Chapter 24 Breathe #2
Matt jerked the gun in our direction. “Bullshit! She was here! We had a deal, Jason! Now where the fuck is she?”
“I’m right here, motherfucker!”
My gaze shifted to the right to find Kayla leaning against the back of the Hummer that was still lodged in the fireplace, another shot gun in her hands. Matt’s face lit up with joy as he turned to face her, but she didn’t even blink as she quickly shouldered the gun and pulled the trigger.
The round ripped into Matt’s chest, sending him straight into the wall, where he slowly slid down onto the floor in a heap.
Kayla kept the shotgun pressed tightly against her shoulder as she limped across the room with the confidence of a soldier and pointed the barrel down at his head.
And then she fired two more shots until there was nothing left of Matt’s face.
I stood in stunned silence, my ears ringing from the deep boom of the gunshots that echoed the end of Kayla’s trauma.
Lowering the shotgun, Kayla released a deep exhale and stared down at what was left of Matt’s body.
Then she aimed it again between his legs, reloaded, and pulled the trigger a fourth time, completely obliterating what I was sure was his dick.
Seemingly now satisfied, Kayla turned away from Matt’s body and limped her way over to us, the look of triumphant relief on her face as she lifted her gaze to me.
“Feeling better?” I asked her as my eyes scanned her body for injury. The glass was no longer sticking out of her leg, and it looked like she had managed to patch the wound up just fine.
“Much better,” she confirmed with a smile.
“You weren’t supposed to be here, Kayla,” Jason gently admonished.
“When I heard their vehicles exploded through the radio, I couldn’t leave it to chance,” Kayla explained. “I grabbed Camaro, took the boat, and raced here. I wasn’t going to let Jaden stay behind again.”
I stepped in to wrap my arms around her shoulders. Kayla returned my embrace, dropping the shotgun to the floor so she could clutch me tighter.
“You really did it,” I said, pulling back to look into her glossy eyes.
She shook her head as she wiped her tears, exhaling deeply. “It was a team effort.”
“You turned into quite the badass,” I commented, nodding down at the shotgun.
“I’ve been dreaming of doing that for years,” she replied with a chuckle then glanced down to smile at Camaro. “Hey girl!” she called, petting the top of her head while Camaro tried to lick her arm. “You were brilliant out there!”
I turned to her in question. “Was she helping with the attack?”
“Oh yeah, she was amazing, but then she took off at some point and I assumed she was looking for you. I was going to tell you about her earlier but then my brain got a little rocked in my skull.”
My chest warmed at the thought.
“Well, she found me at the perfect time. Took a nice big chunk out of Darren’s shoulder right before I stabbed him in the femoral artery.”
“Nice.”
Suddenly the sound of the doors of the Hummer were wrenched open, the abrupt sound catching all of our attention and causing Jason to raise his Beretta and push us both behind him. Two men stumbled out of the driver and passenger seats, clutching their heads as they tried to steady themselves.
“Romero!” Kayla screeched then quickly limped her way over to him, while the guy named Derick staggered around the side of the Hummer to hunch over the extra tire at the back door.
When Kayla reached Romero, she practically jumped into his arms for a deep embrace and then yanked herself back at his groan. I kept my smirk to myself at the obvious little thing between the two of them, especially knowing Kayla had the hots for him.
“That was you in the Hummer?” she asked incredulously. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Romero replied with a grunt. “Just sore and likely very concussed. Now what are you doing here, Kayla? You were supposed to wait for us at the cove.”
She scoffed as she took an irritated step back. “I’m not explaining myself a third time, dammit!” she snapped. “I’m here because I wanted to rescue my fucking friend, and I thought a bunch of you were dead, now get over it.”
Derick chuckled before he started coughing. “Well, goddamn, she ain’t no fucking princess, Rome.”
“No shit. She torched Matt’s ass before I could,” Jason added.
All eyes drifted back over to the mangled corpse that was Matt’s body and both Derick and Romero let out an audible sigh of relief.
“Finally. I wanted to rip that guy’s skull apart so many damn times,” Derick practically growled.
Romero looked down at Kayla and produced the sweetest little grin. “You really got him?”
