Chapter 29 Everett
You Want a Battle? (Here’s a War), Bullet For My Valentine
I can hear the screaming as I park my motorcar outside the vast barn, the dense air dripping with carnage and anguish.
Clint alerted me as soon as I came back from the underground, monitoring stock, setting traps and preparing the Adders for our next mission.
As I approach the barn door, fists clenched and feet marching, ready to invoke pain, a calming voice resounds in my ear.
“Hold on, my heart.” Baba’s wise voice comes from the shadows. Her delicate arms are crossed over her small chest. Crimson stains both her hands and speckles of blood adorn her face and long glorious silver braid.
“We need to talk before you go in there.” Her voice is so stern and full of sorrow.
My hand grips the metal barn door handle. “Baba, not now.”
She interrupts me sharply. “ I was the one who sent for you. I was the one who knew something bad was happening, so I ordered the boys to follow her closely and they saw her get snatched through that bloody hospital window. They trailed her and we were able to save her. They killed our Tilly, and Bobby is a raging mess. So you need to hear it from me , before you go into that barn. For it is something difficult to process and you will want to kill every single person remotely related to them.”
Rolling my shoulders back, I turn my head to look in her direction.
“What happened?” I demand plainly, stifling the sound of irritation in my voice—though my ears are pounding and I need to take my rage out on something .
“She was pregnant,” Baba states.
My lungs seize.
I can’t breathe .
My teeth may crack, considering how hard I am clenching the muscles in my jaw. Slowly my body begins to sway, and a pounding echoes within my ears.
Drumming louder and louder.
My heart is skipping beats, trying to maintain some sort of regularity after this news came crashing into my soul.
I became careless.
She was the first person I didn’t use a condom with, because she was different.
She was mine —she is mine, for fuck’s sake.
And now my fucking selfishness and obsession have placed her in harm.
My selfishness caused our unborn child to die.
No .
“How?” I ask, ice leaking from my tone.
Baba lets out a slow exhale and I can hear her trying to remain calm, but there is a small twinge in her voice, that sorrow I heard earlier.
It wants to be released, grief and melancholy encircling her and now engulfing me with the news that these fuckers just killed my first child and her first grandbaby .
Her bloodied hand cups her mouth as she tightly closes her eyes. Then she rests her fingers against her temple, preparing herself to tell me the information she is about to.
“Michael kicked her in the stomach seventeen times,” she boldly states, and I can feel her stare boring into me. “The blunt force must have caused the miscarriage.”
No . The information causes my body to flinch as I tighten my grip on the metal handle.
As sorrow and remorse begin to flood my emotions, I cut them off with the wall of malice growing inside me.
No. Fuck that.
I am going to feel bad for being selfish.
For carelessly getting her pregnant.
No.
I’m not fucking sorry for being selfish.
I’m sorry for what happened to her, and I’ll apologize for the rest of my pathetic life if she will let me.
I hope she doesn’t hate my family and resent me for what she has been through.
Though I refuse to apologize for being selfish.
For she is mine.
I will take care of her.
I will stitch these pieces back together if she will let me.
And I will take vengeance on those who wronged her, touched her—and, from here on out, anyone who fucking dares to look at her.
They may have feared me before, but now they will feel my wrath.
The anger and malice smelts inside me, rising like a wildfire, surpassing any feeling that had accompanied my arrival. All at once, my muscles tense as I rip open the barn door to find Michael hanging from the rafters, with two meat hooks protruding from his shoulder blades.
How poetic, since my dove did the same to his disgusting brother.
“Everett!” Lyle shouts, but I ignore him.
I charge up to Michael’s pathetic naked body and begin pounding my fist into his torso like a punching bag.
“SEVENTEEN!” I yell.
I don’t care how crazy I look, completely losing my composure, my usually perfected control .
My wrath has come to life, each tactical thought burned by the fire raging within my soul.
A right hook to his ribs. “SEVENTEEN!”
A left jab to his diaphragm, causing Michael to sputter for air. “FUCKING.”
An uppercut punch into his abdomen. “TIMES!”
“YOU!” A left uppercut punch cracking into his jawline, crimson exploding from his mouth and dripping down his neck.
A swift jab to his now crooked, bleeding nose. “TOUCHED!”
The heel of my right foot cracks into his sternum. “MY WIFE!” My voice echoes from the rafters.
I deliver blow after blow, and can’t even feel my fists pounding into his abdomen. Once I reach seventeen strikes, I reach into my pocket and grab the cold hilt of my blade.
Recklessly I begin slicing pieces of skin from his flesh. He cries in sweet agony, but it isn’t enough.
I plan to fillet seventeen pieces of flesh, followed with seventeen slashes, starting with the back of his knees and Achilles tendons .
All that are in attendance within the barn encircle me, but I don’t give a fuck. I continue my onslaught, Michael’s pleas music in my ears.
But then a sweet voice, my dear sweet dove’s voice, caresses my mind, and I feel her gentle touch on my lower back.
“Everett,” she calmly states as I finish the third filleting of Michael’s flesh.
I’m heaving, trying to exhale the malice from within with each crazed breath, but I can’t stop.
It clings to me like an adder’s fangs cling to their prey.
Michael passes out from shock, pain or just from being a fucking pussy—I don’t care.
“Everett, please stop,” she softly begs from beside me. Those words halt my actions.
Silence falls around us as I close my eyes, nostrils flaring as I try to calm myself.
I look up to see her beautiful face, beaten and bruised.
Then violence floods my veins again, but before I may lunge at Michael’s limp body, she grasps my forearm.
“No,” she orders.
My chest rises and falls like a wild animal’s as I stare into her eyes, trying to find comfort in the fact that she is here . She is here with me and not fallen into the dark abyss of death, unlike Tilly.
My heart aches for Bobby, knowing how much he loved her.
How much he sought a future with her.
Clearing my throat, I yell for all to hear, “By order of the Afton Adders, I declare war on Sabini’s men. Hunt them from Lockham. Cease trade. Make each of them an example. Show them no mercy as they showed our girls none.”