Page 113 of The Hate We Breathe
The three of them begin their march towards the woods, half carrying and half dragging Darrio Vargas with them.
We walk for quite a while, the forest growing darker and thicker until we’re well away from the shack and the lights.
“Guys, can we shine a flashlight or something?” I call out, my voice reverberating around what sounds like an empty space. “I can’t see shit!”
“Hold on, baby.” Lex grunts and there’s a thump and then a light bursts to life, illuminating the ground. It’s covered in grass,tree roofs, and leaves. Darrio’s twisting body is writhing around on the ground as he tries to break free from his bonds to no avail.
“Thanks,” I say. Lex walks a short distance and sets the pocket flashlight he turned on into a tree just high enough to illuminate the immediate area. It’s not a large light, but it’s powerful and it does the job.
“Here, I’ll take those.” Gio stops in front of me and takes the shovels from me. “Take a seat, we’ll be ready in a bit.”
I arch a brow and look around us. “Take a seat where?”
Gio rolls his eyes and drops the shovels to the ground before cupping his hands around my waist. He lifts me easily enough and turns to the side, perching me on a large fallen oak that I hadn’t paid attention to before now. “Good?” he asks.
I nod and he grins, dropping the duffle to my feet before bending down to pick up the shovels again. My legs swing back and forth, the backs of my sneakers thumping bark of the wood. The black bag Nolan asked me to bring sits in my lap, the weight heavier than I expected. Curiosity has me peering down at it, but when Gio passes the others each a shovel, I lift my head and pay attention to them.
They move steadily across the open space of the clearing we’ve stopped in. I’m not sure what they’re looking for, but it’s clear that where they begin is important when they pause next to one tree only for Nolan to shake his head and take a few steps over. Once they find whatever it is, Nolan nods and, in sync, the three of them punch their shovels into the ground and begin to dig.
Minutes tick past as I watch the guys work. Whenever Darrio gets close to escaping his bindings, I hop off my perch and withdraw the Taser from the duffle. Darrio sees me coming and his movements grow more frantic. I roll my eyes and shove the tongs into his side and press the button.
“Fucking baby,” I mutter. If I can handle jumping off a rooftop, he can handle a little tasering. Besides, it’s not like he’ll be breathing much longer anyway.
Sweat trickles down my back as he quiets down and I go back to my seat. “Ugh.” I wipe my hand across my forehead and grimace at the sticky sensation. Thank fuck summer is almost over because I’m ready for cooler weather again.
It takes another few hours for the guys to dig as deep as they want. I’m tired and hungry and getting more than a little cranky by the time Nolan calls a halt to their work.
“Found him,” he says and tosses his shovel onto the layer of dirt surrounding the fairly deep hole that they’ve created.
“Him?” I ask, hopping off the tree once more to peer over the edge.
Nolan snorts and lifts a skull. “Juliet, meet my father, Xavier Pierce.” My jaw drops. There are some charred parts of the skull and several cracks along the side of it. Dirt falls from one of the eye sockets as he twists it back to face him. “He looks better this way,” he informs me.
Should that make me laugh? Probably not. Does it? Absolutely.
Nolan’s responding grin is amused as he drops the skull back to the floor of their hole and then brings his foot up, stomping right through the top of it. It shatters upon impact and I shake my head. And here we all thought Lex was the real psychopath of the bunch.
Now that they’ve found the body I’m assuming they buried here years back, the guys quickly climb out of the pit and grab Darrio. He comes to from his Taser-stupor and groans around the gag as Lex hefts his upper body and begins to drag him to the edge of the hole and push him in.
“Your dad hasn’t been dead long enough for him to be completely decomposed,” I comment, questioningly, as I peer up at Nolan.
He shrugs. “We lit him on fire and let it burn out. Most of his flesh and shit was liquid by the time we buried him.”
“Is that what you’re planning to do to Darrio?” I ask.
“Yup,” Nolan says with a grin. “Just one more thing…”
Gio jumps into the pit with his father and hefts him up to standing before ripping the gag out of his mouth and stripping the duct tape holding it in place from his cheeks without a care. Darrio shouts out a curse as Nolan goes to the black bag he had me bring. Reaching inside, he pulls out what looks like a black box.
Lex moves up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his jaw on the top of my head. Nolan fiddles with the box for a moment and sound bursts to life from it, making me realize it’s some sort of older radio.
“I’m going to fucking gut you fucks like—” Gio halts his father’s curses and threats with a punch to the nose. I smirk as Gio’s knuckles crash against the other man’s face and blood spurts from Darrio’s nostrils, leaking down to his mouth. At least he finally shut the fuck up.
Nolan’s focus is entirely on the radio as he spins the knobs, the buzzing hum shrieking into the otherwise quiet night, only briefly finding voices before dying again. Gio gets out of the pit and leaves Darrio behind, bleeding and struggling to get to his feet with his hands and legs bound by more duct tape and rope.
I lean against the warm body at my back, inhaling Lex’s rich scent and hoping that when this is all over he’ll let me maybe suck his dick on our way back to Silverwood. Road head is good for everyone and it’ll probably lead to a night of numerous orgasms for me too.
“—next broadcast concerns local matters—” My ears perk up at the clear sound of a man’s voice over the radio and Nolan finally sets it down where I’d been sitting and strides over to the edge of the pit, crossing his arms and staring into it. Gio joins him, and while Lex seems content to just hold me, I want to be with them.
