Page 36

Return: To come back to.

W hat was left?

I kissed Fallon’s head and promised her I would return. She was still shaking in her sleep, and the blood wasn’t letting up between her thighs. After some quick thinking, I opened the window and found the dumpster below.

“Hmm. Trash service delivery, you fucking pig,” I said to the piece of shit in the corner.

His scrawny body was light, and I had him picked up and hung out the window in no time. He started to come-to, and he tried to meet my eyes. I stared at him, letting him see the man who would end his life—one monster to another.

“Wha...where am I?”

His dick was still hanging out of his pants, and I ground my teeth to the point of breaking, remembering how he used that thing on Fallon.

“Hell,” I said to him. “And you’ve just pissed off the fucking devil.”

He didn’t have a chance to respond. I dropped his body, and he crashed into the trash below with a plume of dust and a puff of trash bags. I hope a diseased needle stabbed his ass on his landing.

Walking back over to Fallon, I pressed the call button and sent a prayer to ‘Sky Daddy’ to give a fuck for once and take care of her while I took care of one of his demons. He and I could have an arrangement. He protected Fallon in exchange for a free deletion of his rough drafts shit copies.

“I swear to…well, swear to you,” I said on unsteady feet, looking at the ceiling like some cosmic floating asshole was listening. “If you take her from me, I will make it my mission to crawl out of hell to destroy you.”

Threatening God—smart Roe.

I cleared my throat and let myself calm down a little.

“Please man. You have fucked me enough in this life. Save some for the next one, yeah?”

Unsure if the world’s hand puppeteer heard me, I sighed and finally walked out of the door. I hated leaving Fallon.

She was just attacked, but I had to get this man away from her, away from the baby. He raped her in a busy hospital, there was clearly no line he wouldn’t cross. Judging by his flashy clothing, I could assume he was some prized societal member of the rich bitch club.

Funny. The rich and the poor bled the same.

I took two steps at a time, hustling to the dumpster outback. When I got there, I dared to look up at the window where Fallon was. I could see doctors and nurses fussing over her and the baby. She was being put on a bed and cleaned up.

I remembered her beautiful face and how it was bloodied, and I let that rage infuse into my being. Gripping the asshole as roughly as he manhandled her, I yanked his ass out of the metal bin. He smelled like the swine he was.

Not bothering to pretend like I didn’t want to rip this man’s face off, I all but dragged his half-limp body out of the hospital parking lot and to the back where the car was sent from Goliath. Randall was ‘the wheelman,’ and he said nothing.

Instead, the cop took one look at me and got out to open the trunk. He may have worked under Quinn, but Randy had balls that were more from the streets than the fancy badge on his chest. He could see that this swine was as disgusting as the bedpan shit clinging to him.

“Goliath told me to drop you off at the back. The basement is cleared for you.” he seemed to hesitate.

“What is it? Just spout the holy grail bullshit already, cop.”

He laughed, surprising me.

“Nah, man,” he said, helping me shove the shit stain inside the trunk.

“But you need to know that killing someone for real isn’t like movies and shit.

Whether they are monsters or not, they are still living, breathing humans.

When you cool off, you’ll see the blood on your hands.

Right now, it’ll be invisible. Hell, it may be hard to see for years… but one day you will.”

It was rare to hear Randall say more than a few words, so speaking to me this deeply had me listening to him. He was right. I knew he was right. Joe literally haunted me, and I didn’t kill him. Judas did.

Will I have to live forever with this monster in my mind, too?

“Tick-tock.”

My eyes widened. The lid shut with a click, but I could have sworn that before he was shut inside, he said…

“What the fuck did he say?” I said to Randall, frantically trying to open the trunk again.

Randall looked at me like I was losing it. I probably was.

“Uh. He’s groggy. I didn’t hear anything. Maybe mumbling? You threw his ass from a second-story building, bro. He has some busted ribs, at the least.”

I smiled at that knowledge. He would have so much more than that when I was finally kind enough to grant him death. This man looked weirdly familiar, and I wondered where I could have seen him before. It didn’t fucking matter. He was dead.

“What’s the best torture technique? You were in the military, right? What makes a person really suffer?”

Randall searched in my eyes for something. I was breathing heavily, and I could feel that mania creeping into my mind again.

