Vengeful Soul by Emma Creed
“Quit being such a fucking pussy, you ain’t married yet,” Squeal goads when Nyx shakes his head at what he’s offering.
“Ain’t a pussy, Squeal, I just don’t wanna be hanging out my ass tomorrow. Brax, you ready to give us that ride?” Nyx looks up at me.
“Suit ya self.” Hunching over the bar, Squeal hoovers up the line he just cut for my brother.
“We better find Tac.” I nod back grabbing my keys,
Ella kicked Nyx out the lodge for the night because of some stupid tradition, which seems pretty pointless considering he already gave her a kid.
But Nyx seems cool with it, and he’s decided to spend his last night of freedom over at Tac’s place. It makes sense, my brother’s got a lot to be thankful for when it comes to Tac. I've never taken the time to thank him for all the good he’s done for Nyx. And I must make some time for that once all this chaos is dealt with. Tac’s a good man, a little loose but as loyal as they come.
I offered to be designated driver when Nyx asked if I wanted to hang out with them too. I’m sure he did it out of some kinda obligation, but Gracie’s convinced it’s Nyx's way of bringing us closer, and thinks I should make the effort.
Whatever his motives, I don’t wanna kick it back at him. So I’ll have a beer at Tac’s apartment to show some gratitude for his effort, then get out of their way.
Nyx agreed to a few quiet beers at the club with the others before he left, which now thanks to Squealer, is turning rapidly in to a fuck fest. The place is crawling with bitches that he called in from the Black Pearl to entertain, and it’s gonna go fucking sideways when Prez finds out.
“Tac’s probably balls deep up in one of the rutting rooms,” Nyx sniggers, pulling his cell phone from his cut as we make our way out to the foyer. Neither one of us is gonna go up there and pull his ass out.
Raising my eyebrows, I push open the door to step outside, and immediately tense when I see the cop car driving at full speed up the track.
“Shit.” Nyx sounds surprised and horrified as he hangs up the phone.
I relax a little when I see that it’s Danny who gets out of the driver's seat. He’s Roswell’s protege and is happy to cooperate with the club. Which is why I don’t understand why him being here’s got Nyx looking so pale all of a sudden.
“What the fuck you doin’ here, Dan?” Nyx storms toward the car like he’s gonna grip the guy by his throat.
“Calm down, Nyx. I don’t have any other choice and it’s not gonna be for long.”
“I told you I couldn’t deal with this right now. I’m getting married tomorrow.” Nyx kicks the wheel of the patrol car and Danny slams the door shut in a temper. I realize now that there’s a girl in the front seat. One that seems oblivious to what’s going on.
“Nyx, I gotta leave town. It’s urgent and I can’t take her with me. I thought she’d got better, stronger. I thought I could leave her just for the couple days I needed but I’d barely got out of fucking Colorado before she called.” I’ve never seen the man look so uptight before and it unnerves me, especially considering this clearly has something to do with my brother.
“This is what happens when you deal with shit you ain’t qualified in. I told you to get her into a program.” Nyx bends his body to look through the window and when he sees the state of the girl in the passenger seat, he slams his palm into the roof of the car in frustration.
“Great. She’s fucking high. What the fuck, Dan?” He grips the officer by his collar.
“I am getting married tomorrow. I can’t deal with this shit!” He over pronounces each one of his words, and Officer Dan looks him square in the eye before he shoves him off.
“I get that, Nyx, but what I gotta deal with can’t wait. I have to leave town tonight.” He moves around the patroller and opens the passenger door, pulling the limp, frail girl to her feet and propping her against the car. “Listen, Nyx is gonna take care of you until I get back.” He cares about the girl. I see it in the way he strokes the wet hair back off her face and how his eyes narrow when she makes a painful cry.
“I’m coming back, I promise. Listen to me, Abby,” he forces her to focus on him. “I’m coming back.”
“I told you I’d use again if you left me.” She stares back at him coldly, emotion stripped from her eyes.
“And that’s exactly why I brought you here.” He kisses her forehead, picking her up and making his way toward me.
“Take her.” He stands in front of me with the red-haired girl hanging limp in his arms.
“Fucking take her!” he yells at me.
