Page 9 of Fall onto me

It’s taking me too long to respond, because every inch of my being is screaming internally to tell this dude to go fuck himself. This man wants me to go to my part of town and commit a crime in the parking lot of somewhere I’ve gone since I was a kid.

Another racer’s bike, if they’re not running at top fucking notch, shit can go really bad, really fast. “I won’t ever kill for you.”

“You don’t have room to negotiate.”

The scoff I was holding escapes me, and I raise my hands in a T-position. “If you want me to do that, get your men to end me now, because it will never happen.”

The man taps his fingers against his desk. “Okay, understood. Besides, I wasn’t going to ask you to anyways, since you would leave evidence. I have men who are trained for that; you would just be a burden in that aspect.”

“Good,” I sneer.

“Good,” he replies. “You’re not going to kill anyone; you’re going to leave them stranded an hour before the race.”

I’m going to dismantle them completely, gut the things that make the bike work so one of the poor souls doesn’t try to do a quick fix that ends with them mangled on the street. “Done.”

“And Ghost, don’t fuck me over. My reach is farther than you could have ever imagined.” That much is obvious.

“What’s the point? You know I’m going to win.”

He laughs, and it’s low and gritty. “You don’t ask why, you just do.”

I know I shouldn’t ask, but I can’t help it. “What happens if I deny any orders?” This one, it’s whatever. Less than I was expecting from him really, but what about the orders he will eventually give that will make my skin crawl when he tells me, and keep me up at night after I complete them?

A sinister, unnatural laugh bleeds through the television speakers. “If you don’t follow through on what you owe me, I won’t simply kill you.” He stands now, walks into the darkness behind his desk, and paces back and forth. “I will snuff out anything you care about, Ghost.Ifyou fuck me over!” His calm demeanor from before has exited, replaced by a maniacal fucking sociopath. “I will do more than get my men to leave notes under your sickly little sister’s pillow.”

I tense, squeezing my fist from that memory. When I didn’t want to be involved, they left a note right where they knew I would listen, under Sophie’s head.

He calms himself, sitting back down. “I will rip out her new heart and throw it on the fucking street and make you step on it.”

I don’t ask him how he knows she had a heart transplant; I don’t want to know. I fight every urge to destroy the small screen, but I refrain because what can I really do to fight off a faceless coward?

“If I do what you ask …” I inhale the toxic fumes of my reality. “No harm will come to them, correct? I don’t want to keep watch on my grandma’s home every day. They can’t fucking defend themselves against you,” I snarl.

“No harm, absolutely none, will come to them as long as you follow my law.”

“And what’s that?” I don’t even try to hide the venom that seeps from my tongue.

There’s a long, drawn-out silence before he finally inhales. “Obey.”

There’s that word again. I walk away so he won’t see the tremble that shakes every piece of me, and by doing so, I take on my first mission. Effectively jumping onto this carousel that the Keeper oversees.

Only he knows how long I’ll be on it. Spinning in circles alone while he laughs, not pressing the button to stop the ride and gaining more power with each go-around.

The overseer of my new Hell chuckles as I walk out.

4

Imay be an idiot, but I do have a friend who’s a cop, and if anyone thinks I won’t utilize that, they’re the dumb ones.

I call Barnes up; he’s the one who helped us get away from Skyler’s parents’ house when I beat the fuck out of her father, and we ran. He answers on the third ring. “Foster Jennings.”

“Hey man, got a problem.”

“Meet me at Gram’s,” he replies.

I’ve known Barnes since elementary school. He was a few years ahead of me. We lived near each other and played basketball in the parking lot near our apartment.

He’s one of the good ones. Grew up in poverty and joined law enforcement to make a real difference. No matter how high up he gets in his rank, his objective is always the same: to help the community we grew up in. They wanted to promote him to a higher position a couple of years ago, but that would take him off patrol of our neighborhood and keep him tucked safely behind a desk, to which he declined without a second thought.

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