Page 8 of Wrecked

His stomach growled but he ignored it. There was never enough food, so why bother thinking about it?

If he took that job working for Erebus, he wouldn’t be hungry. Erebus had been some Greek god of darkness and shadow or some shit like that, Rogue had told him.

Yeah sure, if he worked for them, there would be enough money for everything he ever wanted. And for his mother too.

But after the first week of working for them, he had quit.

Erebus had too many rules, and Rebel had felt like there was a noose around his neck. Not to mention, they were always watching him, waiting for him to fuck up.

No, he thought, he was better off going it alone.

Now, he needed to find work.

Crime boss Jimmy Lincoln had offered him a job that sounded doable. Not that working for a drug lord was the best option, but being a hitman on the guy’s payroll wasn’t anything to sneeze at. He had three days to give Jimmy an answer or get the fuck out of his neighborhood.

If he left, that would mean his mother would be alone and he could no longer watch her and protect her from afar.

He had to wait for the next night to do the deed, and that was only because another man and woman showed up at his mother’s house and didn’t leave until dawn.

Tonight, though, was the night.

Now, he just needed to get through the rest of today staying low-key. First, he needed to find some fucking food. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have the energy to make the kill.

The sky over Northridge turned dark blue as the sun started to sink into the horizon and Rebel quickened his pace. There were several eateries with their backs facing alleyways and all he had to do was find one door that wasn’t locked.

Once he’d found them all locked, but he’d been lucky and found a half-eaten sandwich in the trash.

Not today though, today he got lucky. The back of Papa John’s Pizza was open and Rebel slipped inside. He snagged a boxed-up small pizza from the counter and walked out the back door.

That was when he ran. Not a soul had spotted him.

That meant things were going to go his way tonight. He stopped at the corner, crossed one of the main streets, and ducked into a park. There on the wrought iron bench, he devoured the gooey, cheesy treat. He didn’t care if he ate too quickly or too much. If he got a stomach ache later, so be it.

He had walked around starving for a week, so an ache from too much food wasn’t going to faze him.

Entering his mother’s house had been as easy as Rebel had thought it would be.

He slipped through the window opening into the dark interior of a spare bedroom that his mother used as a storage closet.

If his mother and her new lover were sleeping in the same bed, then he would need to bide his time. He didn’t want his mother waking up bathed in blood.

First, though, he’d check.

Sure enough, the man lay in bed next to her when he eased the partially open door open. The fucker was snoring loudly, sounding like a steam engine rattling the room.

Rebel fingered the hilt of his knife. It would take only a second to slit the guy’s throat and be done with it.

His mother was legally blind but could see things very close, so maybe she wouldn’t notice the blood when he sliced and diced her lover.

But at that moment, his mother shifted.

“Hank, roll over,” she said grumpily and elbowed the guy.

“Wha… hu…” Hank snorted, sputtered, and then rolled onto his side.

Rebel retreated to the dumpy kitchen and sat on the edge of the counter rather than at the trash-filled table. He’d placed a dish towel beneath his ass to protect his pants from the grease on the Formica.

No way in hell was he waiting in the living room. That place with its shit brown couch and recliner gave him the creeps because there was only a small window.

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