Page 75 of Kings Don't Break

Our mission tonight might’ve been a bust, but something’s got to give. I’ll find a release on my own.

* * *

You’d think I’d go home after the failed drug deal with the Barreras. It’d be enough to convince me to call it a night. The small crew that has carried it out rides back to the saloon and we debrief. The other guys indulge in a beer (I drink a Coke). Then everybody’s calling it a night.

As Mace, Ozzie, and Moses go their separate ways, I know I should be headed home to Korine and Sunny. It’s well past midnight, and I’ve got to be up at an early hour to open the shop.

Maybe I would go home if the adrenaline wasn’t still coursing through my veins. I’m still riding a rush of it that’s gone unchecked since our deal didn’t pan out. I need to expend the energy somehow. Make myself feel some kinda payoff that’ll make tonight worthwhile.

Boredom has never suited me well.

Back when I used to drink, it was often one of the reasons I let things spiral. It was what got the ball rolling whenever I was left with my own thoughts and began picking at the toxic parts of myself. I’d seek out a drink to quiet the noise in my head. Make myself forget the bad shit while I also made myself feel good.

At least that’s the reasoning I used at first. After a while I was doing it ’cuz I could. It was out of habit and necessity that I’d seek out a drink to function.

Day by day, I was becoming Bill and didn’t even realize it…

But tonight, with my pulse racing and a taste for excitement, I don’t seek out a drink. I mount my bike, my ski mask covering my face, and I take off from the saloon. I know just where I’m headed as I streak across town in the pitch-black night.

About a block away from Riddell Road, I park my bike behind a bunch of bushes. I dismount and then walk the rest of the way to the perfect house that’s marked 4729.

All the windows are dark. The whole street is quiet.

Everybody’s turned in for the night.

I pause a second longer, scoping out the area, then I make my move. Korine would be pissed if she found out what I’m about to do; she’d be even more pissed if she learned I swiped her old ring of keys to let myself into Stricklin’s house.

But she wouldn’t understand why I need to do this. How I’ve held off as long as I possibly could before acting on my urge to make the piece of shit pay.

This moment is something I’ve fantasized about from the instant Korine and Sunny turned up on my doorstep.

I make no sound, carefully twisting the key in the lock and then slipping into the house. I enter through the rear door in the kitchen. The room’s positioned farther away from the bedroom in the layout of the house. Something I took note of the day I accompanied Korine to pick up her things.

My pulse thrums faster. My adrenaline’s kicked up so many notches, I’m fueled by it. I creep through the dark of the Stricklin household, relishing in every fucking second. It’s a kind of payback in its own to know I have free rein of the place as the asshole sleeps cluelessly upstairs.

Normally, I wouldn’t be in favor of a surprise attack. I’d want to fight fair, man to man.

For Stricklin, I make a special exception. The piece of shit doesn’t believe in fairness himself if he’s ever put his hands on Korine.

So, I’ll make him feel as helpless and afraid as he made her.

I make it to the second floor landing and slink the rest of the way toward their bedroom. Stricklin’s a sloppy sleeper—he’s stretched out across the king-size mattress, only half covered by the comforter, his mouth open in a loud snore. I ease over to his nightstand and snag the firearm I already know is inside; another discovery I’d made the day I came with Korine for her things.

Standing over Stricklin lying in bed, I wait a few seconds before waking him. I do it smacking him hard across the face. The back of my hand collides with his cheek in a bitch slap that echoes in the quiet.

SMACK!

His latest snore is interrupted as he jerks awake. His limbs flail. His eyes pop open in drowsy, pained confusion.

I give him no time to react. Snatching him up by the collar of his t-shirt, I’m tossing him out of his bed. I’m barely letting him touch the ground before delivering a brutal kick to the face. He grunts as he lands in a tumble.

I go in. I beat the shit out of him. Ken Stricklin has no choice but to cower and curl up as I pistol whip him, kick every part of his body within reach, and smash my fist into his face ’til blood’s splattering all over my glove.

“ARGH! STOP!” he yells in desperation. “STOP!”

But I don’t stop. ’Cuz I don’t want to. ’Cuz Ken Stricklin doesn’t deserve it.

He deserves to suffer and bleed out on his own floor.