Wild Man

Chapter Twenty-Two Tell Slim

“Do you know what he did to me?”

“You’re the one who hurt Bree.”

“Do you know what he did to me? ”

I went silent when he started screaming.

He had the gun and his eyes on me. He was wrong. All wrong. And all that wrong came from his eyes.

As Brock would say, he was whacked. It shone out of his eyes. Clear as day. It shone straight from his eyes.

How could Bree not see that?

Or maybe he hid it from her.

But he wasn’t hiding it from me.

And it scared me nearly senseless.

Not senseless enough not to pay attention. Not senseless enough not to note exactly where we were, in Englewood, in an old crackerbox house on a big lot that was mostly muddy earth from the snow melt, dead weeds, lots of big trees. I thought it was a weird place to take me. It was a neighborhood, populated and as the afternoon wore on, it would be more populated.

People could hear me scream.

But I didn’t scream.

He did.

He was whacked.

He’d killed Damian, shot him right in the face. He’d shot two other men, one I knew was dead, the other might be. He hated Brock.

So he’d shoot me.

But he wanted to play with me first. I knew this. I knew he wanted Brock to live with that for the rest of his life. He might leave me breathing after or he might not.

But he wasn’t going to play with me for long. I knew this too. He was an old guy, for one.

He couldn’t have that in him anymore. And also, he didn’t care if he was caught. He’d shot three men in the parking lot of Park Meadows Mall. People had to see, to hear. He was going to do what he was going to do to make Brock pay and he wasn’t going to waste any time.

When I didn’t answer, his voice calmed and he ordered, “Take off your clothes.”

I went still.

No, he wasn’t going to waste any time.

This couldn’t happen to me again. It couldn’t. It couldn’t happen to me again. I wasn’t sure I could survive it. Not even with Brock at my back when it was done, if I was left breathing. I wasn’t even sure we could survive it, not from what I knew of Brock, his capacity for loyalty and love, knowing he’d brought this down on me. It would undo him. So even if I survived, he might not.

“Take off… your fuckin’… clothes, ” he semi-repeated and I stared at him.

He moved the gun an inch to the side and squeezed the trigger.

I screamed and jumped as the gunshot sounded loud in the room, the bullet embedding in the wall behind me.

God, please God, someone hear that.

“Take off your clothes,” he again repeated.

I shook my head.

“No,” I whispered and he blinked.

“What?” he asked.

I knew it then. I knew I couldn’t take it. I knew Brock couldn’t take it.

I knew I had to stop this.

And if I got hurt doing it, so be it.

But no one was going to hurt me like that, not again. And they weren’t going to hurt Brock either.

Not again.

We’d had enough. We’d both had e-fucking- nough.

“You got what you deserved,” I told him quietly and he stared at me. “No.” I shook my head again. “You didn’t. You didn’t get what you deserved. If you got what you deserved you wouldn’t be breathing.”

He moved closer to me, gun raised pointed at me but I kept my eyes steady on his and moved back as he moved toward me.

“You hurt her, you destroyed her,” I told him, still moving back as he moved forward, his crazy-as-shit eyes riveted to me. “You ended her. This world isn’t right because you’re breathing and she isn’t.”

I hit wall and had to stop and he stopped with me.

“Take off your clothes,” he said yet again.

“No. No way. You aren’t going to touch me. No way.”

“Take off your clothes.”

“Shoot me. Do it. I’d rather die than have your filthy hands on me.”

“Take off… your… clothes. ”

I shook my head and kept my eyes on him.

Then I whispered, “No.”

Then I moved.

Bending double, I went right at him as the next gunshot sounded loud in the room and I didn’t know where it went I just knew it didn’t go into me.

Then I hit him in the middle with the top of my head.

This was not a bright move. I should have paid more attention to all the football my boys forced me to watch. I should have caught him with my shoulder. Hitting him with my head sent my head into my neck and pain jolted through my neck and down my spine.

But I kept going, shoving him back, I felt his hand clenching in my jacket as my hand went out to his gun arm. Another shot was fired but it went wide because I was pushing his arm away. Then he hit wall and another jolt of pain rammed down my neck and spine, he squeezed off another round accidentally but I had my hand on his wrist and the gun was still pointed away.

I righted and started grappling for the gun.

It sucked, he was old but he still was a match for me. Shit. I needed to do more kick-boxing.

