Page 52 of Vengeful Rotten Casualties

The man shakes his head and then follows my actions by stubbing out his own cigarette. He bends over, collects the remains, and deposits them with the trash in his pockets. Smart guy.

"It ain’t that simple.”

I stare at him for a moment, my thoughts drifting, and as the distant sounds of ATVs roar closer, I open my mouth. “If you want it to be, I can help you.” The offer is stupid. I don’t know these three and I don’t want to. They’re just hired men. Criminals likely with a long history. No one else would be so good at killing and removing their tracks.

“You?” he glances my way with a frown. “How so?”

I shrug. “I’ve got some connections.” Or at least friends who have connections.

The man falls silent as the ATVs of his men appear at the tree line. Their lights cut through the darkness and their engines get louder as they speed across the ground. Just before they reach us, his quiet response hits my ears.

“I don’t care ‘bout my path,” he says. “But I care about theirs, so if you got a way for us to get out of this kinda work … yeah, I’ll take it.”

I nod. “I’ll be in contact, then.”

That’s the last thing I have to say as the two others finally pull up and cut their engines in front of us. A body sized black bag lays over the back of one seat and the driver—who I’ve come to know based on his sheer size—steps out of his vehicle.

“He didn’t make it far,” he begins, moving to the bag.

I approach, rounding the ATV as he grips the top of the bag’s zipper and pulls it down slightly.

“We had to wait until the animals could be lured away from the body,” he says. “But we can’t leave it out here if you truly wanna get rid of the evidence.”

The pallid face of Andrew Bennington is practically unrecognizable in the bag. Claw marks are torn over his body. Rigor mortis hasn’t set in yet, but the smell of death has. It permeates the air. I swallow roughly and gesture for him to zip it back up.

“It’s good,” I say. “I’ll wire the remainder of your payment into the account by tomorrow morning. Once that’s done, I expect the information you wrote down for me to be passed on. You can keep it as collateral for now, until you get paid.”

The trio nods in unison once again and I can’t resist the amusement that rises. Like a pack of puppies themselves, all in tune with each other. I turn away from the ATVs and gesture towards the house.

“I need a ride back,” I call out over my shoulder as I start walking. “So, let’s finish this up and get the hell out of here.”

Eastpoint is calling me back to its arms, and so is Luc.

22

LUC

My heart beatsa savage rhythm in my chest. Cold slithers through my veins, ice forming inside the cavity of my ribcage. I’ve never felt an anger quite like this. Such a destructive emotion was always stamped out before it could ever reach its full potential. Not now. Now, it has complete control of me. I thought it would feel suffocating—such volatile despondency—but it doesn’t. In fact, it makes the oxygen that slips into my lungs feel more potent. A grade higher than what I’m used to. It makes me feel as if all of my senses are sharpened.

I’ve made a mistake. A big one.

I should have never agreed to let her handle this without being completely on the inside with her.

I sit in the darkness of my own living room. Waiting. There’s no light save for the moon’s glow shining in through the back windows. I haven’t even showered yet. I’m still in my football jersey and grass-stained pants.

The clock in the hallway ticks loudly into the rest of the house, the only sound save my quiet breathing. I don’t count the minutes. It would be an impossible task anyway. My mind is too warped and caught up in the inner rage that’s storming through me. It’s been hours since the game ended. Hours since I’d been given the rundown of what Rylie saw in the parking lot of the stadium.

I knew Micki would do whatever it took for her revenge, but some part of me … deep down, I’d expected she wouldn’t cross this line. Not now that she’s back. Not when she sleeps in my bed—in my fucking arms—every night.

Maybe I really should lock her up. Maybe that would be better for both of us. My hands grip into tight fists when I hear the front door open. It’s well after midnight, and I’m under no illusions of where she’s been and what she’s been doing. I don’t care about it, anyway. The blood. The murder. The vengeance. All of that I can understand.

The betrayal, however, is incomprehensible.

How could she?The thought pounds through my head. This is the problem with Micki—with my feelings for her. Caring so much about a person gives them the power to hurt you, and that’s exactly what she’s fucking done. She’s fucking hurt me.

The soft side of me, the kind boy that has always been head over heels in love with MiKayla Michaels warns me to be careful of her. To be cautious. To not get hurt like we did once before, so long ago. He doesn’t win out. Because I’m not just in love with her anymore. I’m obsessed. I’ve spent half a decade searching for her and failing. She chose to come back to me. She chose this.

“Luc?” Her voice echoes through the open empty air. The veins in my arms pulse as I unclench and re-clench my fists over and over again in an effort to not lose the absolute last bit of my barely restrained control. My sanity is threadbare. Her footsteps move further into the house until she appears at the mouth of the front hall.

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