Kristen Ashley - Wild Man

“That call’s been made too,” Eddie told him. “He’s got his team in play.”

Brock glared at them, that bile still eating away at his throat. Visions of Bree in her hospital bed filling his head, visions that morphed into Tess, jaw wired, teeth missing, eyes swollen shut, dark bruises at her neck.

Fuck.

Fuck!

He turned back to the Cap. “My boys need to be picked up from school. I need to make some calls.”

“You do it from in here,” Cap replied.

Brock shook his head. “I gotta be out there. I know where he hides. I know where he creeps.”

“You give that info to Jimmy, Hank and Eddie, they’ll follow it up.”

“She’s my woman, Cap,” Brock reminded him.

“We’ll find her,” Cap promised again.

That bile in his throat was swelling, threatening to choke him. “My job to keep her safe,”

he spoke around the bile, this making his voice thick.

“We’ll find her, son,” Cap promised yet again and his eyes went intense. “Goes against the grain, man like you, I know it. Goes against the grain. But the smartest thing you can do right now is sit your ass down, brief Jimmy, Hank and Eddie so they can work this then call someone to take care ‘a your boys. When we get her, you need to have your shit together

‘cause she’s gonna need you. So, you gotta keep your shit together, Brock, do the smart thing, help us help her.”

After the Captain stopped speaking, Brock “Slim” Lucas didn’t delay.

He walked to the chairs in front of Cap’s desk, sat his ass down in one and looked to Jimmy Marker who was seating himself beside him. Then he ran down everything he remembered about Josiah Burkett which was everything he knew about Josiah Burkett. He didn’t forget anything. Not anything.

Eddie Chavez left first to disburse the first wave of intel.

Hank Nightingale left second.

Jimmy Marker waited until the end.

Then Brock called his mother to go pick up his boys.

And after that, standing at the window in the Captain’s office, eyes staring unseeing outside, that bile still choking him, his brain torturing him, his instincts screaming for him to move, his palms itching, his teeth clenched, it took everything he had to lock himself down and not do, again, what he’d done years ago, something that was wild and stupid and fucked up then and something that he could have no way of knowing would put his Tess in jeopardy now and, for the first time in fucking years, he prayed.

My wild man, he heard her sweet words whisper in his head. My snake charmer.

Brock Lucas closed his eyes and prayed harder.

“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.