Page 15 of Karma (Deranged Drifters MC #23)

Chapter Fifteen

Griffin’s Beach Lex

O kay, Alexis, think. How are we getting out of this?

Lex looks around the small space and sees nothing but darkness. The radio in the cab plays some type of screaming metal, and she knows this was always Phillip’s plan. He just needed an opportunity to grab her, and the music is strategic. If she screams, no one would hear the difference.

The bass thumps loudly, and her ears ring. The headache is sure to come soon, but she has to focus. There has to be a way out of this.

Finding the taillight, she kicks and kicks, the sound thankfully drowned out by his music. She finally busts through, and she’s rewarded with light shining into the darkness, giving her the ability to see her surroundings in the confined space.

Two can play this game, asshole.

Twisting in ways that pull muscles she hasn’t used in a while, she flips over to look out through the only chance she has to get the attention of the outside world.

Except all she sees is scenery swimming by.

The sound of a motorcycle may or may not be in her head, and she worries it’s just wishful thinking.

Her mind playing tricks to avoid going insane with the terrible music, thumping bass, and crippling fear.

No cars. No motorcycles. No people. The hope that Lucas reached out to someone quickly enough to ensure Colt is coming for her fades as quickly as the trees by the road fly by.

On the off chance there’s a car coming towards them rather than following behind them, she sticks her arm out and waves wildly.

If someone sees an arm waving through a taillight, they’d call the cops, right? And where are the fucking cops when you need them? A kicked-out taillight would definitely be grounds to pull him over.

A bug hits her arm, and she curses, pulling it back into the trunk. It hurt enough to confirm Phillip has the pedal to the metal, and she doesn’t know how long they’ve been driving. She doesn’t know if they’re even still in Griffin’s Beach anymore.

The release latch!

She searches along the door, hoping to find the emergency latch. She sees the cover and tears it off, but her heart sinks. The lever has been broken, and the wire it pulls looks welded to the metal beneath it.

The music stops, and she holds her breath. As uncomfortable as she is, she’d much rather continue driving than stop. Stopping means torture and death. She remembers how it the medical examiner estimated Nina endured around two weeks of torture before she died.

I have to find a way out of this trunk. If not, I don’t think I’ll survive. And I don’t want to live through whatever sick plan he’s cooked up.

“Alexis!” Phillip shouts from the front seat. “Can you hear me?”

Maybe if I don’t answer, he won’t talk to me. I need time to think.

“That’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. It’s not like I need your responses to have a conversation.”

Great… I get to listen to a narcissist shout at me until he’s driven me to my final resting place. Yay me.

“Our father is a real piece of work. I fucking hate his guts, and I considered giving you a chance. You probably don’t remember, but we’ve met before that day at the cafe. You were too preoccupied to give me the time of day, and that’s when I knew you were just like him. That you had to die.”

The car bounces over a railroad track, and she’s thrown high enough to hit her head on the trunk lid. A compartment beneath her she hadn’t noticed opens, and she reacts too late to stop the tire iron before it hits her in the face.

“Fuck,” Lex mutters, her hand covering her bleeding nose.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he shouts. “Did you hit your head?”

Grabbing the tire iron, she does her best to ignore the pain in her face. She may not have a way out, but she has a weapon now. If this helps her get out of this whole thing alive, she’ll forgive it for breaking her nose.

Great, now I’m planning to forgive an inanimate object. Crazy really must run in the family.

“He wanted to lock me up in a mental facility. Can you believe that? I was only four, and he wanted to toss me in, lock me up, and throw away the fucking key.”

Yeah, it makes perfect sense to me. I actually think he could’ve fought a little harder to make it happen.

“I’ve seen those places. The asylums. They want to change the name because asylum has such a bad connotation, but the truth is still the truth. It’s exactly what they are, and I fucking hate his guts for even thinking of putting me in one.”

Bro, you need it. Seriously.

“All those other women before you were just test rats. I wanted to start with women who were just available, but there was no excitement there. If they didn’t have blonde hair and blue eyes, it just didn’t do it for me.

But we have Nina to thank for bringing us together.

And she helped me perfect my plan for you. ”

I take back everything I’ve ever said about Zane. I’ll take him and his terror over this. At least when he was going to kill me, it was going to be over pretty quickly. Nothing dragged out like this freak.

“We’re going back to where it started for me. Let me tell you a little story.”

Good God, he really likes to hear himself talk, doesn’t he?

“I was around six, I think, when I found Dad after he left Mom and me. Mom was devastated when he washed my hands of me, and I just couldn’t understand why he stopped coming around.

It bothered me for over a year, and that’s when I tracked him down.

Hitchhiked to his new house, and I saw my little brother. ”

This part of the story makes her pity him a bit. A small child hitchhiking to his father’s house because he didn’t understand why he wasn’t around anymore tugs at her heartstrings against her will.

Did VP even tell him goodbye?

“I went back years later, and Zane was around seven, I think. It was the first time he saw me, and I realized he wasn’t running around playing. He was crying. He told me his mom was dying, and that’s when I saw my opportunity.”

Opportunity? To know Zane?

