Vengeful Soul by Emma Creed
My blood scorches from the adrenaline that spreads through my veins like a wildfire, yet my skin is as cold as ice. Turns out, Lector was good on his word. When we gave him what he needed, he gave us a location on Clunk, the now ex-president of the Bastards MC.
Their members held an emergency meeting last night and voted Lector in as their new President. And now we're sitting outside the apartment block on Drybrook Street waiting for Clunk to leave.
Clunk still has no idea that he’s lost all his power or that he isn’t protected anymore.
Prez and Brax are sitting on the bench seat beside me in the unmarked van Thorne managed to acquire for us. And all three of us are itching to get sight of him.
This day has been a long time coming for me and Prez. Maddy, and my focus on taking this fucker down have been what’s gotten me through losing Hayley. And I know I’ll sleep better tonight knowing that the one who is responsible for taking her, and the reason my girl has to remain at the club like a prisoner, has had his justice handed to him.
I wonder how he’ll go out. Weak and begging, or strong and honorable. I struggle to believe a man who does what he does to kids knows the meaning of the word honor.
“There he is.” Brax points his finger at the windshield, and we all watch Clunk leave the apartment building, his face smug as he moves toward his bike. I creep the van closer, and Brax already has a hand on the door handle ready to strike.
Clunk doesn’t see us coming, and Brax jumps out of the van and is on him before he even hears us approach. Prez slides the side door open and before Clunk can reach around his waist for his gun, Brax has already disarmed him and has his own gun pressed against his temple.
“You’re taking a ride with us,” Brax informs him, before throwing the useless piece of shit into the back.
Prez smiles him a calm, calculated smile as he slides the door shut, and they both hop back inside. I speed off, heading for the place where Clunk will meet his comeuppance. And once we’ve finished with him, we’ll leave it for Satan to decide if he wants him or not.
The van rocks and the old man barks warnings at us from the back, until I pull up at the abandoned warehouse where he brought Hayley and Maddy almost two years ago. The Bastard fuck charges out of the van like a bull from the stock when the doors open. He doesn’t get far though. Not when I trip him with my foot and bury his face into the crumbling earth. This is where we spilled the blood of his brothers. Clunk lost a lot of members that day, and all because he wanted to get his hands on my girl. That thought has kept me paranoid every day since.
“You're gonna regret this,” he threatens, choking on dry dust and pebbles. Prez stands in front of him, and I wrench the fucker’s head back, forcing him to look up at the man who he took everything away from. The same man who will put an end to this sorry cunt’s, kid raping life.
Clunk still has the balls to laugh, and the world goes blank for him when he feels the heel of Jimmer Carson’s heavy size eleven.
All three of us stand over him, waiting for him to regain consciousness. He’s tied to the chair the same way Hayley had been, in the spot where her blood still stains the concrete floor. He growls like an old dog when he comes to. His eyes focusing on Prez as he lets out a smug chuckle.
“When my boys realize what you’ve done, you’re gonna end up as dead as your daughter.” He spits a mouthful of blood-streaked phlegm at Prez’s boot. Brax jolts forward, about to teach him a lesson on respect. But I manage to hold him back when Prez starts laughing.
“Your boys, huh? Your. Boys. The same boys who a few hours ago learned all about your secret little enterprise. The same boys who formed a truce with my VP here, and those same Bastard boys who told us where to find you.”
Clunk’s face turns white, and his mouth suddenly drops at the corners.
Leaning forward, Prez takes his knife from his pocket, scraping the blade around the stitching on the President badge that Clunk’s got sewn onto the chest of his cut.
“Jessie will see this gets to its new owner for ya,” he tells Clunk as he places the patch in my hand, and I smirk at the sick old fuck as I tuck it inside my pocket. We’ve already stripped him of everything he cares about, and we’re only just getting started.
Prez pulls up a chair and sits opposite the fallen President.
“Jessie got some stuff he wants to get off his chest with ya. Then me and you can air out our grievances.” Prez sits back in his chair casually and nods for me to take the floor.
Brax knows what’s going through my mind. He knows this side of me better than anyone else does. He understands it, because to us this isn’t just a craft that binds us, it’s a second nature.
He opens the duffel bag and passes me the gaffer tape, and I rip a strip off with my teeth ready to cover Clunk’s mouth.