Our fight forced off another round, the gun pointed up with our arms as I pushed with all my weight and strength to keep him in the wall at the same time keeping the gun pointed away.

Then I realized I wasn’t making any noise.

So I started shouting, screaming, shrieking. I didn’t even know what I was shrieking, it might not have been words, it might have been nothing but noise but no one could mistake the fear in it. No one could. Anyone hearing it would call the cops.

I hoped.

“Shut up,” he demanded.

“Fuck you! ” I screeched.

“Shut up! ” he screamed and that was when I realized I should have paid attention to his left hand as well as his right for he clocked me right on the jaw.

Pain radiated from my jaw up through my skull and my head and body jerked to the side but luckily I kept hold of his gun arm.

Then I started shrieking again but I learned quickly. When he tried to punch me again, I ducked and he missed. His momentum took him sideways and I pushed forward, wedging him at an awkward position, both arms to the side.

“Fuckin’ bitch! Fuckin’ cunt! ” he yelled, struggling, trying to right his body.

I kept pressing my weight into him as hard as I could, having trouble keeping him turned to the side, still screeching as loud as I could. I moved my hand down toward the gun, curling it around his, shoving my finger into the trigger.

“Fuckin’ bitch! Fuckin’, fuckin’ cunt! ” he shouted, his struggles intensifying, I wasn’t going to be able to hold him long.

I pressed the trigger.

Bam!

Bam!

Bam!

Over and over as I pushed him into the wall and he fought back until the clip was spent, no more bullets.

Thank God.

I instantly let him go, turned and started to run.

He caught me by my hair, yanking me back, pain, God, so much fucking pain exuding from my scalp, my neck wrenched and I cried out in agony.

He got close, his leg swiping both mine out from under me and I fell hard to my hip.

Then he was on me.

I started shrieking again, shrieking and fighting, pushing, kicking out with my legs, scratching. My fingernails scored down his face, blood oozing instantly from the three wounds I cut in his flesh, he reared back reflexively and I shot up with him, planting a foot, I rolled him to his back.

At this point, maybe I should have got up and ran.

But I didn’t.

I sat up to straddling him and hit him hard, as hard as I could, fist balled; I punched him in the face.

He grunted in pain and his head shot to the side when I did.

And he didn’t right it before I punched him again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Then I wrapped my hands around his neck and squeezed.

“You fucking dick,” I whispered as I squeezed, his hands at my wrists trying to pull mine away, I put my entire body weight into my arms, everything I had in me I transferred to my fingers and I… squeezed… hard. “You fucking, fucking dick. ” His body bucked, his feet kicked out, trying to push me off but I kept my focus, kept my place and kept squeezing.

“You took Bree’s beautiful future, you are not gonna take mine. ”

I squeezed harder.

He started gagging.

I kept squeezing.

I watched his face turn purple as his mouth started opening and closing, his body stopped bucking and started jerking.

I kept squeezing.

I didn’t hear the front door crash open and I didn’t hear the pounding boots of men’s feet on floorboards.

I just kept squeezing.

Then I wasn’t straddling him anymore. I was up and my back was plastered to a hard male body, my wrists captured and wrapped around the front of me and lips came to my ear as I watched my attacker suck in air, hands to his throat as a tall, dark-haired man with a badge at his belt stood pointing a gun down at him.

“You’re safe,” those lips whispered in my ear. “I’m Hawk, Gwen’s man and you’re safe Tess.”

My body, tense and wired, stayed that way for long moments then it sagged in his arms, my legs going clean out from under me but he held me up and he held me close against his solid warmth.

“You’re safe, Tess,” he whispered again in my ear.

I nodded mutely, my eyes on the dark-haired man who was using his boot to kick my attacker to his stomach then he crouched down, knee in his back, pulling cuffs out of a holder on the belt of his jeans, yanking my attacker’s hands behind him and cuffing them.

I started trembling.

Hawk, Gwen’s man, arms went tighter.

The dark-haired man muttered a harsh, “Do not fuckin’ move,” to the man on the floor.

Then he stood, pulled a phone out of his back pocket, hit buttons and put it to his ear. Then his warm but intense and alert dark brown eyes came to me, he did a top-to-toe, they shifted up to Hawk then back to me. Then he said into his phone. “Yeah, it’s Lawson. We got her.

She’s unharmed. Tell Slim.”

We got her. She’s unharmed. Tell Slim.

That’s when I started crying.