Page 48 of Lost Soul

One of the bigger guys try to take hold of him, but Jessie shoves him away, telling him to get the fuck off. The guy backs down immediately, holding out the palms of his hands, and Jessie moves his attention to the nearest wall. I flinch when I hear his fists crunch against the solid brick, and cry when he doesn’t stop, not even with blood dripping from his knuckles.

No one tries to stop him, all of them letting him go on hurting himself.

“Why fuckin’ her? Huh? Fuckin’ Bastards,” he screams at the ceiling, kicking his boot against the wall now instead of his fists. Long-haired guy steps up to him again, this time wrapping his arms around Jessie’s shoulders and pulling him back. Jessie fights it at first, but eventually, he gives in. His body sagging with defeat against the man holding him.

“I swear I’ma kill every fuckin’ one of them,” he cries out through his tears. “I will. Hayley, they all fucking pay for this,” he calls out to her as the guy backs him out of the building, and most of the other men follow behind them.

Hayley’s Dad still stands over her, haunted as he stares down, and I suddenly wish it was me lying in her place.

“Um Prez?” a voice speaks up, I’ve been so focused on him that I haven’t noticed anyone left in the room with us. This guy has a thick beard and kind eyes, and is crouched beside the body of the man who killed Hayley. He looks up with a confused look on his face and holds something out in his hands. Hayley's dad snatches it, then studies it hard, and when his stone hard face slowly twists and meets with mine, I know I’m in trouble.

“She comes with us,” he orders, his eyes fixed on me as he speaks. I glance at Hayley, and my chest tightens. That bullet was meant for me. I’d known her little over a month, and she’d taken that bullet for me.

Why?

A face I do recognize, Nyx, comes from behind me and unties the rope releasing my hands from behind my back. Then taking a firm grip of my arm, he drags me on to my feet and forces me across the room.

I turn my head and take one last look at my friend. My only friend. And the sole reason I’m alive… at least for now.

Nyx pulls me out the door, but I just managed to catch the older man drop to his knees and scoop Hayley into his arms. Her dad’s whole body shakes when he thinks he’s alone, and finally, he lets the tears he’s held back escape from his tortured eyes.

“You might wanna close your eyes,” Nyx whispers, with a tiny hint of sympathy in his tone. But I don’t take his advice. What could be worse than what I’ve just seen? He keeps us walking towards a black transporter van, and I soon regret ignoring his advice when I see the bodies scattered, their blood staining the ground, seeping through the cracks in the earth and pooling into thick red puddles. Limbs are distorted, throats slit open, and bullets wedged between skulls.

The smell of blood causes my stomach to rise to my throat, it makes me retch, and my vomit spills on to the floor in front of me. Nyx waits until I’m finished before pushing me towards the van. I don’t struggle or fight. I have nothing left. Most of the men are sat waiting on their bikes, and I can hear Jessie’s angry voice

“Back the fuck off Troj, I told you I'm fine… I can ride.” I look back over to where he’s shrugging off the long-haired guy.

“It's okay let him be,” the man with the thick beard nods, and Troj releases Jessie tapping his back. Jessie throws his leg over his bike and fires it up, revving the throttle and skidding off. Leaving a cloud of dust around everyone behind him. I scramble into the back of the boarded-out van and back up against the wall. Nyx slams the door shut and I’m left all alone, just me, the blackness, and a heart that still beats, even if it is completely weighed down by guilt.

I’ll never see Hayley again, after this I probably won’t ever see my mom again either. I cry for Hayley, for all the things she will never have the chance to do. I cry for Jessie because his heart is broken and there is nothing I can do to bring her back for him. Then selfishly I cry for myself, for the friend I've lost and the impossible choices I’m now going to have to make.

It seems like a long journey, and I’m almost thankful when the van stops and the doors open.

“Please, Nyx, tell me what's going on?” I ask him when he grabs my wrists and pulls me out, we’re back at the Dirty Souls compound, and he leads me inside the clubhouse. I’m not surprised that he doesn’t respond, and I don’t bother to fight as he leads me through the foyer and into a small bar room.

Hayley’s Dad is already there waiting for me, eyes so full of hate that I swear he could use them alone to kill me. Nyx puts enough pressure on my shoulders for my ass hit the chair that’s placed in front of him.

“What did they want with you?” The president wastes no time getting to the point, and before I answer him, I close my eyes, scroll back in my memory to the outside of the warehouse. All those bodies, and none of them were his. Subconsciously, I’d searched for it, prayed it would be amongst the dead, but it wasn’t.

It means he’s still out there. That he could hurt my mom, for all I know he could be hurting her right now. So I keep my lips tightly together and hope Jessie shows up real soon to help me out of this mess.

“My daughter just took a bullet that had your name on it,” he tells me, shoving a photo in my face. It’s one of me, taken a few weeks ago, leaving school. I remember the day well, it had been the day Hayley had met my mom.

“They had this photo of you. You were the target, not my girl.” His voice trembles a little before anger takes it over again. He takes a fist full of my hair and I scream when he yanks my head back.

“You better start talking, missy, or you'll force me to take drastic measures, and you really don’t want that to happen.”

I shut my eyes and keep my mouth shut. I have to hold out for as long as possible for Mom’s sake. Jessie must know I would never do anything to intentionally put Hayley in danger, he will come and explain. Everything will be okay.

“Come on, Prez, you been through enough. Let’s leave this shit to Jessie. Nyx get him a drink,” the guy with the beard and kind eyes speaks up. And the grip in my hair loosens so quickly that I fall off the chair and hit the ground with a hard thud.

“Take her downstairs. She can wait for Jessie down there,” Hayley’s Dad orders, marching out of the room and leaving the man with the beard to help me to my feet.

He stays silent as he walks me back through the foyer and then opens a door that leads to steep, downward stairs. I don’t want to go down there. It looks dark and damp, and I have an unnerving feeling that I might not come back up from there alive. The man gestures with his head for me to go down first, and the sheer size of him tells me no amount of struggling would get me away from him. So, taking hold of the wooden banister, I step down the narrow staircase into darkness.

There are a few doors, the open ones leading into rooms that look like cells. And he leads me through the last door on the left, into a square room with just a chair placed in the middle and a table set to the side.

I watch him pull some rope from a draw in the table before he sits me on the chair.

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