Page 50 of Hearts Etched in Glass
When the car comes to a stop, I’m torn from the seat and dragged, for they do not let me gain any footing to march beside them.Pricks. Ruining my Oxfords, these are bloody expensive.
Then my feet run across wooden floorboards. Luckily, I was able to slip one hand from the rope tied around my wrists, so I try to swing at the assailants. I hit something but then am shoved hard. I fall several feet, landing on my side as I hear something crack somewhere in my body. I feel smooth, almost slimy objects moving below me.Fucking hell.
“Where was Tilly when you took him?” A woman’s voice croons. Her voice is utterly familiar. I grunt and grovel at the pain in my side, but my muscles still ache from this beating and the beating the McKinley cunts gave me, but at least I’m alive and they are dead.
For now.
I finally free my other hand and carefully pull the bag off my head. I see I’m in a pit, surrounded by adders.
Our adders.
In our barn.
I cannot help the laughter that falls from my mouth.
“Why aren’t they biting him? They were supposed to bite him?” Tilly’s father exclaims in panic.
Even though it isn't my favorite thing to do, I crouch down and pet some of the snakes as I carefully sit on my ass. Outstretching my feet in front of me, as snakes slither around my lower limbs. They simply ignore me or begin curling around my feet.
“You fucking morons!” I shout from the adder pit.
“Why isn’t he being struck? Put a bullet in his head, Michael! Do what we paid you to do!” Tilly’s mother shouts as she stomps her feet. I can see her face alongside her ugly husband's as they peer down at me. To my surprise they are standing alongside Michael Sabini and three of his henchmen. Michael steps to the side of the adder pit, pulling out a pistol, but before he can do anything a deafening sound rings out. Shots echo from inside the barn. Someone has placed a bullet through Michael’s arm. He drops the pistol into the adder pit,clutching his bloodied limb and yelling in agony. His men are dead on the ground as Tilly’s mother grasps at her shithead of a husband. I continue to laugh at the chaos ensuing around us.
“He is an Afton Adder. The adders do not harm Afton blood.” Everett emerges from the shadows, like the king of the damned. Holding a cocked gun straight at Tilly's parents.
“You aren’t supposed to be here! You are supposed to be at the office, for the fire they set up!” Tilly’s father looks at Michael. “Did you not set the fire?”
“Brother!” I shout from the pit with my arms outstretched. “I missed you! Please get me out.” Kenneth appears at the side of the hole, ladder in hand.
“I’m not excited to see you,” I state, then Kenneth cocks and eyebrow in challenge, looking at the ladder then back at me, instead of lowering it into the pit.
“Kenneth,” Everett warns.
“But he is so fucking irritating,” Kenneth retorts. He acquiesces, lowering the ladder, then offering a hand to help me out.
Michael Sabini is still clutching his arm, sitting on the ground with malice and anguish flashing across his face.
“Your plan failed, because I have double mirrors in the flat you bought. They are in the pictures and washrooms.Weown this town. We own the buildings, the factories, the streets, the cops,everything. As soon as I was alerted to your inquiry of a home in Lockham, it piqued my interest. So, I gave you the best one, where I could watch you once I could come back home. No matter where I am in this world. I will find out everything.” Everett rolls up his sleeves, something he never does, revealing the scars carved from the barbed wire placed on his limbs, from the war.
How come he never told us about the doubled mirrors?
Shite, I hope he doesn’t have them in my home, his poor eyes.
I shudder at the thought.
“I finally had time to come back into town, a couple weeks ago. Time to monitor you and time to aid my brothers behind the scenes. You divulged your moronic plan, on how Ronald would take Tilly away from Lockham. Fromus. Us evil Afton, degenerate gangsters. Then when we killed Ronald, you tried to enslave her, in your own home.” He strides up to Michael Sabini andkicks him in the torso, causing Tilly’s parents to jump in fear.
“Then when she escaped with the boys, you poured whatever money you could, to hire the gangster that hates our family. To hire this gangster to start a fire at our headquarters, so we would all rush to our precious offices and gambling hall to protect it. So, you could bring Bobby here, while we were preoccupied, to try and give my brother apoeticdeath. But that plan failed, for I overheard your stupid chatter. By the way,this” —he points the gun at Michael rapping it upon his forehead—“this being the same gangster that kidnapped Tilly and nearly killed her andmy wife.”
“What!” Tilly’s father gasps, but Everett aims his pistol in their direction. They quiet immediately, as Everett stares down Sabini.
“Shut the fuck up,” Everett calmly orders, his voice smooth but laced with murderous intent. “My wife was the one that saved your life. But now, she isn’t here to stand in my way. To give you the justice you’ve truly deserved. I’m not going to show you any mercy.” Everett moves swiftly, firing the gun two times, placing a bulletin each of Michael's kneecaps. Michael rolls on the floor, screaming in misery.
Tilly’s parents try to sneak out of the side door of the barn, but Kenneth’s form looms over them. “Not today motherfuckers.” He taunts at them.
I hear the sound of gravel crunching on the road, as several cars pull up, outside the Afton barn.
Tilly storms in, with Biscuit and the twins trailing behind her.