“I did,” Kayla confirmed with a nod.
Romero didn’t hesitate as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in tight. “Thank fuck,” he murmured clutching her even tighter before pulling back. “Alright, fine, as long as you’re safe. We’ll talk about your clearly injured ankle later though. Now, what else did we miss?”
“Pretty much everything,” Jason answered for him.
“Fuck! Really?” Derick asked, sounding deeply disappointed. “We missed all the action?”
“Afraid so. Glad to see you’re both alive though. What happened?”
Romero sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Someone tampered with the trucks at the warehouse. Explosives were connected to the ignition systems. Thankfully, Derick hit the remote start first but we were still standing too close to the blast zone.”
“Well, that explains a lot,” Jason said, almost sounding relieved.
“We got here as fast as we could, but shortly after bypassing the house, a fucking grenade went off right in front of us and I ended up swerving the car into the damn house,” Romero continued.
“Yeah, that might be a little bit of my fault,” I admitted sheepishly. “I pulled the pin while the grenade was still attached to Matt’s belt and then he threw it outside.”
“Well, shit, I hope we didn’t hurt you guys. We were aiming for Matt,” Romero added.
“Kayla got it the worst, but at least neither of us got knocked out for the last hour like the two of you clearly did.”
“An hour? Damn, that impact knocked us both out good,” Derick said as he shook his head.
I nodded in agreement as Jason turned and tilted his head as he listened in on whatever communication he was receiving through his earpiece. Derick and Romero seemed to do the same.
“Roger that,” Jason said, then turned back to me. “The house has been cleared, and the area has been secured. The teams are moving out, so we need to go.”
“Alright, let’s get moving,” Romero said as he helped Kayla maneuver around the Hummer toward another makeshift exit into the back yard.
I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I just need to take care of one more thing. Do you have a lighter on you?”
Jason reached into his pocket and held out a silver Zippo to me.
Taking the lighter, I moved back into what was left of the kitchen and began to turn on all the burners on the gas stoves.
I then grabbed the only intact bottle of whisky left I could find from one of the liquor cabinets and made my way back over to Darren’s body.
After drenching him with half the bottle, I took a long swig for myself, then flipped the lighter open.
The bitter taste of the whisky stung my bleeding gums as I stared down at the man one final time.
I needed to reinforce the picture into my memory so that when I eventually dreamed of him, I would remember the truth.
He was gone. And I was free.
Flicking the Zippo to life, I leaned down and spit the alcohol out in a strong spray at the little open flame.
A wild blaze of fury and vindication ignited from my mouth, the surging inferno engulfing Darren’s body in the roaring fire I had longed to torch him with since the day I met him.
The very breath from my lungs now carried with it a blistering storm of acid and rage, burning away the rotting source of my anguish and relentless subjugation.
I was the dragon now. And he was nothing.
“Goodbye, Darren Davis,” I whispered under my breath, then turned away from him for the final time, but just as I did, I looked down and noticed the knife he had pulled from his leg.
Bending low, I reached out and snatched the knife from the floor, gripping it tightly in my hand.
His blood coated over half of the blade, and it had already started to dry on it.
It was his knife, one I’d seen him use multiple times, particularly to slice off ears.
He never gave me back my butterfly knife after I had stabbed him with it, so this seemed like a fair trade.
“You ready to get the fuck out of here?” Jason asked as I approached him.
I exhaled the biggest agreement of my life. “Absolutely.”
And just like that, we walked right out the fucking door into the world and made our way toward the shore, where another boat I hadn’t seen before was waiting for us.
Once we were all settled on the boat with Kayla and several more of Jason’s teammates and a lifejacket secured around Camaro, I turned back to look at the house that had been my cage for nearly four years.
And smiled as it suddenly burst into flames.
It really was finally over.
I could breathe again.
As the boat pulled away from the shore, I watched the house crumble, collapsing in on itself into a giant heap of rubble.
I watched until the scene shrank into a tiny speck in the distance, and when my heart was finally calm again, I turned back around to face a future that was now officially mine to decide.
And I decided I wasn’t done just yet.