“Look at you, Boyo. You finally grew some nuts.” Of course, Joe was here, and I tried my best to ignore him.

He was poking at my crotch and wolf-whistling. Randall was already staring at me like I would bolt at any second. I didn’t need to go swatting at my imaginary ‘friend.’

“You need to ask Big Papa over here how to kill a man? That’s pathetic even for you, Roe Roe.”

Joe’s grating voice made my jaw twitch.

“Fuck you,” I spat.

Randall quirked a brow and shook his head. “Man, let’s just get you to the basement. You’re brothers are waiting.”

Judes was awake?

“Judas is heavily medicated. But he’s awake,” Randall said, answering my unasked question.

God, poor Judie.

The drive was silent except for Joe’s taunts and jeers. Having ignored him for so long, he poofed in a cursing, tantrum-laden cloud.

Good fucking riddance.

Randall made it to the asylum’s back entrance just in time to hear thumping and curses from the trunk of the black SUV.

“Rise and shine, rapist. It’s time for your reckoning.” I said cheerfully, throwing open the trunk and enjoying his pained noises from the sunlight.

“Go tell Lith to give me a few minutes,” I said. “To get him nice and comfy.”

Randall looked hesitant, and I ignored his stare, slinging shrimp dick over my shoulder and kicking open the backdoor’s entrance to the basement.

“You fucked the woman who belongs to a literal insane man. You are as cracked as I am, or you’re very brave.”

A metal chair sitting next to a full-link iron chain bolted to the ground was the perfect sitting place for this fuck. I threw the monster down onto the shitty chair and locked him down while he groaned from the pain on his side.

Definitely broken ribs.

I poked the area he shielded, and he hissed in agony. “Hello. Earth to fuckhead. We’re having a conversation.”

The man spat in my direction. “How dare you handle me like this, you barbarian. You will pay with your life. A giant creature like yourself should be displayed for all to see your fall.”

I laughed out loud, hearing the mania in my voice. “Whatever consequence I receive after killing you will be worth it. You put your disgusting body on what is mine. You think you can live after that?”

“Yours? You are a true buffoon, indeed.” The man laughed back at me. “That woman is my wife. You are the one who has trespassed on another’s territory!”

My steps faltered ever so slightly.

Wife?

He was lying. He had to be lying. Fallon wouldn’t…

“You don’t believe me? Check the thing called ‘Technology,’ you caveman, to confirm for yourself. You have interrupted the act of love. My wife and I frequently make love.”

That word was bouncing around in my head like a ping-pong ball.

Wife.wife.wife.wife.wife…

I felt my teeth chipping from the pressure as I reached into the asshole’s pocket and withdrew his phone. An image of Fallon was on the display screen. She was standing beside this monster. Her eyes were guarded and sad while her smile reflected in the image.

What the fuck?

“Yes, sir. You have truly stepped into it now. You have assaulted and threatened Ferdinand Joseph Grosvenor Derjerh, The Second.”

That name…

Images of Joe…Joseph flashed in my head like a polaroid spinning on teacups—conversations of the past blending into my future. When I first arrived at the asylum, Joe wasn’t the batshit man he was when he died. He was cruel, cunning, and as sane as any of us were.

He even had a visitor that would constantly see him until he started losing his fucking mind. A young teenager, a scrawny arrogant fuck that I bumped into a few times but never gave two shits about.

That feeling of déjà-vu hit me again. This time it made me fucking dizzy. I held my head from the pain. Joe appeared, his haunting smile inches from mine.

“Tick-tock, Soldier Tick-tock.” he sang, that demented fucked fruit loop tone of his, a shrill shriek in my ears.

“Who is Joe to you, you sick fuck,” I yelled, unable to get off the ground from the pain in my head.

The prisoner laughed, sounding just like Joe.

“Think about it, you dumb meat sack. Who would see little ole’ me? Did you think a brilliant mastermind would be alone? Even you have to know that they may have called me the Reaper, but there was never one . Just like death itself. I have many names.”

Breathing became tough…I felt suffocated.

“I have many faces and many extensions to my work. Did you think killing me would be the end? No, no, silly boy. It was the beginning for another to rise from my ashes.”

