Page 87 of A Brother At My Back

“My call,” Dragon said, and Reaver nodded like that was enough for him. I don’t think I’d ever seen such unquestioning loyalty displayed before and it was a bit of food for thought.

We passed through the door, and Archer, Rush, and Nox looked up from where they were standing around an old fifty-five-gallon metal drum, flames licking over the rim.

“The fuck?” Archer scowled as he said it and the look was so menacing I took a half-step back into Nik, who’d come in at my back.

“Not our call,” Reaver said with a shrug and looked over to Dragon.

“Last time we involved a female in club business, that one got shot.” Rush jabbed a finger in Nik’s direction and I looked up at him. I’d seen a few scars on his body, but I hadn’t figured any of them for gunshot wounds.

He shrugged and told me with his eyes we’d talk about it later and I turned back to the men in front and to the left of us.

“She’s here now, have it out later,” Reaver said and it seemed to be the end of the discussion. He was standing off to the right of us and that’s where my gaze landed, on him and the two hooded men hanging by their wrists from chains dangling from the ceiling. I tried not to let it show but I was pretty sure I paled.

“Time’s up, fuckers,” Reaver snarled and ripped the hoods from their faces. The first man, furthest from me, was Cooper, a strip of silver duct tape over his mouth. The second, blinking from the lights on stands in here, was Silas.

I shuddered slightly. He’d put on size while in prison. His shoulders were wider, chest much bigger and his arms and hands something I was glad were tied above his head. He glared at Reaver, who grinned back and ruffled his hair playfully. Silas jerked, his eyes dark with anger, and snarled from behind his own bit of tape. Except, when he jerked at his bonds it spun him and he spotted me and his eyes went from pissed-off to incendiary, with an edge of surprise.

Reaver ripped the tape off of Silas’ mouth and I bit my bottom lip. I actually probably could have lived without that, but surprisingly, Silas didn’t say anything. At least not right away.

I shook my head and stepped closer, but still stayed a goodly distance away. I mean, I wasn’t about to get within distance of him lashing out with those shitkickers of his. I knew how much it hurt to take a shot to the ribs with the pointed toe of one of those boots.

“I didn’t think you had it in you to pull something like this off,” he snarled, and I shook my head.

“Learned quite a few things in the last few years,” I said coolly and I was proud of myself. Nik hadn’t left me, remaining at my back, within reach, but at the same time letting me stand on my own, here.

“Way Delia tells it, you learned the finer points of how to be a fucking whore. Only work you could get with a face like that?” he sneered.

“Fuck you, Silas,” I snapped.

“Hey!” he barked, then said with barely suppressed rage through gritted teeth, “You say ‘fuck you again,’ when I get out of here, I’m coming to find you and that’s just what I’ll do. I’m going to fuck you, just like I fucked your slut fri–“

He didn’t get to finish. Adrenaline surged through my veins and the rush of fear, anger, rage, and pain was immediate, hot, and fresh. It welled out of the center of my being, erupting like blood from a cut, and painted the inside of my vision in red. I reached out, snagged the gun I knew Nik had in the back of his waistband and I emptied it into Silas without a second thought.

I pulled the trigger over and over, and stopped only when it clicked empty. There was no missing at this range. There was no fear of hitting anyone else. There was just the white-hot desire to end him, to wipe the blight that was Silas-fucking-Grable off the face of the earth so there would be no more me’s and there certainly wouldn’t be any more Delia’s.

“Awww, dammit!” Reaver cried. “You did that way too soon. You gotta make fuckers like him suffer. Put the fear of God into ‘em a little.” He stuck his lower lip out and pouted but I was staring past him at Cooper who was writhing at the end of his bonds like he couldn’t get away from Silas fast enough, even though there was nowhere for him to go.

It suddenly clicked. Why they called this place Point Nowhere.

I shook my head at what Reaver had said, watching my ex, motionless and hanging, swinging slightly by virtue of inertia alone. The blood was falling from him in a wet spatter, seeping across the cement floor. I couldn’t hear the patter of it, my ears still ringing from firing the gun in the enclosed space. The vibrations still echoed on the air, reverberating soundlessly from the steel walls, sightless, soundless, but still palpable. Well, maybe that was just me projecting the magnitude of what I’d just done into the physical space. A way to psychologically rationalize to myself that this was, indeed, huge. Life-altering on a scale that I’d yet to comprehend and wouldn’t, until I had time to process.

“You don’t fuck with a rabid dog and try to retrain it, you put it down,” I said, and turned to Cooper whose eyes were too wide, nostrils flaring and contracting with every breath, screaming muffled behind the duct tape, and the rage and pain surged again.

My feet carried me across the cement floor but I don’t remember putting any thought into walking. I pressed the barrel of the empty gun into his cheek and I knew it was hot, I knew it would burn. He screamed behind his gag and started to sob, and I hissed at him, “Judas,” as I pressed the burning kiss of the barrel harder into his cheek.

“She was so hung up on you and you knew it. You used it.”

He shuddered and shook, the chains holding him rattling as he sobbed and I backed off in revulsion and turned to Reaver.

“You can do whatever you want with this one,” I said, and I knew deep down inside exactly what I was doing by telling him that. I saw the monster move behind his eyes. The darkness and crazy rise to the surface that I knew instinctively was there. Psychopath, antisocial, sociopath, pick your flavor of disenfranchised crazy and I was sure Reaver had it. He was too charming for it not to be. He was good at making people like him. Even me, but I was less than a quarter away from my practicum and I knew there was broken to him, that he held a severely-cracked psyche inside.

I dropped the gun back to my side and took two rushed steps back from Cooper Reese. I looked back to Reaver and told him, “Make him suffer like he made Delia suffer,” and it was like he lit up like a fucking kid on Christmas morning.

“Fuck, I’m out of here,” Nox declared from behind me and I startled. I’d forgotten they were even there.

“Me, too,” Rush said. “I don’t need nightmares for the rest of my life.”

“I’ve had enough for one day, too,” Archer said, tiredly.

“No way are you staying for what you just asked for,” Dragon said.

“I don’t need to,” I replied and my voice was as cold as the falling snow outside. “I am so done.”

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