Page 3 of Double or Nothing
“We need to get up so we can make sure you’re not injured,” I say. “Can we trust you not to do anything stupid? The man’s dead, and we need to find Jade. Snap out of whatever crazy state you’re in and get your head back into the game. Focus on Jade needing you and calm the fuck down.”
“I will,” Vulcan mutters. “Just turn loose of me. I’m okay now and I don’t think I’m hurt.”
“We’ll be the judge of that,” Seven tells him. “Let’s move you into the light so we can check you out.” He turns his head to search for Leroy, who has been completely silent this whole time. “Leroy! What the fuck are you doing just standing there with your mouth hanging open? We need your help here.”
Leroy is staring at the man’s partially headless body as if he can’t tear his eyes away. “There’s a piece of his ear on my new shoes,” he mumbles before running to the side of the RV to puke.
“Oh my God! He’s no fucking help,” Seven says. “I’m going to turn you loose because we need to make sure you’re not hurt and then go search for Jade. Whatever shit you have going on in your fucked up head needs to stop right now. We don’t have the time or the energy to deal with it. Jade is missing, and we need to find her. If you want up, then tell me you hear me and understand.”
“I hear you,” Vulcan grunts out.
“One other thing,” I add. “Don’t make one goddamn move toward your gun. You’re costing us valuable time with your insanity. Got it?”
“I got it, okay?” Vulcan says in frustration. “I said to let me up. I’m fine, I swear.”
Reluctantly, I loosen my grip on him and Seven crawls off his back. Vulcan scrambles to his feet and steps into the glare of the RV’s floodlight for us to check him over carefully for injuries. Miraculously, there’s not a speck of blood on him anywhere.
“How the hell are you not dead?” I ask once we’re convinced the bullet missed him. “You had the gun to your temple, and you pulled the trigger. How did you live through that?”
He shrugs nonchalantly. “I told you I can’t die. Believe me now?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Seven yells, throwing up his hands. “Don’t you dare start that shit again! Not after everything we just went through. You’re alive because I knocked the gun out of your hand. That’s the only reason. I saved your fucking life, and I don’t want to hear one more goddamn word ever about how you can’t die. You scared the shit out of us, and I never want to experience anything like that from you again. Now what the fuck are we going to do with this asshole?” He points to the headless body strapped to the lawn chair. “Or what’s left of him, I should say.”
“We’ve got to get rid of the body,” Vulcan says, pulling himself together. “I’ll bury him in the desert where he’ll never be found. We need to be quick though and do it before daylight. You all need to go back to Platinum and try to find Jade. I’ll take care of this bastard myself.”
He gestures towards the gruesome sight illuminated by the stark floodlight. Blood and gore mar the ground, a sickening reminder of the event that unfolded only moments ago. The scent of blood hangs heavy in the air, mingling with the faint odor of vomit from Leroy's earlier episode.
“I’m not leaving you here alone,” I tell him. “Seven and Leroy can take the limo back to Platinum to search for Jade. They can ask around if she was there tonight. I’ll stay here and help you clean up this mess.”
“Sounds good,” Seven agrees. “Leroy! Are you finished puking over there? We need to go back to Vegas.”
Leroy regains his composure enough to join us, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand with a sheepish expression. “Sorry about that,” he says. “I have a weak stomach. I’ve never seen someone killed right in front of me. It’s a lot worse than in the movies. Did you see his head explode? It was just like a big old pumpkin. Brains and eyeballs going every which way. I’ll have nightmares for weeks about this.” He steps around the body and heads toward the limo. “C’mon, Seven. I’m headed back to the car. I’ll take you back to Platinum while these two clean up.”
Vulcan turns to me. “Since when do you know how to shoot a gun? You didn’t hesitate and hit him right between the eyes.”
“I picked up a variety of skills while working with the carnival,” I reply. “Including being able to use a gun if I need to.”
“Damn…learn something new every day,” Vulcan says. “I’m impressed. Just for the record, I’m still pissed at you for killing him. He was mine.”
“You mean as a trophy?” I ask. “You wanted to claim him as your kill? That’s sick, even for you.”
“I promised Jade I would kill anyone who hurt her, and you took my chance away to make good on that promise,” he explains. “I wanted to torture him before I killed him. I wanted him to suffer for trying to shoot Jade on the boat. He almost killed her. It’s a miracle she was able to swim away and escape. He didn’t deserve to live.”
“I get it,” I say. “But your life is worth more to me than a promise you made to Jade. The end result is the same, whether you killed him, or I did. He’s dead, and Jade won’t care who pulled the trigger. He would never have talked, no matter how much you tortured him.”
“You’re probably right,” Vulcan grudgingly admits.
“You stabbed him and that was painful enough,” I remind him. “Besides, there’s another man left for us to find and take care of. Do you have shovels here? We need to start digging his grave if we plan to get him in the ground before sunrise.”
“And that’s my exit line,” Leroy says, staggering towards the limo. “I’m not a gravedigger. We’re leaving now.” He stops to stare at Seven’s shoes. “Before you get into my limo, make sure you didn’t step in any blood or guts. I don’t want to be picking brains up off the floorboards tomorrow.”
“You bring up a good point,” Seven says. “We need to scrub the scene of any trace of evidence we were with this guy. From the moment we grabbed him at Jade’s car until we bury him, we need to make sure his DNA disappears for good.”
“Don’t worry, I got you covered on that angle,” Leroy says. “I love those true crime shows on TV. First thing we need to do is chop off his hands and get rid of his remaining head. They can’t identify him without those two body parts.”
“What about all those fucking tattoos on his body?” Vulcan asks.
“Hmm…excellent point,” Leroy replies, rubbing his chin. “Let me think about that and I’ll get back to you.”
