Page 3 of The Reaper
Fire.
It grew from a spark, expanded at will. It was an element that no one could tame.
I had my spark, and it was growing. Death wouldn’t come for me, not at the hands of my stepfather. I wouldn’t,couldn’tlet that happen.
Iwanted to be death.
Iwanted to become that dark, silent visitor that everybody feared.
Vinnie Shaw would rue the day he’d ever wronged my mum or me. His cards were marked. Nigel had got one thing right tonight; they wouldn’t find a body. I was smarter than that. When I took care of Vinnie, no one would ever know.
The reaper was going to enjoy taking his soul to hell.
ChapterOne
DEVON
Present Day
When we bought the old Sandland Asylum––a macabre, gothic, desolately eerie looking building that sat on the outskirts of Sandland and Brinton Manor––we decided that the name for our new business, our nightclub, was a no-brainer.
The Sanctuary.
None of us had ever had a stable home life growing up. Our childhoods had been marred by a concoction of abuse, neglect, and all-round general shitty parenting. Very few people really cared about us. It wasn’t until our schools decided they couldn’t cope with our deviant behaviour and sent us to the pupil referral unit that we’d found each other. There we found a home, a kindred spirit in each other. Boys that the system didn’t want to waste time or energy on. Lads who were a stain on society. The Lost Boys but without all the Peter Pan, fairy-tale shit. We were always more Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric, anyway.
Our story was grim.
Our futures uncertain.
Until we decided to take matters into our own hands to make the kind of future we wanted.
One we could control.
A sanctuary was a place of refuge and safety from the world. Well, that’s what a sanctuary was supposed to be, but to us it meant freedom. Our place, our rules, and we loved it.
Our sanctuary served as a home and a business. We all lived here on the top floor; Adam, Colton, Tyler, Will, and me. Oh, and Tyson, our rottweiler. It was big enough that we weren’t in each other’s pockets, but close enough that we could stand shoulder-to-shoulder at a moment’s notice if we needed to. You see, soldiers, street soldiers like we were, we always worked as a unit. Hurt one, hurt all, that was our motto and we lived by it every single day.
As for the business side, we ran our club from the other two floors. The ground floor was for the mainstream partygoers. The vanilla crowd as Colton liked to call them. We had a resident D.J., a decent bar, and the vibe was always electric. But the second floor was where the real action happened. That was reserved for exclusive guests. Our themed rooms were the stuff of legends in Sandland and Brinton Manor. Legends we were quite happy to fuel and expand upon to keep the interest high. All publicity was good publicity, right?
Tonight, I was tasked with monitoring the ground floor. Colton and Will were assigned to the second floor, and Tyler was taking the night off, although chances were he’d find his way into a room or some trouble at some point in the night. We had security in place, good security, but we didn’t like to take a backseat when it came to our business. We wanted to be visible. Let the guests know that the soldiers were in attendance. That way, we could intercept any trouble at a moment’s notice and make sure everyone knew we didn’t take any shit. Not that they needed reminding on that score.
So, where was Adam, our self-proclaimed leader and resident psycho?
He’d announced that he was taking a few days off. He was going to spend some quality time with his girlfriend, Liv, after the shit they’d both been through recently. We didn’t argue. We felt more than confident that we could hold down the fort for a few days while they were gone. Adam assured us they wouldn’t be far away though, and if anything happened, we had to call him immediately. He hated being out of the loop. Adam was a control freak. We all were in our own way, but he always took it that little bit further.
I stood at the side of the bar, a perfect spot to observe the room, and I gestured to the barman, Joel, to get me another glass of coke. Colton and Will would probably be drinking beer or Jack Daniels as they manned the first floor, but I preferred to keep a clear head. I was never off duty, and I liked it that way.
I watched as the strobe lights darted across the dance floor, flickering and flashing over the heads of the crowds as they gyrated against each other, a mass of bodies all jumping to the beat. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, knowing that out of all the clubs around here, these people had chosen to spend their Saturday night with us. Our club was fucking killing it, and the feeling of pride that gave me made me stand taller as I sipped my drink and glanced around.
I took my phone out of my back pocket and placed it on the bar in front of me. No missed calls and no messages. That was a good sign. We had radios that the security team used to stay in touch with each other as the night wore on, but we preferred to use our phones; it was more private. Sometimes, we had shit to say that we didn’t want anyone else to know about. As soldiers of Brinton Manor, we kept our cards close to our chests. It took a lot to earn our trust, and we trusted very few.
Despite the party atmosphere around me, I felt a nervous tension. I was on high alert, ready to attack at a moment’s notice, and something about tonight felt off. My sixth sense was hinting at a shitstorm about to explode. Don’t ask me how I knew; I just had a feeling about these things. Always had. And it was my job to deal with this shit. Keep it away from the customers so they’d leave our club buzzing and ready to tell everyone what a good night they’d had. Word of mouth was the best advertising you could get, after all.
I glanced around the room, blocking out the steady beat of the music so I could hone in on the conversations going on around me. It’s amazing what you could pick up from idle conversation. When people had alcohol in their system they dropped their guard, and nine times out of ten, they spoke the truth. We’d found a lot of targets in our line of vigilante work through eavesdropping.
Despite the tension I felt, everything appeared to be running smoothly. I couldn’t settle though, so I pocketed my phone and decided to check in with our head of security and wannabe soldier, Gaz, to see what was happening with the rest of the club. I pushed my way through the mass of bodies crowded around until I came to the staircase that led to the second floor. Casually, I nodded to Gaz and asked, “Is everything okay?”
“It was,” he replied, glancing behind him and up towards the second floor. “But I’ve just seen Colton and Will run into one of the private rooms. I think some shit might be going down.”