“What ya doin'?” Prez stands up and pulls back on my arm. “Nah, son, I want to hear every sound of pain this fucker’s got in him,” he tells me, looking straight into the eyes of his nemesis.
“Whatever you say, boss.” I discard the tape and take the next item off Brax, feeding on the way Clunk’s eyes widen as I bring the shark fishing hook toward him. Brax stands behind him and tears open the front of his shirt, giving me access to his bloated belly and saggy grey-haired chest.
“I’ve been wondering…” I scrape the hook across the floor as I move closer to him. “…If I hang you from the roof by your stomach, like the animal that you are, what d’ya think will kill you first?” I press the sharp point of the hook against his belly button and watch him squirm. “The weight of your body bearing on this hook and the struggle you will instinctively make, forcing it to slowly tear right through you?” I skim the sharp point all the way up his torso until I reach Adam’s apple. “Or will you bleed out before that happens?”
“He’ll rip before he bleeds out,” Brax predicts out loud, after tilting his head and weighing up the options.
“You get off on kids, you sick fuck.” I pull the hook back and place it between his legs. “I should tear you out from your asshole for the things you’ve done.” The mighty Clunk Morrison squeals like a pig about to be slaughtered, and the satisfaction it brings washes over me like a morning breeze.
“You took away the closest thing I ever had to a sister.” I pull back my elbow and strike, lodging the hook's barbed tip, deep into his gut. He wails in agony when I drag it up inside him and leave an open scrape oozing with thick red blood in its trail. He tries to spare me his pain, sniffing in a breath as he feels me rip through his flesh.
“You made my old lady and her mother a target.” Slowly, I withdraw the hook, the anchored end ripping through more flesh as I pull it free.
Brax passes me the next item he knows I’ll want, a full bag of salt, which I sprinkle generously onto the neat, deep flesh wound I’ve made through his stomach. He sizzles beneath it like a slug. Tied down and helpless as his body burns from the inside out.
There’s nothing he can do to hide the pain he’s in now. His head falling back and a loud scream tearing from his throat. And it earns him a hard slam in the jaw from Brax.
I press my hand over the wound and rub the rough grains in deeper, merging it with his blood and bringing him more torture. There’s no amount of pain that he could suffer to make up for what he took, and this has been a long time coming.
Taking my filthy, blood-soaked hand, I twist it into his face, giving him a taste of salt and blood combined.
“For Hayley,” I lean forward and whisper. Then spitting on his cheek, I step back and get ready to watch my Prez finally unleash all the hate he’s been carrying.
“You think she belongs to you now?” Clunk chokes out, and despite the agony, he’s in, he still manages that cocky grin. “Maddy will always be mine. That girl got Bastard blood running right through her veins. She belongs to me. Always has, always will.”
“Whatcha say?”
Brax moves quickly, stopping me from launching at the mess of a man, he knows that once my hands touch him again, it’ll be fatal.
“You’re lying, you sick son of a bitch.” I push my body into Brax’s shoulder, trying to get to him but Brax holds firm, knowing that Clunk is Prez’s soul to take.
“You just ask her whoring Mama,” Clunk chuckles back at me despite the pain he must be in, and Brax wraps both his arms around me to grip me tighter. Prez stands up and leans over the good as dead man’s body.
“There was a time when I thought you’d won. That you’d taken everything away from me,” Prez starts, his voice low and coarse. “But seeing you now, like this, desperate and fuckin’ ruined…You got no army to fight your cause. You’re a man without power, without morals, and not a damn person out there cares enough about you to try and keep you alive.” I keep fighting against Brax’s hold. I need to make him hurt. What he’s said about Maddy can’t be true. She’s too fucking good to have come from a monster like him.
“My daughter died in the very spot where you will, she died surrounded by people who loved her, people who would have taken her place in a heartbeat if they could of.” He looks over his shoulder to me, with enough calm in his eyes to douse the fire spreading through me. And when I close my eyes, it's Hayley’s face I see looking back at me.
I fucking miss that girl.
“I got my people, Clunk. I got my family. You don’t got fuck all.” Prez shocks both me and Brax when he turns his back on the man and walks toward us.
“He’s all yours, kid.” He smacks me hard on the shoulder, and we both ignore the tears glazing each other’s eyes as he takes his seat again.
Brax loosens his grip on me, and we both stand for a moment in disbelief.
Prez is giving me the man who took his daughter, a man who has been making his life hell for more years than I’ve been alive.
