Fracture

21. Levi

CHAPTER 21

LEVI

Stanley Iverson looks as pathetic tied up naked in a barn as I thought he would. His bald head shines in the harsh fluorescent light, white hair scattered around the periphery of his scalp. His body is slack and worn, a round gut protruding over his thighs, and several liver spots adorning his arms and hands. Hair coils from his ears, and his fingernails are almost purple.

“He looks like shit,” Dylan mutters, his voice muffled behind the mask covering his face.

“I’m surprised he survived the taser.”

Dylan laughs cruelly, scooping water out of the trough beside us and dousing the inert man tied to the chair with it. Iverson startles, sputtering and writhing against his bonds.

“Morning, sunshine,” Dylan drawls, brandishing the knife and flipping it in his hands. “We were just saying we’re surprised you made it. That taser must have hurt like shit.”

“Help!” Iverson throws the plea over his shoulder. “Help me!”

“Save it, old man.” I flex my fists, itching to beat the shit out of this guy right now. “No one can hear you out here.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Iverson’s eyes are wild, flashing from me back to Dylan, taking in our features, memorizing our tattoos, as though he has a hope of telling the cops anything about the two masked men who attacked him in his driveway. “Who are you?” He demands again.

Dylan leans on his knees. “You look nervous, Stan. Do you have a reason to be nervous?”

“Who the fuck are you?” He strains and writhes, the rope biting into his withered, pale flesh. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

I cross my arms over my chest and laugh out loud. “We know exactly who you are, Stan.”

“Then you know exactly how much shit you punks are getting yourselves into.” He spits at our feet, eyes blazing with fury. “I’m going to have you both locked up in a pit so deep, not even the devil is going to be able to find you.”

Dylan laughs, tossing the knife into the air and catching it by the hilt. “You got a lot of fire for an old man in your position.”

“What do you want?” Spittle foams at the corner of Iverson’s lips.

Dylan rolls his shoulders, tilting his covered head in my direction. “What do we want, guapo ?”

I suck on my teeth, rubbing my chin through the mask. “Man, you know what I really want? I really want to know how that little girl in the pictures on your mantelpiece is, Stanley.” I drop into a crouch in front of Iverson, whose eyes are widening. “She’s real sweet. You must be proud of her. Your granddaughter?”

He bucks and roars, the chair shifting beneath him and the ropes binding him leaving red grazes behind. “You sick fuckers, if you touch her-”

“I don’t touch little girls, Stan.” I lean closer to him, close enough to smell the sweat and fear dripping from his pores. “I’m not like you.”

Iverson freezes, he even stops breathing for a second. His eyes widen even further, his pupils blowing out. He starts to splutter, shaking his head, his eyes darting around the room as though his salvation could be found in the corners of this abandoned old barn.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice doesn’t carry a hint of conviction, but is laced with fear. “You sick bastards leave my family alone.”

Dylan nods slowly, turning the knife in his hand, over and over. “It’s a horrid thought, isn’t it? To think of someone taking your granddaughter, and hurting her. Must make you sick to your stomach.”

“I mean, what kind of monster would do that?” I ask Iverson, holding my hands up. “Who would take a little girl, one who’s been drugged, into a hotel room?”

Iverson’s eyeballs are going to roll out of his skull. His head swivels from Dylan to me and back again, his mouth flapping uselessly. He begins to shake his head, sweat beading on his forehead.

“Imagine how scared she’d be,” I say softly, retrieving the gun from my waistband, and holding it loosely in my hand. “Lying there helplessly, while a sick old man leered over her. While he told her he’d paid extra to violate her without a condom.”

“Know what we’re talking about yet?” Dylan’s voice drips ice.

Iverson’s head isn’t so much shaking as it is quivering. Thick lines form in his forehead as his eyebrows lift. “I have no idea what you-”

His words are cut off with a howl as Dylan plunges the knife into Iverson’s meaty thigh. Blood sprays across my chest, and I rise to my feet, backing away a few steps as Dylan yanks the knife from Iverson’s flesh.

