1. Drystan #2
I drive slowly through the town, past sagging storefronts and buzzing streetlights that flicker. There it is, the little shitty nightclub with a neon sign half-burned out. I pull in, kill the engine. The sudden quiet presses in after hours of road roar in my ears.
I step out into the cold night air, boots crunching gravel. I reach for the back door and pull it open, the duffel sits on the backseat where the dead guy left it with everything I told my father to send, packed tight. I unzip it slowly, the sound loud in the empty lot.
Black shirt. Leather jacket. Black jeans. Combat boots.
I change fast in the shadows between parked cars, the night air biting at the old prison scars across my ribs and back, raised lines that still itch when the temperature drops.
I slide the shirt over my skin that has gone too pale from years inside.
I rake my black messy hair down over my eyes, letting it fall, hiding most of the crazy I can feel flickering behind them.
I walk to the club door. The bouncer, a slab of meat stuffed into a cheap suit, looks me up and down with a superior look in his eyes. I smirk, teeth showing more than necessary. “Bradley Binkly. He’s expecting me.”
He stares a beat too long, then pulls his phone from his pocket and mutters into it. “Name.”
“Drystan.”
He repeats it, nods once. “Go in. Down the hallway, turn left, second door on the right.”
I give him a single nod and push past. The hallway splits in two, one path thumping with muffled bass and the stink of sweat and spilled beer from the club floor, the other leading back into quieter darkness.
I take the back way. The air gets thicker here, stale with old smoke and something sour underneath, like the place hasn’t seen daylight in years.
I pass the first door, stop at the second and knock once. It swings open and a half-naked woman stumbles out with glitter smeared across her chest, mascara streaked, eyes unfocused. She doesn’t even glance at me as she brushes by.
“Come in, Drystan.” Bradley’s voice slithers from inside.
I step into the office. Black walls streaked with glitter, leather couches sagging around a big black desk.
No windows and the air hangs heavy with the smell of unwashed bodies, cheap liquor, cigar ash, and something rotting underneath.
My stomach twists, but not from the smell.
From the miles still stretching between me and her.
From knowing she’s out there right now, breathing different air, living a life that doesn’t include me yet.
“So you’re out.” Bradley lights a cigar, fat fingers steady, and offers me one. I take it and flick the lighter. Drag deep, the smoke burns down my throat and settles hot in my lungs.
“Yes.” I stare at him. Don’t blink.
“And what can I help with?” He leans back in his chair, the leather creaking. “Have you seen your pretty girl yet?”
The words hit straight through my heart. My pretty girl. Mine. The thought of anyone else saying it, especially this greasy fuck, makes something dark and hot uncoil in my chest. “Not yet— ” I say, voice low. “I need to take care of some business first.”
I stand. Walk around the desk slowly with a grin pulling at my mouth. He chuckles, grabs the glass sitting on the table, takes a sip of whatever cheap whiskey’s in it. I snatch the glass right out of his hand mid-breath. He frowns, confused. “I got more glasses, man.”
“I know.” My voice stays quiet, almost soft. “But I only need this one.”
I slam the glass against the wall. It shatters, jagged pieces flashing in the dim light.
Before he can shove back or shout, I’m on him.
Biggest shard in my fist. I drive it up under his chin, his skin parts with a soft, wet pop, then I feel more resistance as it tears through muscle.
He screams into my palm as I clamp my other hand over his mouth, muffling it.
Hot blood floods my fingers instantly, slick and fast, running down my wrist under the cuff of the jacket, sticky against the leather.
I press deeper, feel the give of cartilage, then drag the edge sideways.
His throat opens in a wide, red grin, bubbling, spraying.
Warm arcs hit my sleeve, my neck and my jaw.
He thrashes hard once, chair tipping, nails clawing at my arm and I lean my weight into his chest, pinning him, feeling the frantic kicks weaken to jerks, then stillness.
His eyes bulge, lock on mine with shock fading to nothing.
Blood pools thick across the black desk, dripping slow and heavy to the floor.
I let go and he slumps forward, the cigar still smoldering where it rolled into the ashtray. I pick it up and take another drag, the smoke mixes with the copper taste on my tongue.
Every detail he spat out, her face, her routines, her life, was poison in his mouth.
That information belongs to me. Only me.
No one else gets to carry pieces of her in their skull.
No one else gets to picture her the way I did every night in that cell, every mile on this road.
I couldn’t let him walk around with her in his mind.
Couldn’t let those images stay alive behind his eyes.
Blood’s still tacky on my knuckles, drying dark on the leather jacket cuffs. The office stink clings to me, a reminder that I protect what’s mine.
I walk to the back door, push through into the night, the cold air hits fast, biting against the warm spray still cooling on my neck.
The gravel crunches under my boots as I take the slow walk to the car.
The lot’s empty except for shadows and the faint buzz of the dying neon sign.
I slide into the driver’s seat. Key in and the engine snarls awake, vibrating up through the seat into my spine.
I pull out slowly, ten more hours. Ten more hours of night sky, diesel fumes, and her face flickering every time I blink. My sweet girl.
The highway opens up ahead and I press the gas.
“Soon my love. Soon we will be together like destiny intended.”