“You sure?” I check, my hands already trembling to get the job done. A simple nod is all I get in response, and it looks like even Brax’s black heart is a little moved by Prez’s unselfish actions.
So I step forward, and take full fucking pleasure in the fear that’s in Clunk’s eyes.
Turns out, Brax was right, the hook tear took his life before blood loss did. Helped along a little by me tugging on the fucker’s ankles. We leave Clunk’s body hanging in the warehouse. Grimm will deal with that mess after he’s done hanging lanterns and making the barn look fit for a weddin’.
When we get back to the Club, I stop outside the clubhouse to drop off Brax and Prez.
“What that cunt said about Maddy being his…” I can’t even finish the sentence.
“Forget it, Jess, he was tryin’ to rile ya,” Brax pipes up.
“Maddy hears nothing of it,” I warn them both. “True or not, the three of us take that to the grave.”
They both nod back at me in agreement, and I leave them with my trust as I park the cage.
I’m desperate to see Maddy, for her to hold me in her arms and make me feel calm again. To be reminded that despite my capabilities, I can still be loved unconditionally. But I need to go see someone else first. Someone I’ve been avoiding, and now finally feel like I have the strength to face.
The graveyard is silent when I turn off my bike engine, there ain’t no one around and yet I feel like I have an audience as I make my way toward where Hayley rests.
We’d come here together when I used to drive her out to visit her mom. I was never one for mourning so I usually sat on the bench and waited for her to be done. She’d pick out the weeds and chat away to herself like she was having an actual conversation with Mary-Ann. I never got how she did it, pretending someone was still there when they weren’t.
The gravestone bears two names now, Mary-Ann Carson and Hayley Carson. Mother, and daughter. Now that I’m here, I don’t know what I’ve come for. I just know that I’ve missed her. That I’d give anything to have another pointless conversation with her, and tell her about what was going on at the club.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you, Hay.” I crouch down and speak to the stone. It doesn’t seem as pathetic as I thought it would when I imagine her pissed-off face glaring back at me expecting an explanation. “The club’s been crazy busy…” The space between my eyes stings, and the lump in my throat grows thicker. “Truth is, I haven’t been able to face ya,” I admit, my voice coming out hoarse. “Like, maybe if I didn’t come see ya here, you might just rock up someday and shout, Surprise!” When I realize how stupid that sounds, I imagine her rolling her eyes at me.
“I guess what I really came here to tell ya, is that I’m sorry.
I read your letters, it took me some time but I read them all, and I feel so fuckin’ special that you had those feelings for me, Hay.
I didn’t know how to take it at first, but I’ve thought on it hard, and what me and you had… It was so much more than love. You got me through losing my parents. You got me through losing your mom. You loved me for who I am, and for all the years I had you in my life, you gave me a purpose. Then after all that, you gave me Maddy. And I can’t tell you how thankful I am for that, Hay, ‘cause she’s been the one that’s got me through losing you.” My voice breaks and I try to swallow so I can finish what I need her to hear.
“No one has ever done anything like that for me, and it kills me every day that I’ll never get to repay you for it.
I ain’t ever gonna get over losing you. Not even killing Clunk has made that pain go away. But I want to be good enough, Hay.” I feel a tear slip down my cheek and quickly rub it away.
“I wanna take the opportunities you’ve given me with Maddy and make you so fuckin’ proud. But I don’t know how to do that without you to tell me when I fuck up. I try and ask myself what you’d do when I’m unsure, but it ain’t the same… It’ll never be the same without you here.” I wipe more tears away and scrub my face, trying to gain more composure.
“I may not have loved you in the same way as you loved me, but don’t be thinking that I didn’t love you in my own way, Hay. I loved you enough to have taken your place, and I love you enough to be still hurting like I only lost you yesterday.
I got to get back to the club, but I promise to come see you again… both of you.” I lean closer to the headstone, touching my fingers over the bumpy letters naming the woman who had taken me in as her own when I was twelve. “Take care of my girl, Mary-Ann.”
Bringing my fingers to my lips, I feel the shake in them as I kiss them and press them over Hayley's name.
“I ain’t ever gonna be ready to say goodbye to you, pretty girl,” I whisper, standing back up and making my way toward my bike. I sense something behind me and stop to turn around, feeling stupid for expecting her to be there, waving me goodbye like she always did when I used to leave the lodge.
It’s just a gust of wind on a still day. But I smile back at her anyway.