Pure Chaos (Dark Valor #2)

Chapter 1

Bradford

“Let’s get him in there,” I gesture to Turner to grab the feet as I hoist the upper torso. “One, two, three…”

“Fuck, this guy’s a big one,” Turner grunts, making a face as he strains.

I ignore the comment as we lift the heavy fucker into the back of my truck. As the body thuds against the metal, a cool drop of moisture hits my cheek. I peer up, the moon covered by clouds.

“It’s gonna rain,” I grimace, glancing around the parking lot. “That’ll work in our favor for clean up here, but it’s gonna make them slick when we get out to the farm.”

“Yeah, we need to get this going,” Turner mutters as he hops up and into the bed of the truck. He grabs the guy’s ankles, pulling him deeper into the bed with the other three.

I glance down and notice the guy’s cheek slide along the edge of the tailgate. Before I can react, the jerk from Turner’s final pull scrapes flesh off the man’s face, more blood pooling in the bed of my truck, and consequently dripping to the ground.

This is so fucked up.

The horror of the moment starts to creep in, but I force myself to suppress it. I’ve handled corpses plenty of times before and not all of them were villains. Many were Marines I loved and cried for countless times.

Good people die, too.

And they die because there’s too many damn bad people in the world. We always shy away from killing for the sake of morality, but, well…

Morality’s a bitch.

I joined the Marines decades ago because I wanted to protect all the good people from the bad people—and now? I don’t know where I fall in the realm of good and evil. I don’t even know what defines which.

Am I monster, too?

My eyes flick to Turner as he jumps out and then rolls the bedcover shut, distracting myself with my newest recruit. He’s a fucking wreck, worse than most.

But not the worst.

“You good?” Turner asks me, his dark brows furrowed beneath his baseball cap. He wipes his hands on his jeans, leaving behind a streak of crimson.

“Yeah, why?” I say, reaching up and locking the bedcover.

“You look a little pale.”

“Meh,” I blow him off, “It’s just the cold settling in. Let’s get moving.”

I glance down once more, noticing the rain, that’s now falling steadily, helps to rinse off the tailgate. I breathe out a sigh of relief. This whole thing got way out of hand, and the worst part of my fucking job is that I’m responsible for the clean-up now, too.

Because Cade is MIA. Again.

Fuck, I have to find him.

But that’s a task for another day, and one that cannot and will not involve Turner. Cade isn’t like Turner. He lacks the empathy and the heart. He can dismember a body with a chainsaw, and never think twice about it.

He’s fucking dangerous. And a drifter.

And I need to get him back under control.

I shove my hands into my pockets and head for the driver’s side of my truck, sliding in and getting a blast of heat to my face. I wince at it, and then shift the vent lever to blow it elsewhere.

“I didn’t mean to make this big of a mess…” Turner’s voice trails off as I roll forward, leaving this shitshow behind. “The dude slit her throat.”

“Yeah, and he probably would’ve regardless of your inability to hold your fire,” I reason, my voice monotone. “No sense in making it a bigger deal than it is. We have to just deal with what we have.”

Turner takes a deep breath in the seat beside me, reaching for the seatbelt. “Yeah, maybe so. I don’t know. I get lost in the moment, I guess.”

“Happens,” I mutter, feeling the back tires of my dually spin on the wet, icy roads. I shake my head, my mind flashing with the corpse of the woman with the slit throat. It’s a nasty one, but I don’t let it simmer in my mind.

“You think I’ll ever see Em again?”

I fight the urge to roll my eyes at the question. “If you keep getting ambitious with the trigger, maybe not.” Honestly, I’m glad Turner finally found his reason to get ahold of his fragile mental state, but I’m not glad the reason is just as wishy-washy as his self-control.

I hate to break it to him, but some girl who showed up, was a victim of his chaos, and then he willingly abandoned… Well, she’s probably not going to hang around.

They never do. And they shouldn’t.

I’d never want my daughter exposed to the men I work with, but Turner doesn’t understand that imbalance yet. It’s a deep pain to look yourself in the mirror and know you’re not the kind of man you’d ever pick for your own flesh and blood.

Speaking of… I pull my phone out of my pocket, seeing the text from my daughter.

Molly: I hate being at Mom’s. Why can’t I stay at your place? I’m nineteen for fuck’s sake. I’m not a child.