“Are we remembering yet?” Dylan’s voice thunders over Iverson’s screams and blubbered pleas. “I’m not hearing any recollection, maybe we need to do the other one to help you out, huh?”

“No, please, please,” Iverson sobs, drool dripping from his lips. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

Dylan presses the flat of the bloody blade to Iverson’s throat, forcing his head back. “Then maybe you should start talking, old man.”

“I didn’t want to hurt her,” Iverson whimpers.

“Who?” I cock the gun and press it to his temple, and Iverson begins to cry in earnest. A pool forms in the dirt below his chair as the pathetic old man pisses himself. “You never wanted to hurt who, you disgusting old fuck? I want to hear you say her fucking name.”

He’s shaking so hard now, I’m sure his heart is about to give out. His blue lips quiver, his eyes clenched shut, sweat pouring down the back of his neck.

“S-Stella.” He barely gets the name out. “Stella Langford.”

Dylan’s dark eyes burn into mine, and I can see the violent feathering of his jaw through the mask over his face.

“And what did you do to her, huh?” Dylan presses the blade harder against Iverson’s chin, drawing a thin line of blood.

The man snaps for air, his chest sucking in hard against his ribs. “Her father said, he said, he said it was fine, he assured me. It was fine!”

Dylan slams the blade into Iverson’s other leg, and his screams echo around us, out into the night. He waits until Iverson runs out of steam, nothing coming out of his mouth but pathetic, high-pitched gasps, his head slumped against his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I never meant to hurt her.”

“You raped her.” I use the barrel of the gun to force his head back up. His eyes are glassy as they open slowly. “You lay on top of that girl, and you raped her.”

“It wasn’t just me,” he says. “There were more. Please, don’t kill me.”

“Who else, huh? We want names.” Dylan fires up the taser. “Otherwise, you’re useless to us.”

“Please don’t kill me. Please. Please. Please.” He starts to retch, as though he’s going to throw up or fucking give up and die on us, so I move the gun away from him and take a step back.

“Names. Now.” I tell him.

Iverson shakes his head desperately. “No, I don’t know.”

“Then what good are you?” Dylan points the taser at him, and Iverson shrieks.

“Gloria, she can tell you!”

Dylan’s head snaps to look over at me, and suddenly my mask is suffocating me.

“What name did you just say?” I ask slowly, feeling the floor beneath my feet shift and tilt.

“Gloria,” he says again.

“Gloria who?” Dylan asks slowly, and Iverson whimpers.

“Glor-Gloria Fenton,” he murmurs, his head rocking back and forth against his shoulder. “She knew about everything, she planned it for god’s sake. Had a goddamn red ledger, called it her date book. She and Valerie, they’d write all the dates down when they were planned.” He blubbers and sobs, drool running down his chest and mingling with sweat. “We were promised that Stella wouldn’t remember a thing. She was meant to be drugged, so she’d never know. Like she’d just gone to sleep, like it was nothing.”

Nothing. Like it was nothing .

Dylan sucks in a sharp breath, practically glowing with rage. I can’t breathe at all. My chest is heaving, almost as much as Iverson’s is.

Like it was nothing .

I remember holding Stella on the floor of her shower as she screamed, as she cried and told me she couldn’t tell me what had happened. I remember Dylan’s face when he came to me and told me what Harold had been doing, everything Stella had been subjected to.

Like it was nothing.

I tear my mask off, suddenly caged in and suffocating, unable to stand it any more. I cast it to the ground, running a hand over my sweaty face. The second Iverson’s eyes land on me, they light up with recognition.

“I know you! I know you!” Buoyed by hope, he tries to shuffle the chair towards me. “Please, don’t kill me. I won’t tell anyone, I’ll just go home, and it’ll be over.”

“Gloria planned these dates?” I ask, disbelief pooling in my stomach, so heavy I’m sure I’m going to be sick.