I looked at the man in the seat. His features were so similar to Joe’s. In his days of not looking like a sprouting potato, he was a high classed fucking asshole. This kid…he was…related to Joe.

“The great Reaper of Hospital Twelve was my grandfather. I had to take my mother’s name to prevent people from connecting those pesky dots. You see, his work was unfinished. The mother falls, but so too does the child.”

I vomited on the ground. His words were incomprehensible to my ears. He couldn’t…

No.

“You…you killed Ariah,” I said, the strength completely depleted from my limbs. “Why? She was so pure!”

Joe’s grandson lifted his broken body to rise above me. His chains hanging off him but not anchoring him. He was too scrawny. He could free himself if I didn’t get the fuck up.

“So pure and trusting…sweet, dumb, Pharaoh. She welcomed me into your home. She listened to my pleas to help my grandfather. Fed me a delicious meal. She even had me holding your daughter. Such a fragile, breakable little thing, wasn’t she?”

My blood went cold. I felt numb. Tears streamed down my face, but I was not able to say a word. Hearing my daughter spoken about in past tense hurt more than anything I had planned for this man.

“Your betrothed was my practice for the big event. She’s the one who locked my grandfather into that hole. Deeming him insane and dangerous. It was only fair to lock her in the hell of her making.”

I couldn’t move, frozen with the destruction of my heart.

“I couldn’t kill your little rugrat that day. Your wife had made far too great an effort to hide her from me, even going as far as offering me…a deal.”

No. No. No. Please…not Xenia. No.

“Unlike you, your wife was smart enough to bargain for something I wanted far more than a screaming infant’s blood,” he continued.

“My dearest Gemmy and her beautiful mind and influences were causing her to become quite sick. She was going to face the same fate as her sister. Ariah Morgan had access to treat my Gemmy.”

Who the fuck is Gemmy? Did he mean the twins?

“If I do recall, Goliath Masters was the excused cop for the unfortunate death of the previous warden, right? It was quite difficult to free my grandfather, of course, but it was worth the blood bath of that night. I only wish I could have partaken. Hmm, oh well.”

His smile turned bitter, nearly deadly.

“A lot of good that did in the end because none other than your bumbling brother killed my Gemmy. So, you see, sweet Xenia’s life was a circle of reciprocity.”

Xeny bug…

“Sadly, it was not my hand to end your little bundle nor my brilliant grandfather. No matter, though. Death is death, after all, and the result is the same.”

He kicked me in the ribs, and I felt the cracks, but I simply couldn’t respond.

“Weak,” he taunted, kicking me again. “Useless. Broken. Man.”

His words and assault knocked me to my stomach. My inability to fight back was just a confirmation of his truth.

This man killed Ariah, tried to kill Xenia, and framed one of my brothers while somehow corrupting the other. Between him and his grandfather, this…demon created a shattered picture of my family.

Ariah…

She was tricked and stabbed in the back. Inadvertently, her love for our daughter was what trapped us all in the asylum. Her desperation to spare Xenia damned us all, including the one thing she wanted so desperately to save.

I coughed, trying to pull myself up. The man kept kicking me. The blows to my face and chest knocked me down, and again, all the while, he was finding a way free of the chains that bound him. I should have known a snake would be able to slither out of hell.

“I would love to stay and chat, dear boy. It is magnificent seeing that dumbfounded look on your pretty face, but unfortunately, I need to bid thee farewell.”

The last link fell to the ground, and I screamed for my body to work.

“I have an appointment. Repeating history is such an iconic treasure, don’t you agree?”

I felt sick.

He can’t mean…

“Fallon Summers has always been mine. Mine to fuck. Mine to kill. That little baby? Well, that’s just righting a wrong. Can’t make the same mistake twice, of course.”

“Stop.” My voice was a wheeze, barely a whisper above his cackling laughter.

“Don’t worry. I will bury them in the same hole you wallow in. My treat.”

“Please…”

Ferdinand stopped at the exit, turning on his heel and walking over to my body on the ground. He took a deep inhale and looked down on me.

“Oh, how the mighty do fall.”

One final kick and my vision turned black. The last thing I saw was Xenia, tears streaming down her cheeks as she lay down beside me and closed her eyes.