Page 93 of Vengeful Rotten Casualties

Tremors vibrate my entire body as I lift them up. I don’t want to see this world anymore. I don’t want to feel a damn thing. I want to die. I want to cease to exist. It hurts too much. Right as I’m about to press my glass covered palms into my face, Luc’s hands come down over my eyes, stopping me.

“No,” he whispers against my hair as his chest presses into my spine. “No, Micki. Baby, please. Don’t…”

I grip his hands, the shards digging into him instead. I always do this. Hurt him. I cause nothing but pain to those around me. I thought I had strength to get this far, but it was all an illusion. I’ve been playing the part of the vengeful woman for so long, it’s all I knew. Deep down, I’m nothing more than a naive little girl who thought she could outsmart the devil.

As my blood mixes with Luc’s, I sob all the harder. It rockets up my chest, filling even the bubbles of oxygen in my blood. Poor Luc. He doesn’t know; he can’t possibly understand. He thinks I’m fixable, but I’m not. This is it. This is the end. There is no more. No more demons. No more planning. Nothing to fight. No monsters to slay save for myself.

Luc releases me as my arms fall back to my sides and I collapse against him, the pain of losing everything rocking me down to my core.

Distantly, I hear the sound of sirens as they approach. Through blurred vision, blue and red glows outside against the opposite building across from where we are. Ha. That’s right. Someone died here tonight. Jumped to his death like the rat bastard he was. I bet it was easy. I bet it was effortless. No suffering at all.

I cry harder, and Luc’s hand cups the side of my face. He holds me and rocks me back and forth. It’s all too much now.

I know I should be concerned. I should ask him about the information he took to the computer. I should wonder how we’re going to explain this to the police when they get up here. I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t matter.

Instead, I just turn my face into Luc’s chest and I let everything go. The room blurs and darkens. My body goes slack, and as oblivion takes over, I hope … I hope like hell I never wake up again.

39

LUC

I have never lovedsomething as much as I feared it.

I know I should feel loss. I should mourn not the man my father was, but the man he wassupposedto be. The man he could’ve been. Even that is difficult to manage. There’s an emptiness where the emotions should be. A disconnect. An absence of fucks to give. Therefore, all of my attention goes to the one thing I do have a fuck to give about.

Micki.

Even exhausted and passed out from exertion, she cries. Soft tears running over her cheeks as she rests against my chest. My side aches like a motherfucker. The reopened wound has thankfully stopped bleeding—thanks to the EMT that taped it for me. He said something about unclean stitches, grumbling about stupid ass kids. Yeah, I’m sure to someone in their thirties I might seem like a stupid ass kid, but the life I’ve lived makes me feel like I’m a hundred years old.

The topical cream is numbing the area, making it easier to hold Micki against my chest, but the rest of my body feels beat to hell. Still, I ease Micki’s body closer. Even when I was getting treated, I’d refused to go without touching her. I’m afraid the second I stop, she might disappear into thin air.

Dean approaches as I adjust my hold on her, the blankets the EMTs provided for us sliding down slightly. He takes his unlit cigarette from his mouth and rubs a hand over his head, grimacing at the ground.

“The cops have been handled,” he tells me. “But they’re gonna want to have a statement from her when she wakes up.” He nods to the woman in my arms.

“No.” She won’t do it. Hell, I don’t even really know what I’m in for when she wakes up. If she’ll even be there—mentally or emotionally. This kind of shock is unprecedented. There’s no manual for what to do if your girlfriend fails to kill the man who tortured her and now will never be able to do it.

Dean frowns. “This is a big fucking deal, Luc,” he says. “I can manage these guys.” He pauses and gestures back to the officers loitering around the front doors of Kincaid Industries offices and within the yellow roped off area nearby. “But more people are going to start asking questions about your father—”

“He jumped to his death,” I interrupt.

“Yeah, I know—”

“No.” I cut him off again and lift my head to meet his eyes. “You don’t know.” He thinks that’s the tale we’ve concocted tonight. He thinks it’s the story, the lie. I wish it was.

Dean’s face twists with confusion. “What do you—”

“He. Jumped. To. His. Death.” I grit the words out and level him with a hard look. His gaze focuses on me and lingers. After a beat, his eyes widen.

“He really did?”

I jerk a nod and turn my attention back to Micki. My lips twist and press harder together. “I uploaded all of the evidence of what he’s done for the last five years to his computer and sent it out,” my voice turns gruff. “He knew it was coming. He knew he couldn’t escape facing what he’d done.” And he’d taken the last thing Micki ever wanted. In taking his own life, he deprived her of her revenge. The one last fuck you to the both of us.Bastardwas too good a word for a monster like him.

“Fuck.” That’s it. That’s all Dean says, all he has to say.

Silence stretches between us, interrupted only when the stiff crunching of shoes over pavement approaches. Both of our heads turn at the same time as a man in a loose fitting, cheap suit stops a few feet away. With both hands in his overcoat’s pockets, he eyes first me and then Dean. His attention remains on Dean.

“Mr. Carter,” he says. “Can I assume that this is a friend of yours?” He nods to me.

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