Iverson nods enthusiastically. “It was her idea. She told Harold that pictures weren’t good enough anymore. That we all wanted the real thing.”

Dylan lunges at the man and smashes his fist into his cheek. Iverson topples over with a cry, landing flat on his back in the dirt. “You disgust me.”

“I’m sorry,” Iverson says. “I’m only a man, you know? A pretty girl like that-”

Dylan kicks him in the side before hauling him upright again. Blood trickles from Iverson’s temple, and he starts to cry loudly again, as though all hope has left him now.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” His shoulders shake, tears running down his face, running tracks through the blood and dirt on his cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

“No you’re not.” Dylan looks over at me. “I think we give this fucker a taste of his own medicine.” He lifts the mask to reveal his face, and he looks like Dylan, but not at the same time, his features twisted with cool and detached vengeance.

“Wh-what do you mean?” Iverson looks up at Dylan, fear etched into every line on his face. “What are you going to do to me?”

Dylan leans down and leers at him menacingly. “Stella told me what you did. Everything you did to her. You ever had someone fuck you in the ass when you didn’t want it?”

Iverson writhes and cries. “You sick bastard, don’t you touch me!”

“Oh not me, you sack of lard.” Dylan traces the knife along Iverson’s belly, and the man’s eyes bug out. “I had something a little sharper in mind for you.”

I’m still frozen with shock as Dylan kicks the chair to splinters, and kneels on Iverson’s back. Iverson only screams until the knife is lodged between the pock-marked cheeks of his ass. Once the blade is firmly pushed inside him, he goes limp, cheek pressed to the ground, eyes wide. The little puffs of dust his breath kicks up tell me he’s still alive. But just barely.

His body is shutting down. Dylan pulls the knife out, and plunges it in again. A weak sound comes from Iverson’s throat, high-pitched and grating.

“Dylan,” I say gently, and his dark eyes move to my face. “Kill him.”

Dylan tilts his head, and pulls the blade from Iverson’s body. He spins on his back, grabbing the tufts of hair at the base of the man’s neck and yanking his head from the dust. The bloody blade flies across Iverson’s throat, and there’s a violent spray of blood across the ground.

Dylan drops his head to the ground, and the man’s body twitches for half a minute as he bleeds out all over the dirt floor. And then it’s over.

Dylan stands, his hands covered in blood, and he flings the knife to the ground. He pushes the mask from his forehead with the back of his hand, and turns to me with dark eyes filled with concern.

“Levi?” He takes a step towards me, lifting a hand then seeing all the blood and letting it drop. “Levi, it’s alright. It’s over.”

I back away, shaking my head, holding up my hands. “She knew. She fucking knew.” I meet his eyes, rage and revulsion turning to acid in my stomach. “My mother. My own fucking mother.”

“I know.”

“She helped… She helped them… Do that to Stella.” My eyes land on Iverson’s bloody body, my hands flexing as I realize I’m still clutching the gun. “She helped them.” I storm past Dylan, who stands back and lets me take out every emotion searing through my veins. I empty the clip into Iverson’s inert frame, his body rocking back and forth in the dust with every steely impact. The trigger clicks and clicks when the gun is empty, and my eyes sting with furious tears, and the sweat that’s running down my brow.

Then there’s a warm hand on mine, curling around the gun and lowering it.

“It’s over,” Dylan murmurs again, taking the gun from me. “It’s done, guapo .”

I look into his eyes, and shake my head. “It’s only just fucking begun.”

His jaw feathers, and he takes my face in his hands. His skin is tacky from blood, but it doesn’t disgust me. It’s fucking appropriate, two monsters covered in blood, their kill dead on the ground at their feet.

“I’ll do it,” Dylan says softly, leaning his forehead against mine. “I don’t want you to have to do this.”

“I’ll kill her.” I brace my hands against the sides of his neck, not a tender touch like his, but one of urgency, of rage, the need to feel and fuck and hurt overwhelming. “My mother dies by my fucking hand.”

