Stain (22 page)

Chapter 24

Maddox

I don’t know why the bitch has Aylee’s phone, and for a second there I’m ready to tell her off, but then her words bring my world to a screeching stop. I’m outside the precinct grabbing a smoke with Willkie. Just as we expected, they wouldn’t tell us shit about Dro. So we’ve been here for the last hour waiting. But then the call changes everything. I can’t move fast enough. Flicking my cigarette away, I make a run for my truck.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Willkie yells after me.

“Something’s come up. I gotta handle this,” I reply back from the middle of the parking lot.

“What about Dro?”

“It’s my girl,” I say, without hesitation. It’s always going to be Aylee first now. “I gotta go. Keep me posted.”

I drive like I’m on something. My truck is shit when it comes to speed, but I break every traffic law to get to the other side of town in half the time it would normally take me. I turn on her street and my blood runs cold at the sight of the ambulance, fire truck, and police cruisers stationed in front of her house. I park about a block away, almost exactly where I dropped her off earlier, and gun down the street like an Olympic sprinter.

There’s a crowd of her neighbors gathered, and I shove and shoulder through them to make it to the other side just in time to see them hoist her in the back of the ambulance and slam the doors shut.

“She’s always been such a sweet girl, I can’t believe what happened to her.”

“Anyone know what happened?”

“Someone said she got beat up pretty badly.”

“Yeah, I just overheard her dad give a statement to the police. Apparently she has a boyfriend who’s been abusing her. He said he walked in on the guy raping her.”

“God, that’s terrible! Can you imagine seeing that happening to your daughter?”

“I know…it’s awful. Poor girl.”

Beat up. Rape. Beat up. Rape. Rape. Rape. I only pick out those words and they play on a loop inside my head, feeding the flames of white-hot rage thrashing inside of me. I know without a doubt I’m going to castrate her old man. That’s a promise I intend to keep to myself. But first I need to see her. I have to know she’ll be okay. I have to touch her. I follow behind the ambulance and it’s not until I get to the ER’s front desk that I realize they’re not going to let me see her. I have no familial connection to her. Hours and hours pass. I lurk in the halls, dodging her old man. Her foster mother eventually shows up with a little girl that looks exactly like her. Teary-eyed, they all wait on news from the doctor.

I come and go, but I never leave the hospital parking lot.

Let her be okay. Let her be okay. Goddamn it, let her be okay.

“If you’re listening up there, I don’t believe in this shit. But she’s too damn important to leave it all up to fate. So I’m asking. If you’re up there, don’t let her die. You gave her to me. You put her in my life, you can’t just take her away now. Don’t fucking take her away from me. I need her too damn much.” I rear my fist back and slam it into the steering wheel. Nobody is listening, and I feel like a fucking idiot for thinking so.

The driver’s seat of my truck becomes my mattress, but I don’t sleep. I have my eyes closed, my arms folded across my chest, and I’m planning. Plotting. My mind races. It’s around five a.m. that I head back inside again. Her family is gone. Taking my chances with a new set of nurses, I luck out when one of them gives me the okay to head to her room.

“Five minutes.”

That’s all she gives me. But it’s five minutes more than I’ve gotten since they brought her here. I plan on taking advantage of every second.

My emotions nosedive when I see her. So damn small on that hospital bed. Fragile, broken, wires and tubes coming out of her body. All I want to do is pull her free and hold her to me. But I know if I do I’ll only hurt her more. It’s a physical ache seeing her like this. I feel the wound deep inside my chest. I walk to her side and blink fast, breathe faster, and swallow around the lump forming in my throat. She’s all banged up. Covered in so many bruises. My hand shakes so fucking badly when I reach for hers.

“Hey…” This is one of my worst fears. Failing to protect her like I said I would. If I’d kept her with me…followed my instinct, and told her to stay rather than do what was right and drop her off, that coward wouldn’t have done this. But then it hits me how stupid that logic is. If he hadn’t done it today, he would’ve done it another day, another time, or whenever the hell he felt like it. Abusers aren’t dictated by time.

