Summer/Time (The Sunny Sunshine Duet #2)

Chapter Four

Bhodi

I knew this was a bad fucking idea, but I told them I was fine, and the world doesn’t stop after a traumatic event. There are still people who are walking this earth that should be dead and removed in the most brutal of ways. But who the fuck am I kidding? My world has come to a fucking end. There’s no light, no warmth, and the only sound I can hear are the brutal screams of the one I love replaying over and over in my head as she tried to fight for her life. The searing pain in my hand brings tears to my eyes, the sweat pouring off my skin as the black hoodie clings to me. I can smell the heartbreak and fury fill the room with each brutal swing. It’s not until I feel two large arms wrap around my body and physically pull me away that I realise where I am. I feel my feet hauled off the ground and I’m swung hard into a hard damp wall, hitting it with an oof.

My gloved palms are flat to the stone, my breathing is heavy and every muscle in my body is tense and screaming for a break. My head drops and I can feel my breath hitting me back in the face, my mask still in place whilst I lose myself in a peaceful few seconds. I see her face, the light shines down her beautiful delicate features as she smiles at me, a genuine happy smile filled with kindness and warmth, the kind of smile that lights up a summer morning, that smells of peaches and coconuts, offering a wonderful day, filled with joy and wonder.

As the adrenaline and euphoria wears off, I lift my head. My breathing is laboured and my gaze lands on my hands still braced against the stone. Sliding them against the rough surface, I see the blood smear and drop onto the floor. My hand slid down the blade and it sliced my hand. I felt the initial pain but ignored it, my rage outweighed the pain massively, it felt more like an inconvenience.

Slowly turning around, I pull the mask off. Axe and Jimmy silently stare back at me in the warehouse, the body in the chair limp, blood spilling onto the floor and their dead eyes searching for my dark soul, but they’ll never fucking find it now, it’s never coming back. Another bad person has been removed and I feel nothing. The butchered body is soaked in a deep crimson, his head almost removed from his body, but I don’t even feel a morbid sense of accomplishment and I know it’s a slippery slope into madness if I allow myself to indulge in this chaos.

I don’t even remember his name, his crimes or how we came across him. I just don’t fucking care.

Throwing the mask across the room, it bounces off the floor and skids along the concrete as I move towards the moonlight.

“It was a bad fucking idea, Jimmy.”

Axe spits out as I move out of earshot.

Leaning against the warehouse wall, I stare up at the moon. Tonight, it seems brighter and fuller, illuminating the dark sky with the stars peppered throughout. There’s a peacefulness about it all, no clouds, just a deep blue velvet shade overhead.

Earlier today I wanted to end it all, end this turbulence that I call a life, give it all up and disappear. Take the few things I have and go off the grid, live a simple life and forget all about the dark sadness that shrouds me. But I knew it doesn’t work that way, it would follow me and latch onto me like a leach and suck me dry if I let it, the only fight I have in me right now is to find out what happened to Summer, tear apart the monsters that did all of this and hopefully bring her some peace.

I refuse to look away from the moon, the only pure light in my life at the moment. I’m scared if I look away it’ll disappear too and leave me in the darkness. If I fall into that darkness, I’m terrified I’ll never make my way back out. I hear the heavy sigh next to me, but I don’t look.

“Bhodi…”

“Not now, Axe.”

I snap back.

I feel him move closer, resting his back against the wall of the warehouse. He passes me a cigarette which I take, lighting it, I inhale deeply. Watching as the smoke moves swiftly through the cold night air.

“I know how it feels, loss.”

Axe speaks quietly. “I know how you want the deep pain to end, you feel you’ve failed in some way, and you want to watch the world burn, hear their screams of pain and suffering, but it won’t bring her back.”

My jaw tics and I can feel more vengeful tears threatening to fall, but I don’t allow it. I can feel my entire body humming and shaking with rage, but there’s no fight in me right now.

“I didn’t answer that fucking call, Axe.”

“What would have happened if you had? Whoever it was that killed her, they were already outside.”

The words slice deep, they slice deep and expose my raw skin. Adding insult to injury, I can feel the salt being poured over them, burning me. He’s right, he’s fucking right. They were already outside, she ran from her dad’s room and tried to call me and then all of sudden, someone shot her. The memory swirls in my mind, the same memory I’ve replayed over and over in my head since I first laid eyes on the video. But it makes no sense, none of it does, there was no reason to hurt Summer, she didn’t know anything, she wasn’t involved with anything here in New York, she was just in the wrong fucking place.

The guilt weighs me down, if I had stayed with her like she implied, if we’d just fallen back into bed. I could have loved her over and over again and when the wolves did come to the door, I would have been there to protect her, kill them all and watch as the life left their fucking eyes when they realised you don’t fuck with the one I love. But I wasn’t and all I can do now is seek the truth and burn anyone who gets in my way.

“I need to go to her apartment; I need to see what happened.” I say.

“You’re not going alone, whatever the fuck is going on we can’t become lax and assume it’s all over.”

Axe turns to me, his loyal side shining bright.

The comment sends a shudder through me. Unable to shrug it off, I just nod. Stepping back into the warehouse, Jimmy has already taken the body out back, nothing remains aside from the bloody chair and stained floor. Grabbing a can of gasoline, he carries it out back without saying a word to me. Axe reaches for the bottle of Jack and gestures for us to head out back. Setting myself down onto the log, we all stare into the pit as Jimmy lights the match and the body goes up in flames. The flames lick higher and higher, reflecting in our dark eyes.

We sit side by side, watching our latest kill eventually turn into charred remains and be forgotten about by this world. To end up nothing but a bad dream to anyone, who has had the misfortune of allowing his memory to cross their mind.

“We promise, Bhodi, we’ll find out what happened. We’ll fucking kill them all.”

Jimmy speaks quietly, taking a sip of his drink, his eyes not moving from the burning carcass in front of us.

A single tear trickles down my cheek, a tight knot forming in my throat when all I can see ahead of me….is Summer.

My god, I fucking miss you already.