“Levi-”

The kiss isn’t soft and sweet, it’s fire and fury, and it catches Dylan off guard for a split second, sending him stumbling long enough to have me forcing him against the edge of the rickety wooden bench behind him. It creaks in protest against his weight, his bloody hands against my chest, heavy with all the darkness we can’t escape.

It’s not me anymore, something else has taken over, like I’m standing in the corner of the room, watching this other man force Dylan to his knees. I watch as this other me takes out his cock and shoves it down Dylan’s throat. A mouth that isn’t mine curls into a cruel grin, a hand that doesn’t belong to me braces against the back of Dylan’s head.

“You sure look good choking on my cock, pretty boy.” The laugh echoes around the barn, punctuated by the sounds of Dylan’s frantic mouth, matched by moans that escape a throat that isn’t mine.

I’m a monster.

I’m nothing but a dark shadow, dimming the light in every room. I’m fucking my best friend’s mouth next to the bloody body of the rapist we just murdered.

I’m broken. I’m not normal.

And I don’t fucking care.

I look down at Dylan, my blood-soaked god, on his knees for me, sucking me down and groaning as I hit the back of his throat over and over again. He’s as monstrous as I am, the perfect match to the darkness inside me.

And Stella is the one thing that can save us from that brink, the anchor that stops our complete descent into hell.

I groan loudly as the pleasure courses down my spine, and I pump my release down Dylan’s throat. I shudder as sweat beads and rolls down my bare chest, my head tipped back, my hand caressing Dylan’s head.

He releases me with a soft pop, and traces kisses along my hips. “Better?”

Oh, that fucking voice. It’s enough to have me needing him again.

“Much better.” I gaze down at him, stroking my fingertips along his jaw. “Tell me you’re mine, pretty boy.”

“I’m yours.” He rises to his feet, brushing a kiss against my lips. “For fucking eternity.”

When he kisses me deeply, I can taste the salt of my release on his tongue.

But I can’t get lost in him right now. Now we need to clean up the mess surrounding us.

Dylan opens the hatch to the crawl space, where the tub of hydrofluoric acid is waiting to eat away Iverson’s body. We roll his dead weight across the floor, and drop him into the tub beneath us, where he lands heavily with a wet thud. Dylan kicks the hatch shut, and walks to the trough, scrubbing off as much blood as he can.

“What do we tell Stella?” I ask.

Dylan shakes his head. “We head back home separately, you clean the gun and the knife at the shop. I’ll go shower all this shit off in the garage. She’ll never know. She’s probably still out with Zee.” He shakes the water from his hands, then turns to look at me. “We’re going to kill them all. Every single name in that book.”

“You really think my mother would keep something that would incriminate her?” Even as the words leave my mouth, I realize what I’m saying. Dylan cocks an eyebrow, and I know he’s right. I huff out a cynical laugh. “Leverage. Of course she still has it.”

“It’s in that house,” Dylan says with steely certainty. “And when we find it, we kill every single one of them.”

“There’s some powerful names on that list.”

He shrugs, the snake tattoos on his shoulders shifting with the movement. “I don’t care.”

There’s no point saying we could get ourselves killed doing this. Going after all the most powerful names in the country? It’s a death sentence.

But we spent 10 years aching for revenge, and we’re not giving up now.

Dylan pulls the mask down again, before throwing on his leather jacket and gloves to cover the rusty stain of blood on his skin. He straps up his helmet, and with a nod, guns his engine and takes off into the night.

I watch the moon hanging over the forest for a minute, before stowing the knife and the gun in the trunk, and heading back along the bumpy dirt road out of the forest. The summer night passes by my windows, the trees illuminated in the headlights.

I’m going to kill my own mother.

But first, I need to look her in the eye and hear her tell me she helped these men rape my step-sister. I need to hear those words from her mouth. I need to hear her admit to hurting the woman I love.

The night whips past me, the forest giving way to street lights, and a paved road.

I’m going to kill my own mother. And I feel nothing but unadulterated rage.