Page 96 of Kings Don't Break
I maneuver out of Stricklin’s hold and throw my fist at him. My knuckles collide with his jaw. Coates comes up from behind, wrapping his arms around my front and squeezing his baton into my throat. My air’s immediately cut off, the hard stick digging right into my esophagus. I scrabble at his hands and the baton, but it’s no use. He’s got the jump on me and he’s out of reach, choking me out from behind.
Stricklin’s straightened from the right hook he took to the face. He stretches open his jaw, his tongue poking around inside his mouth as if checking for loose teeth. Then he steps up to where Coates has me grunting and sputtering for air and he slams a fist into my stomach.
Things only tumble more out of control from there.
Stricklin drives his knee into me next. All while Coates still has me choking from the baton. I’m grabbed by a fistful of my hair and tossed to the wet asphalt. Before I can even think of getting up—I’m coughing, trying to catch my breath and shake the dizziness away—the two start kicking the shit out of me.
Both of them at the same time. Coates from one side. Stricklin from the other. The baton rains down on me. The hard plastic stick cracks over my head in a burst of pain. I howl into the cold night air as my body twists and jerks on the ground. Coates lands a combination of punishing kicks to my ribs with the steel-toe end of his boot, showing no signs of slowing down.
“We tried to warn you! This is what happens when you disobey authority,” Stricklin pants, slamming down his baton again. He’s lost his shades. There’s a manic gleam in his eyes, a thirst to do harm. Wreck something. That something being me in this moment. Was this how he looked when he lost control and put his hands on Kori?
I spit out blood and grunt out my defiance. “Fuck you! ARGH!”
Coates drives his steel-toe boot into me that much harder.
“Get up, get the fuck up!” Stricklin barks. He’s fisted his hand in my hair again as he forces me up and then forcefully walks me toward their squad car.
I’m all kinds of fucked up—blood leaks from my mouth and my vision’s blurred. I’m limping and my side throbs, begging for medical attention. But I don’t go down without a fight. I jerk against him and attempt to throw a punch or two.
My arms are subdued and my head’s slammed down onto the hood of the car. Inside my skull, it feels like my brain rattles. If I wasn’t able to see straight before, I sure as hell can’t now. The ground beneath my feet feels like it’s giving out, and I’m barely lucid.
Stricklin twists my arms behind my back and slaps cuffs on me. “You are under arrest, Blake Cash. For driving eighty in a forty-five zone. For driving without a license and registration. For assaulting a police officer.”
The grunts that tear from my throat sound like gibberish even to my ears. Muffled from my swollen jaw and inability to think straight. But what I mean to do is yell at the fucker that he’s a lying piece of shit. I handed him my license and registration and I wasn’t going eighty.
I did assault him, but the piece of shit deserved it.
Even as they’re placing me under arrest, I’m jerking against them. I’m putting up a fight.
“Add resisting arrest,” Coates says.
“Still not good enough. I know. Driving under the influence,” Stricklin says. A sick glee poisons his voice. He grips me tight by my cuffed wrists, then leans closer to growl in my ear. “I know it was you who attacked me. Imagine my surprise when we saw you earlier. You were at the gas station—you bought some whiskey and chugged the whole bottle.”
“MOTHERFUCKER!” I scream. It’s all I can manage.
“Coates. Hold him down.”
Coates takes over as Stricklin goes to retrieve something from the inside of the patrol car. He returns holding a bottle of whiskey. The same exact brand, the same exact type I’d bought just an hour ago.
Suddenly, even through the throbbing pain and fogginess in my brain, I understand what’s about to happen. How they’re going to fuck up everything.
Coates pins me against the car as Stricklin grabs my jaw and pours the whiskey down my throat.
I scream.
I scream so fucking loud, so fucking hard, my vocal cords strain and ache and eventually give out. The gut-wrenching sound of horror that matches the black void of the night. Nobody’s around to hear the tortuous sound except for me.
Nobody’ll ever know. They damn sure won’t believe me.
Stricklin’s panting in excitement by the time he’s emptied the bottle. Half of it washed over me. The other half slid down my throat.
“I warned you,” he says with a dark laugh. “I told you to stay the fuck away from my wife. But you refused to listen. I’m going to make sure you go away for a long, long time, Mr. Cash. Then I’m going to bring Kor back home—and I’m going to make her pay. I’m going to make every moment of hers a living hell and you won’t be around to do anything about it. I can already hear her cries. Makes me hard just thinking about it.”
“MOTHERFUC—”
Coates smashes me over the head with the baton and ushers in a fresh wave of dizziness. Stars dance in front my eyes as I grunt and then finally give into the torment.
My body loses all fight and everything around me wipes out.