“Open your beautiful eyes and look at me, Aylee.” I lean down to gently kiss both her swollen eyes, and that physical ache, that wound, rips further open, stretching wide to show the raw meat of torment I feel for her. Nothing and no one has ever broken through the wall of anger and numbness inside of me.

I can’t even remember the last time I cried for myself or anyone else. I don’t remember crying when my mother blew her head off and even before that while suffering the fucker’s abuse. I am not the one who cried. Noah cried. I raged. But my anger bows in the face of Aylee’s injuries. Anger I know. I can handle it. I can use it. I don’t know what to do with this sadness. It makes me feel weak, powerless, and fucking I hate it. “Aylee?” I whisper her name like it’s my own little prayer, my forehead pressing to hers, and I interlock our fingers and grip her tight because…she’s my lifeline. “You need to wake up and give me purpose again. I didn’t know I was missing something until you came and filled me with you. You’re curled up inside of me now. I’m no good at this shit, Aylee. But I need you to know I’m living for you now. So I need you to wake up and give me a future. Because you’re it.” My eyes slam shut but it’s not enough to keep my tears from falling. I grit my teeth against the sorrow, fight it like it’s an enemy. But it wins. Forehead to forehead, nose to nose, lips to lips, I let the tears come. I feel no shame. With her, there’s no shame. I breathe her in. Breathe for her. Breathe for me. Because there’s no me without her. “I love you.” I breathe it against her lips. “I love you so damn much, Aylee.” When I feel the smallest twitch of her fingers trying to squeeze mine, I know she hears me. Keeping our fingers interlocking tightly, I bring hers to my lips and press a kiss to her knuckles.

Her eyes don’t open. She doesn’t wake up. But I know she knows I’m here. I can feel it, down to my bones. The nurse comes in five minutes later, and it takes everything I have in me to drag myself away from her bedside. Before I do, I take her in, memorize every single bruise and swollen part of her body. I imagine the sort of agony she went through, imagine the terror she felt when he held her down, the tears she cried when he violated her body. I take it all in and lock it away. Reference for later.

When I leave her side, it’s with the acid fuel of vengeance coursing through my veins.

I’ve got Willkie and Wynn both texting me. The former wants to know where the hell I am, and the latter is asking questions she should already have answers to. But neither of them are my priority. I’ve got a plan, a one-track mind, and the cop is in my tunnel vision. I won’t focus on anything else until I do what I need to. I peel out of the hospital parking lot, making my way to their house, and park my truck a few blocks away. They have a shed out in the back of their house. I make myself comfortable. No food. Just a bottle of water I use to keep hydrated. An entire day passes, night falls, and I wait until the very last possible second before I come out of the shed with my sledgehammer dangling at my side and other tools in my jean pockets. Heading to the electric box cover hanging on the back panel wall of the house and digging into my pocket, I use the pliers in my hand to break through the lock before slipping them back inside my back pocket. I give it a brief once-over. Opening the box, I pull at all the wires until I’m sure I’ve got them all. There won’t be any light when I get inside. Aylee’s foster mother and sister are at the hospital. I saw them leave a bit ago and they haven’t come back. It doesn’t really matter, because I’m not planning on staying too long. I know the cop is home and he’s all I want anyway.

Jimmying the back door lock isn’t a problem. I’m inside. I should be a little nervous entering the house of a cop, but I’m pretty fucking calm. I hear footsteps and I duck around the kitchen wall. He’s getting closer...closer…probably coming to check on the circuit box. I wait for him, my grip around my sledgehammer strong and tight. He walks past me and I come out behind him swinging, aiming for the back of his right knee. He falls down with a roar and it’s a sound I plan on making last.

“People like you shouldn’t be allowed to exist,” I utter quietly while pulling my phone out from the other back pocket. A quick search in my apps and I find what I’m looking for. The kitchen is suddenly flooding with pure, bright white light from the flashlight app. I set my phone down on the kitchen table before returning my attention to Tim. “You think you can hurt innocent people,
children
,
and just get away with it? And you probably did for a while. This whole time you probably thought you fucked with Aylee’s mind so much that she would never tell anyone about what you did.” The asshole starts to move. He’s trying to crawl away. But I’m not close to being done with him yet. I raise the hammer and slam it down with full force on his kneecap, more than likely shattering the bones from the way he screams. “But you underestimated her, Timmy Boy. She told me everything.” I watch him fall back onto the tile floor, taking in gasping breaths, his face scrunching up in pain.