I let out a sigh and choose to ignore it. I don’t know how to explain to her that too many unstable assholes know where I live. It’s not a good idea for her to be there without me. I never intended to be the rehabilitation center for wackos, but here I am.

And normally, I do a good job.

Right now? I’m on overload.

“Why a Christmas Tree Farm?” Turner looks to me as I pull up to a locked gate. “This seems…fucked up.”

“It’s closed for the season.” I roll down the window and punch in the gate code. “Lots of composting opportunities, too.” I leave it at that, not feeling like bringing up the commercial mulcher Cade has always gotten a real kick out of.

I don’t have the stomach for that though. Not tonight.

“Damn, this is fucked up,” Turner deadpans, as I pull through the gate. “Do you have to do this a lot?”

“No,” I answer plainly. “Normally, I have someone who does this for me, or we have a better set up.”

“Right,” Turner frowns. “You have a clean-up crew.”

More like one clean-up psycho who needs to be kept on a very tight leash.

I navigate down the asphalt drive, then take a hard left out into the field. I pause to kick it into 4-lo, and then stomp the gas. The truck roars through the mud, never missing a beat as I make it out to the furthest field.

The rain is now coming down in sheets, and I grimace.

Four fucking bodies. We have to deal with four bodies in this weather.

I squint through the windshield, searching for the excavator that sits out in the field. My family opened this damn Christmas Tree Farm forty years ago, and I never expected it to become a mass burial ground.

If it ever got out, I’d be royally fucked.

Along with the government who sent half the bodies here.

“At least we don’t have to do it by hand,” Turner comments, as I pull in beside the large yellow piece of equipment.

“Finding the silver-lining,” I grunt, reaching out and patting his shoulder. “That’s a positive, even if it’s fucking morbid as hell.”

He gives me a crooked grin. “Progress.”

“Progress,” I snort, and then kick my door open. “Sit tight. This is gonna take a minute.” I adjust my cowboy hat, and fish the keys out of my pocket for the machine. I’m careful as I climb the steps and unlock the door.

The sound of the rain drowns out even my diesel truck, and I shake my head at the mess we’re about to make. I thought tonight was going to be no big deal.

But man, was I wrong.

Turner got trigger happy and Cade went MIA.

My shoulders slump as I turn the key in the ignition of the excavator and stomp the pedal to help it roar to life. The damn thing is always temperamental this time of year.

But I’m pretty sure when my gramps bought it, he wasn’t intending to ever use it for early morning body burying either.

I spend the next twenty minutes digging a hole I know next year’s trees will cover. When I finish, I park the machine, and return to the truck. The rain is still coming down with a vengeance, but I still manage to back up to the hole.

“Let’s roll them off,” I instruct Turner, who’s already a step ahead of me, flinging the door open. “Try not to slide off into the hole yourself.”

“Got it, boss,” Turner grunts, waiting by the bedrail as I unlock the bedcover.

I push it back, and Turner climbs in the back. I let down the tailgate, hop up, and then we begin the methodically gruesome task of tossing bodies into the mass grave.

“Dead weight is the worst weight,” Turner comments as we heave the first one off the back. “Fuck.”

The body hits the bottom of the hole with a strange slopping noise, and I cringe. There’s something about this whole thing that never gets any easier, legitimate or not.

It’s all fuckery.

“Next one,” I grab the ankles of the woman, doing my best not to look at her. I glance over at Turner, who’s eyes are fixated on her neck—the very thing he was trying to prevent. “Look at me, Martin.”

He shakes his head, but I can already see the wires in his brain faltering.

“Martin,” I sharpen my tone. “Eyes.”

He snaps up and meets my gaze. “Shit, sorry.”

I glare at him. “I can’t have you breaking down in the middle of this. If it’s too much go sit in the goddamn truck.”

“No sir, it’s not too much,” Turner shoots right back at me. “I’ve done this plenty of times. Doesn’t bother me.”

He’s lying.

But I just gesture to the body. “One, two, three…” Together, we toss her into the hole with the other. It seems morally wrong to bury a victim with the predator.

But I only let myself feel guilty for a second.

Mostly, because we need to get the job done, but also…

“Do you hear that?” Turner stills, already picking up on the same distant rev of an engine. “Who the fuck is that?”

I turn my head, just in time to catch the bouncing glow of a single headlight and the familiar hum of a four-stroke dirt bike engine.

Fuck. Looks like we have company.