Page 61 of O'Mega's Revenge
The book came down. He screamed again, this time reduced into a blubbering mess as both arms hung limp at his sides. “Forget. I forgot you, I forgot her, forget.”
“He isn’t making a goddamned bit of sense. What do you want us to do, Tits?”
I was lost in my own thoughts. A tear traced down my cheek, but I barely felt it. Memories of my mother slowly dying in that hole bombarded me. I could vividly remember the rotting stitches and her broken bones. My own body was just as broken. Bruised, humiliated, cut, and shackled. I shivered, remembering the cold most. “Kill him.”
“Not so fast.”
The madam had a gun pointed at Nonno.
She must have slipped past Fell and Trot who were out looking for her.
“He’s a dead man, even if you kill one of us.” Nonno held up his hands.
In contrast, Jackson dropped the book, making a booming echo that drowned out the old man’s blubbering and panting.
“Want your boss?” Jackson’s question was almost manic. He spun the chair so hard, that the Surgeon flew out. His broken wrists did nothing to brace his fall. Instead, the additional pain made him moan loudly as he crashed to the stone floor at her feet.
She was sufficiently distracted that her shot at Nonno went wide, splintering into the racks and spraying red wine and glass on us all.
“Motherfucker, you’re insane!” Nonno dove under the heavy oak table.
She trained the gun on me, recovered from her distraction.
“He’s mine.” I couldn’t hear the words, but I saw them on her lips. Her body language echoed the sentiment as she straddled the broken form below her.
At that moment, Jackson squeezed off two shots. The acrid burn of gunpowder hurt my nostrils and stung my eyes. I couldn’t hear anything but the ringing whoosh that follows close-quarters gunfire.
On the floor, the madam sprawled over the Surgeon’s body. Both were dead. Jackson’s shots landed a bit too true.
“You idiot, you killed them both.” Nonno crawled out from under the table.
It didn’t matter. I walked over to Jackson and held my hand out for his gun. He reluctantly handed it over and braced for some flash of insanity. Instead, I warned, “Cover your ears.”
I shot both bodies in the back of the head, confirming they would not get up and walk away from this murder scene.
Nonno spit out a string of curses. “Are you crazy?”
Jackson began making calls gather the troops and weed out any stragglers.
I left them to it.
My bike was parked on a dirt path that wound through the estate. I fired it up and took off.
She knows howto forget.
The words pestered me, following me through the miles of road northbound. They bombarded my memories and blurred together in one torturous cacophony of taunting horror. The Surgeon’s pain-filled words were nonsensical unless you understood his methods. His logic.
The odd way he coveted things. His obsession with torture and mind control.
I parked my bike in the scrub and skirted the fence line. This time, there was no doubling back to find the game trail. It stood out in the moonlight. I followed it under the fence to the back of the estate. The garden still looked forlorn and neglected.
It should. It had been over five years since anyone used it. The horse barn and buildings were all new. That’s why I didn’t recognize it before.
This wasn’t where he’d held my mother. My first escape foiled that location. But I remembered. The threats, the eerie joy in the Surgeon’s voice as he threatened me with the same death as my mother’s.
I traced my steps to the well. A cold wind found a gap in my layers of black. I shivered.
“Wolf?”
