Page 7 of Venom
Chase Wilson
Beloved Husband and Devoted Father
A town hero forever missed
“She seems happy, I guess, but I just, it hasn’t even been a year,” I sniffle as I look down, the sight of his headstone always heart-wrenching despite coming here every week, sometimes even twice a week.
Next month, I turn sixteen, a milestone that most kids in my school celebrate with a bang, while I’ll be trying to hold it together without falling apart.
Next month will mark one year since Daddy was killed, and yes, I said killed.
My jaw ticks.
Everyone in town believes he died a hero, that the house fire was a freak accident but it wasn’t, it was set with the purpose of killing the family inside because the father owed money to the Hyenas. A group that think they are big and bad but really are just pests whose idea of getting their money back along with over eighty percent more than what was lent is by killing the person who owes it to them if they can’t meet the deadline, along with everyone they love which is just stupid because they still lose that money.
Dad was a casualty of that, and since that day, the family has disappeared, while the wife was found beaten, raped, and dead in a river.
They got what they wanted, the family dead, but their mistake meant my dad died too, and now, they will, even if it takes me years, one by one, every member of the group will find an early grave.
They took my best friend, my world, and now I’ll take theirs.
A light breeze flitters again, and I sniffle as I wipe my tears, hating that Mama moved on so quickly, not able to understand it.
Daddy was her world.
“He’s a lawyer,” I admit in the quietness, “and he seems besotted with her but he’s not you Daddy, no one can ever replace you so why has she?”
I look over the headstone again with heartbreak as I whisper, “Ben showed up again last week, demanded money,” I shake my head, “Years with no contact but because your dad’s business has collapsed and they heard you died, they keep popping up like little thorns, hurting Mama with their nasty words, making her feel like a whore because she found someone else.”
Ben was my dad's uncle. He took over the family business, but it went bankrupt, and now the wealth they all thought would last them for years is gone because they never received the inheritance from my great-great-grandmother. My dad did, and now they want it.
“Mama told them you got into debt, that there’s nothing left even though you barely touched that money,” I say, “She says it's rightfully mine and it has been placed into an account for me, but I-I don’t want it, Daddy, I want you back, not the money.”
I look up again as my tears fall.
After blacking out from the news that my dad was gone, I woke up in a mental hospital, but to be honest, it’s all a blur.
Mama said I tried to hurt myself and anyone who came near me, and I was there for three months before I was allowed to leave and return to school, everyone believing I was on a yacht, the lie Ivy told people so they wouldn’t find out about my breakdown.
They believed I was spending Daddy’s money when that is the furthest from the truth. I wanted to die. I snapped out of it as soon as I had found out about the feelers that were put around the town about the Hyenas wanting to know who the firefighter was that died, I knew the fire wasn’t an accident and that they were trying to sort out lose ends meaning me and Mama.
So far, they don’t know. Gregory Averie, the club's lawyer, my lawyer who has sorted out my inheritance so my dad's side of the family can’t touch it. He is Mama’s new boyfriend, and has ensured the Hyenas don’t get Dad’s name with the help of Glock, the only brother who is aware my dad is dead.
Rumor has it that the club believes I’m using Ivy, something about how I acted around Venom, making them think I’m a patch chaser. As a result, they all hate me, and the fact that I was gone for three months, leaving Ivy worried, has only made them angrier so having Glock on my side is a blessing.
I twitch my nose. My childhood crush believes I’m using his little sister to piss off my daddy and get a brother's patch when really, I fell in love with him and couldn’t look at him without blushing. Now, I’m afraid to look at him because he may see my pain, and that makes his suspicions fester.
It’s not really fair, he never gave me the chance, never spoke to me kindly, and how I fell for him I’ll never know because the person who always talked to me was a jackass. Yet my heart wanted him, still does, still wishes that maybe one day he may finally notice me.
Silly me, right?
It’ll never happen, I know this, but you’ll have to tell my heart that.
“I’m going to start making things right tonight, Daddy,” I whisper as I place my hand on the headstone, “I’m going to get rid of the cancer in this town, one by one, until none are left for what they did to you, to us. I’m going to avenge you even if I have to die trying.”
I slowly stand before I bend and place a gentle kiss on the stone, then I whisper, “I love you, Daddy,” before I straighten and, with one last look at his gravesite, one I’m pretty sure I’m going to share with him soon, I turn and walk away.
It’s time to complete my plan. I’ve already made plans to meet up with Ivy and Skylar at the library, near the alleyway where the Hyenas allegedly distribute drugs, something I heard gossip about at school, with some students being their customers. I spent a month observing them, planning my next steps after learning their routines.
