Page 90 of Skid
Slice after slice, I watched as his eyes rolled back in his head, and he slowly and painfully started to slip away. Tossing him onto his back, I kneeled next to him, and with a single thrust, brought the knife down in between his eyes. He flailed like a fish out of water for a moment before he fell silent, and it was over.
I stood and looked at the four men still in the room and glanced out to see Needles holding the little girl close to him.
“What’s the exit plan?” I asked, and Jackal stepped forward with a demented smile.
He pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit the flame, explaining, “Electrical fire.”
“Handle it. Let’s get the girl out of here and figure out what to do with her,” Gunner suggested, and I whistled for Needles.
His cut was over the little girl’s head as he carried her inside, and I guessed her age to be ten, maybe eleven. I shook my head as his worried eyes met mine, and as he got closer to me, I whispered, “We’ll make sure she’s okay.”
I could tell he wasn’t sure, but he nodded as he walked out the house and back into the woods. With Devlin’s government connections, we wouldn’t have any blowback from tonight, but I worried about her and where she would end up.
Leaving Jackal to handle his business, the rest of us followed Needles outside and traversed the small grove of trees until we came to our two vehicles parked on the edge of the wood line. Needles placed the girl in the back seat and closed the door softly before turning back to us.
He ran his hand through his blond hair and looked exhausted as he asked, “What do we do with her? She’s terrified.”
“I’ll call Sadie and see if she can sleep with us tonight until Devlin figures out who she is and where she belongs,” Gunner offered just as a large explosion rocked us.
A huge fireball rolled into the sky, heating us through the trees as a laughing Jackal ran through the woods toward us. His face was filled with joy as he leaned over, catching his breath from laughter.
“Noodles, where are you?” a small voice sounded from the SUV, and Needles turned to the door, opening it quickly.
The girl looked up at him with tears in her green eyes, and I could see the heartbreak on Needles’s face at her pain. He took her by the hand and offered her kind words, then she shocked us all when she launched herself out of the backseat and latched around his neck with her small arms.
He turned his tearful gaze to us and mouthed, ‘Help me.”
She stayed attached to him the entire ride home, and when we got to the compound, he tried to hand her to Sadie, only to have the little girl scream, “Please, Noodles, don’t let me go!”
Everyone’s heart broke for her, so for the night, Needles settled into the recliner in Gunner and Sadie’s house, holding the little girl in his arms, ensuring she was safe.
When I got home, Grace was waiting for me. She knew where we were going and was worried. When I unlocked the door, she immediately wrapped her arms around my waist, and I felt her tears wetting my shirt as she cried.
Knowing how much pain she’d experienced for so long, I didn’t tell her about the little girl that night. I picked her up and carried her to the shower with me, needing to get the stench of death off me but unable to let her out of my arms.
Grace was the bravest and strongest woman I’d ever met. She lived through the worst betrayal and hid herself, afraid of people’s lies regarding love. She made herself strong, and I was the lucky bastard that got to call her mine.
She settled into my chest that night, wrapped in my arms, and I knew, no matter what, we would always have happiness. After living in silence after the dark nightmare, the only place to go was up.