“I waited over a year to see how her treatment plan turned out, and she was getting better. Margaret wasn’t like our moms. She was dark-haired.

I don’t know what color her eyes were, though.

By the time I dug up her grave to steal her wedding ring, they were gone.

I never researched whether they remove eyes when they prep the body for burial, or if it’s just one of the first parts to deteriorate.

Her eyelids were glued shut, though, so maybe they were still in there. ”

Jesus, you dug up a body, which is creepy enough, but then wanted to look at her eyeballs? What the fuck is wrong with you?

“Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. The funny thing is, the treatments worked.

I’d go out to spy every couple of weeks, and Zane gave me updates.

It always amazed me how much we looked alike considering how polar opposites our mothers were.

Clearly, we got more of his genes. Unlike you.

Which is good because our father would make an ugly woman. ”

Where the hell is this going?

“Getting better wasn’t allowed. She didn’t get to live happily ever after with Nash.

He didn’t get to have a happy ending. That’s when I swapped her pills out for poison.

It was too easy. And everyone just assumed the medication wasn’t working, and the cancer killed her. Even the doctors looked no further.”

Hold up. Did he just say he killed Zane’s mom? Not the cancer?

“No one had a reason to question it. It just looked to everyone like her body was quitting on her, and it probably was when I took the medicine away. I guess it’s a toss-up which killed her. The cancer could have been what got her, I suppose, because she wasn’t taking the medication.”

Oh my God. His own mother wasn’t his first victim. Zane’s mom was, and Phillip wasn’t even a teenager yet. So what’s the real body count?

“I realized he’d been sleeping around with your mom before his wife even kicked the bucket, and that was when it hit me.

He’d never feel the pain of a woman dying.

Not one who gave him sons, anyway. He just moves on and starts a new family.

Then you came along, and he was much more committed to Emma.

Maybe his biological clock told him to stop fucking around like he did with the prior two women.

Because you may not know it, but your mom wasn’t the first woman he fucked while married. ”

If Phillip hadn’t killed Margaret, and her treatments worked, I probably wouldn’t be here. I don’t really know how to feel about this.

“Did you know I tried to kill you once before? I almost succeeded, too.”

Sounds like something you’d do.

“That firefight with the Devil’s Advocates was the perfect cover, but of course, as you do, you moved just in time.

I would’ve killed you after that, but Nash shipped you off with your mom to Arizona.

He was upset after the two of you left, so I was content.

But then you had to come back. And then so did she. ”

Well, that’s reassuring. He’s failed once. This should go swimmingly for me now.

“Zane ran your mom off when they were supposed to get married. Without knowing it, he saved Emma. I mean, she’s blonde with blue eyes, which is perfect for me. But she’s older than I like. And Nash was pretty torn up about losing her, so it makes her safe. But not you.”

At least Mom’s safe. I don’t know why we didn’t think to make sure she was guarded. She fits his victim type.

The car hits a pothole, and Lex grunts as she hits her head on the sidewall this time. She’ll have a concussion from the damn drive if he doesn’t slow down and take it a bit easier.

“I knew the moment you came back to Griffin’s Beach the last time, the one after you left Colt, you were going to die.

And I knew that I had to perfect my plan to do it.

I’ve finally figured out the perfect death for you, and we’ll go out together.

The moment you take your last breath, so will I. You and me forever, Alexis.”

Together? Why does it feel like I’m in some sort of sick love story he’s made up in his demented head?

Moving to the taillight, she sticks her arm out to wave. She has to get someone’s attention. Attract them enough to call the authorities and give the license plate.

“And when Zane inevitably shows up with the clues I’ve sent him, I’ve got a plan for him, too.

Even if I’m gone, it’ll work. Nash Dalton will be forced to see the deaths of his three children.

The deaths he caused. Unlike us, though, he’ll actually mourn Zane.

But at least you and I will be together. ”

Please, someone, anyone. See the taillight. See my arm. Call the cops.

The car turns a few times before finally coming to a stop, and Lex wipes her hand furiously on her jeans to dry them of her blood.

She grips the tire iron firmly in her hands.

If his plan is to kill her, he better be prepared for a fight.

If he did the research he claims he has, he should know this won’t be easy.

The trunk opens, and she swings, nearly leaping out of the cramped space, and hits him square in the forehead. The metal makes a satisfying cracking sound, and he drops the gun from his hand as he stumbles backwards, his hand to his head.

Jumping out of the trunk, Lex runs, realizing too late she should have grabbed the gun. She could have bent down, picked it up, and ended this right now. But it’s too late to turn back now.

She sprints in the direction they came, bringing her to a small tree line, but she almost bursts into tears when she hides behind a tree. They’re isolated in the middle of fucking nowhere. She hadn’t realized they were on gravel for what looks like a few miles, at least.

No one will stumble up on her here. If she plans to get out of this alive, she’ll have to kill him. Which would be so much easier if she’s had a moment of intelligence to pick up the damn gun he dropped when she took off. What she’d give to be able to empty the magazine into his chest and head.

“Fuck,” Lex whispers as she moves to another tree further away as Phillip calls out her name. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”