Page 70 of Fury
End of an era
Fury
Fury stood, staring down at the man lying on the ground. With the toe of one boot, he stirred the gravel alongside the body, shocked when his nudge gained a response. A groan, then a cough followed by another groan. “Motherfucker,” Fury muttered. “Nine evil lives.”
Pike coughed again and his arm lifted to curve across his belly, fingers grasping and holding onto his ribs. Fury waited, expecting that grip to loosen and fall away, but it didn’t, and a few moments later, Pike’s eyes squeezed tightly shut, then opened in a slit. Not sure if the man saw him, Fury stepped back a half pace, seeing Pike’s eyes slide his way, the whites stained with red, burst blood vessels making themselves known.
Bending at the waist, Fury leaned down, putting his face close to Pike’s. “You in there, old man?” Age wouldn’t save him, not this time.
“What you want, boy?” Filled with gravel and pain, Pike’s voice rose, coming through clenched teeth. He coughed again, covering his full-body flinch at the end with a growled, “Fuck.”
“Want you dead.” Fury told him, seeing the glint in the man’s eyes as he stared up. “You’re looking at death, right now, old man. Ain’t got no reason to leave you livin’. No one here to plead your case. Gonna take care of business what shoulda been dealt with ages ago. Put you out of your miserable existence, filled with hate. Hate that you seem to spread everywhere you go.”
“Lotta talkin’ for a man who’s pridin’ himself on doin’.” Pike rasped out, and Fury saw his fingers clutching tightly at his shirt, holding on, that action giving away fear that must be boiling inside Pike far more than pain.
“Welp, I ain’t talkin’ foryou.” Fury gestured to the crowd gathering on all sides. Rebels and a dozen other clubs, coming together for this. “Got things folks need to know. Got a fuckin’ list, old man. Listen up.”
Straightening, Fury let his gaze skip across every face turned his direction. Patient, horrified, resigned, eager—those last bothered him, but he marked the faces for now, resolving to return to them when he could—determined, and pained. He focused on those, members of Pike’s own club, turned to doing his bidding without realizing the cost. “Not without blame,” he laid it out there, justified as Chief flinched. “Not without cause, either.” Without giving anyone a chance to rebuke him, he pushed forwards. “Man you trust comes to you with an ask, you’re a brother, you do what you can to assist. What you did, every bit of it, no more or less than any one of us would do.”
Fury turned, looking around the group again. “Pike’s not the sole source of our pain. Not by a longshot, but he’s the crux that kept things going bad. If he’d left things alone, we’d a been working together rather than against each other. He’d’ve left things alone, brothers would be home with their old ladies, instead of rotting in the ground. He didn’t leave it, and we’ve all paid a price. Time we stop payin’ this piper, brothers. Past time.”
Looking down, he saw Pike had pushed to one elbow, neck twisted to keep Fury in view. “Ain’t a lie to say he deserves to die. Ain’t a lie to say I’m proud to be the shot caller for this one. The list of pain in your past is so fuckin’ long, old man, it stretched back decades. Even those alive, you’ve marked in your quest for vengeance in an imagined feud.”
Pike spat, then said, “Ain’t imagined.”
“Fuck yeah, it is,” Fury clipped, staring into Pike’s eyes. “You didn’t pull your bullshit, officers coulda talked to you, figured out how to keep things from going as far sideways as they did, all those years ago. You picked a side.” Fury swung his hands out to the side, palms up. “You lost. You have been losing for years. You lost, old man. Give it the fuck up.”
Reaching for the holster at his back, Fury pulled the gun and leveled it at the man. “Got anything to say? Any pithy words of wisdom?”
Pike’s teeth bared in a feral snarl as he growled, “Fuck y—”
The shot rang out and everyone watched as the body jolted ten inches, jarring down to the dirt, lifting a puff of dust. The round hole in Pike’s temple oozed a tiny rivulet of red. And that was it, the end of an era of pain and fear, silenced by a single bullet.
