Page 48 of Tortured Souls

Was she telling the truth when she said she wasn’t working with her father?

This makes me angrier. Angry at myself for possibly throwing away something that could have been a lie in the first place. I pick up the bat once again and swing as if I’m Babe-fucking-Ruth and successfully break my uncle’s neck with one swing.

He’s dead.

Finally.

However, now I have no one to take out this rage on. I’m heaving, my breaths coming out deep and heavy. The music has shut off, and I don’t even remember when it ended. The only sound that flows in the air is my breathing.

“You alright, man?” I hear someone say from behind me. I lower my head, not wanting my guys to see how emotionally fucked I am at the moment.

“Saxon.”

“I heard you,” I say in a low voice. Not turning around to see who’s talking. It’s either Brooks, Finn, or Owen. Saint is with Sage at the house. I’ve come to terms with their relationship. If I’m being honest, Saint is the only man I know who is good enough for my sister. He’ll take care of her. I was hard on him at first, beating his face pretty good when he finally told me. I’ve come to my senses now, and they really are perfect for each other. I’m just mad I hadn’t seen it sooner.

“Why don’t you go home? Check on your sister. We’ll clean this up.” Owen’s hand is on my shoulder, and oddly enough, it’s grounding me. My thoughts keep me in a constant sensation of floating out of control and spiraling even further away from sanity. I should listen to him.

I should.

But I don’t.

This is my mess, and I need to be the one to close the door on this chapter of our lives for good. I need to bury this monster so I can finally move on. Move on to where? I have no fucking idea.

“I have to do this,” I say. It’s barely a whisper, but I know they can hear me. The room is silent otherwise. The good thing about my friends is they understand me. They’ve known melong enough to understand how I work and what makes me tick. That’s why they’re family to me. All of them.

The four of us wrap my uncle in the tarp we had lying beneath him and start carrying him up the stairwell. There’s a spot in the woods where we already have a grave dug and that’s where we toss him. Alone. Buried in the ground to rot away until he’s nothing more than a pile of bones.

We then clean up our basement and head towards my house. Finn drives the truck we took here, and Owen and Brooks walk with me through the night. We’re silent, the three of us, the way I like it, but having them here with me is comforting. Their presence is what matters.

Pushing through the back door of my house, I make my way up to my bathroom without a word to anyone. I need to wash off tonight. Stripping out of my clothes, I toss them into a pile in the corner of my bathroom, making a mental note to burn those later. I want no memories of tonight, nothing that would remind me of my uncle. I don’t want to think of this night after I wake up.

After a long steaming hot shower, my skin is raw from scrubbing and washing every inch of skin. I grab my towel and head to my room. I don’t even bother dressing. I pull back my comforter and fall into my bed. The last thing I see is a pair of angelic eyes filled with tears as I slip off into the horrors of my nightmares.

I’m sitting in the office at the garage, going over our recent numbers from the month and working on payroll. As mundane and tedious as this part of the job is, I enjoy it. It brings a sense of normalcy to my life when everything else is a fucking shitshow. I’m focused on the last few employees and their weekly hours, when I hear a faint knock on the door. Lifting my head, I notice a man who I’ve seen before. Mack. As in Skylar’s Mack.

I stand and wave him in, panic instantly flooding my system at the thought that something could be wrong.

“Is she okay?” I ask in a frenzy, closing the door behind him. He knows exactly who I’m referring to. The look on his face tells me my answer.

“No, she’s not.” He lets out a deep sigh. He looks exhausted, worry and panic etched across his face as he rubs his hand over his short hair. “I’m here to tell you about her suicide mission. I can’t stop her from doing, and believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve never been involved with any club activities, and I very much like it that way, but she means the world to me. She’s like a daughter, and I have no idea how to stop her or help her. You can.”

I respect his man and how he cares for her. He’s been there for her when no one else was. When I wasn’t. I watch as he paces slowly back and forth in my small office before sitting down on the couch against the wall. Defeated, he looks me in the eyes, silently pleading for me to help.

“What’s she about to do?”

“She’s about to head back to her hometown and kill both her parents.” Mack’s right. Thatisa suicide mission. She would be walking into the lion’s den, and for her to do it on her own is far from stupid—it’s ludicrous.

“Fuck.” I let out a sigh. Pulling my elastic out of my hair, I quickly redo my bun before sitting back against my desk.

“When is this happening?”

“She’s leaving tomorrow.”

Fuck.

So much for planning this out. The room is silent as I manically try to think of a plan, but I’m coming up short. She wouldn’t listen to me right now anyway after what I did to her.Then I remember she’d been spying on me. Why would I help her? Why would he think I would help her after learning she is a spy? Wait, if she was a spy, why does she still want to kill her parents? My head is pounding.

“Why should I help her?” I ask, grabbing water from the mini fridge and twisting the cap, downing half its contents.