken voice echoes in the back of my head. “He broke her legs, her arms, then he r-raped…”
I flex my knuckles.
“He raped her, you know, my sixteen-year-old sister, he fucking raped her,” I growl, turning and throwing my fist into the back window of my truck when rage and guilt and disgust burns through my every vein.
Splintered glass shatters, glittering at my feet.
I shake my fist out, sucking on my front teeth.
“Then he just snapped her neck, and there was nothing I could fucking do about it,” I seethe out every word, and each is more painful than the last. Because I was the bitch that got drugged, because I was the bitch that got beaten, because I was the bitch who didn’t keep them close enough.
I wanted to shout every word at the top of my lungs, but instead I swallow them down.
No one needed to hear my excuses.
When I was four, my mother had told me that excuses were crafted by people who were too weak to take accountability for their actions, or yet too afraid. She had laid her soft palms against my cheeks, pressed her lips to my forehead and whispered, “My son isn’t weak. My son is brave.”
I wonder if she could say the same thing now.
As a brother to a sister, you were given one task; to protect her at all costs. What happened the moment you couldn’t?
What came after that?
Who would you become?
I drag my hand beneath my nose. “I need to go see Mom.”
I pop open the driver's side door and pull myself in, slamming it closed with enough force to take down the rest of the glass clinging to the frame.
I roar the engine to life and release the handbrake, moving on autopilot, when Harlen shouts, “You gonna be alright?”
I nod, but before I can move, Skinner’s inked forearms are at my open window, his razored head bending through.
“Chase, I gotta tell you something…” he starts.
I glance to my side, and raise my eyes, feeling my pupils shake. I fist the steering wheel. It was all I could do to keep myself from dissociating and blacking out.
Skinner looks away before swallowing and I turn my eyes on Harlen whose brows are furrowed, Rusty’s too.
Skinner brings his gaze back to me. “Paid your piece of shit father a visit after you told me what he did to your sister.” He clicks his tongue, then he spits toward the ground.
And something in my stomach twists at that. It feels like hope, hope that maybe Skinner had dealt with my problem for me. I knew he wouldn’t have though; you didn’t take from another man what he needed most.
Rusty blasts off behind him. “Great, that’s just fucking great.”
I block him out, because it kind of is…great.
“He still breathing?” I ask.
Skinner nods.
“Good.” My voice comes out hollow when I press on the gas.