Page 5 of Whips and Chains
And that left me colder than X standing half naked and soaking wet outside Violet’s apartment.
He relayed the info back to Whip, including the address.
I didn’t wait for him. Knowing he’d follow, I thundered out of the apartment, down the stairs and outside to where I’d left my bike. The impromptu street party all turned and stared at us, but neither of us stopped. X’s ice cream van had been overrun by kids, all helping themselves to whatever they could find, but he didn’t make a move to stop them.
I threw my leg over my bike and gunned the engine.
X slid on behind me, wrapping his arms around my middle.
“Seriously?” I shouted.
“I’m coming!”
“Please don’t say that when you’re on the back of my bike and snuggled up against me.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to get a hard-on.”
“You better fucking not!”
“I’m not Whip.”
Even with the roar of the engine and the looming danger Violet was in, I could hear the laughter in his voice.
I envied his ability to provide comic relief in the most serious of situations. Sometimes, I even secretly found him funny. But not tonight. Tonight, all I did was slam my hand on the throttle, giving my bike what it needed to get us to Violet.
Whip’s shitty little house in the worst part of Saint View was closer to the industrial area than Violet’s apartment was, so he beat us there and was already getting out of his car when X and I arrived.
He didn’t stop and wait for us, just like I wouldn’t have waited for him either. He stormed ahead, leaving X and I to jog after him to catch up. Our footsteps were loud in the silent night, but none of us bothered to quiet them.
We were the scariest things out here.
We were the monsters in the darkness.
But, apparently, another had joined us.
I hoped like hell whoever had tricked Violet into coming here saw us now and realized what a big fucking mistake that had been. It was one thing to mess with us. Another entirely to target her.
Huge industrial-sized warehouses loomed all around, each one identical to the last, nothing but badly lit concrete paths inbetween. Whip pulled out his phone and flicked on the flashlight function so we could see the numbers on each building.
We worked our way through the maze that seemed to have no end, a ticking clock in the back of my head reminding me that every second we lost trying to find the right building was another second Violet was alone with a psychopath.
Whip’s flashlight bounced over something on the path ahead, before moving away again.
“Wait. What was that?” I ignored that I noticed what his skin felt like as I grabbed his arm and guided it back to where I’d spotted something.
The light lit up the dark round shape, and all three of us froze.
“Is that…” Whip choked out.
We moved in unison, as if drawn in by some sort of sick, morbid curiosity we shared.
“A severed head?” I stared down at the bloodied hair. “Yeah.”
X squinted at it. “Do we like…pick it up? Is there a lost and found for body parts?”
I squatted and grimaced at the clean slice across the neck. It was face down, and that sick part of me demanded I turn it over.
I stumbled back, instantly recognizing the dead, unseeing eyes. “Oh, Jesus fuck, I know him. It’s Adam Dickson. We were in prison together. He’s one of the guys on the list that Trig and the others were watching. Doc said he went missing a couple days ago. They thought he’d skipped town.”