“Wha…what the fuck…do you…want?” I can barely make out the hiccupping words, but I get the gist of it. 

“I want you to know that you’re not getting out of here alive. If you do, you’re gonna wish you were dead.” I approach him, and he still has a voice to scream when I kick at his feet, spreading them in opposite directions. I bring the hammer between his legs, right up against his dick and nut sac, and I press down with all my might. “I want you to feel every single bit of pain she felt, you fucking bastard.”

I go for his arms and hands next. Crushing elbows joints and all ten beefy fingers like I’m tenderizing meat.

He can’t move now. Sure, he’s twitching, flopping around like a fish out of water, but he’s not going anywhere. A close look at his limbs shows just how badly they’re all mangled, and shattered to pieces. There’s only screaming, cursing, and blubbering.

I set the sledgehammer against the kitchen counter and pull out my jaw pliers. Dropping down to my haunches in front of Tim’s body, I flip them in the air and catch them with a grin. “You know, while I was waiting for it to get dark, I watched some videos online on how to castrate animals. Now I have to tell you, I’m a pretty good study, but there’s definitely a chance I’m going to mess up. Not because I don’t know what I’m doing, but because you hurt her.” I remove his pants, tugging them down his legs, and apply the pliers to his balls and crush down while yanking my hand back. I do the same with his limp dick. If I had a say, this is would be the universal punishment for every child molester and rapist in the world.

When I’m done I stand, looking down at his unmoving body, and I get a flashback of my father’s corpse on that bed so long ago, and I feel…nothing. I’m ready to pull my SIG out of my truck and put him out of his misery with a bullet in his head, but I don’t. He’s as good as dead, anyway.

I really doubt he’ll recover from this. I got what I came for. Revenge isn’t as sweet as I thought it would be, but at least this motherfucker won’t hurt Aylee anymore. And that’s a win I’ll gladly take.

***

The phone rings four times before he picks up. “Hello?” It’s good to hear his voice.

“Noah.”

I can hear the frown in his voice. “Max? Why are you calling me so damn early?”

“Listen, you’re not going to hear from me for a while. I need you not to worry. I’ll be fine.”

“Seriously, Max, what the hell is going on? What did you do?”

I chuckle dryly. “What didn’t I do?” It comes out more self-deprecating than I intend. “I’m going away for a while. Take care of yourself, Noah.”

“Max! Maddox!”

Click.

He’ll be fine. He has his boyfriend there to make him forget all about his asshole twin brother. That’s what I want for Noah. For him to be happy and forget about me. I know he’ll be able to do that with me gone for a while.

It’s nearing four a.m. two days later and I’m sitting outside the hospital parking lot. I’ve taken care of a few things in the last forty-eight hours. The main thing was getting to my apartment before the cops did. I grabbed all of the money I’d stashed away and shoved it inside a duffel bag. I’ve been staying at Willkie’s because he’s the only one I trust. He’s been telling me about Dro’s case and the fact that the judge hasn’t set a bail yet. But I give him a good chunk of the money I have, so he can post bail if need be. I can’t do it myself because I figure the cops are looking for my ass by now. Officer Timothy Dean Bennett’s death has been all over the news. And I’m a prime suspect. So I’ve been keeping a very low profile. But I know I need to get my ass in gear. It’s only a matter of time before they find me. Which is why I’m here. I’m about to do something very selfish.

***

Aylee

I come awake in a world where Tim is dead and I know I might go to hell for finding the greatest joy in that. Rachel is by my bedside, where she’s been since I woke up five hours ago. She’s been sobbing on and off since then. I haven’t shed one lonely tear. She’d described in very graphic detail the shape of Tim’s corpse when they’d found him broken in pieces on her pristine kitchen floor. When she said Sarah had been the one to find him first, my heart broke for my sister. That was going to scar her for a lifetime. But I don’t bother to ask how it happened, because deep down, I know.