“Who the fuck you think you’re talkin’ to?” I look the son of a bitch up and down. I may not be clued into what the fuck’s going on here, but I ain’t about to have the bastard talk to me like that.
“Take her, Brax.” I look over at my brother when Nyx speaks up. He looks defeated, his hand covering his mouth and that spark he had in his eyes a few minutes ago nowhere to be seen. I eyeball Danny whatever his fucking name is as I take the girl off him. And I sense his resistance to let her go.
She’s shivering, clearly jacked up on something, and she lets out a feeble cry when he finally releases her.
“Thank you,” he nods, before turning his attention back to Nyx.
“Where’d she get the shit from?” I ask, and he turns back around to look at me.
“Trust me, when I get back, I’ll find out.” He storms toward the driver’s side of his patroller.
“And how do we know you're coming back?” Nyx asks, pacing nervously.
“Because I fucking love her,” Danny says with a pain in his voice and a hurt in his eyes that I find myself relating to. And for just a second, the anger I’m feeling for the fucker dilutes into sympathy. Though that sympathy’s short lived when he gets back into his patroller, slams the door and pulls off the yard. Leaving me and my brother with one hell of a situation.
“Well, you really are full of surprises, ain’t ya?” I shake my head at a furious looking Nyx. He ain’t saying shit, just keeps on pacing and it’s pissing me the fuck off. The girl in my arms is clammy and shaking uncontrollably.
“Nyx!” I yell at him, losing my temper.
“Just let me fucking think a minute,” he scrubs his hand over his face.
“How the hell is this your problem?” I ask him, the weight of the girl getting heavier in my arms. She's not holding herself at all. A dead weight. And I can’t help thinking if that was the case, this would be much less of a fucking problem.
“She’s… she was Ella’s best friend,” Nyx starts explaining. “She was the one in Luke’s truck when I tried killing him and she’s an addict… Shit.” He looks up at the black sky above his head as if it’s gonna give him some answers.
“Yeah, I got that last part, Nyx. What I’m puzzled about is why the fuck she’s here.”
“When I got out of jail, I needed some answers. She’d betrayed Ella and I needed to know why. I found her exactly like this at her home. She was alone and I knew she meant something to Ella. So, I got her help.”
“Officer Dan?” I look at him questioningly. I had no idea him and Nyx were close.
“He owed me a favor and I couldn’t bring her here. Prez had forbidden me to have anything to do with Ella and… Brax you gotta help me deal with this.”
I look at the girl and then back at my brother. This is not the kinda situation I wanna be involved in, especially with my head so fucked up on other things right now.
“I got an idea.” I let out a frustrated breath and go against all my better judgement, hauling the girl into an easier position to carry, before I start heading back into the club.
“Wait, where you goin’?” Nyx calls after me. “We can’t take her in there. Prez sees her, he’s gonna flip.”
“I’m taking her to the basement,” I answer calmly,
“The basement? Whoah… Brax, is that a good idea?” Nyx charges in front of me, getting in my way.
“You got any better ones.” I cold stare him, and since he’s all out of options, he slowly shakes his head before stepping out my way.
I move with the girl, down the stairs and into the room where me and Jessie do most of our work.
I dump the girl in the chair and when her head falls forward, I grab at her face and try to get her to focus.
“What’s the bitch’s name?” I ask Nyx, tapping her cheek and trying to get a response.
“Abby, her name is Abby.”
“Abby,” I tap her again, this time much harder, and all I get in response is a tired moan.
“Brax, Ella can’t deal with this now and she’s gonna hate me for keeping this from her.”
“Then why did you?” I look up at him.
“Because look what she’s fucking been through. In six months, my girl’s had a kid, found out her whole life was a lie, almost got raped by her step father, oh and found out her new Pops is the fucking President of a—”
“Okay… okay I get it,” I shut him down before he adds my fuck up to the list.
“I want Danny,” the girl sobs, she seems to be coming around.
“Jesus, Nyx, I ain’t got the patience for this.” I rub my hand over my face and try to think of a solution.
“It’s okay, I can sit with her tonight, make sure nothing happens to her.” He pulls out a cigarette. “Then in the morning I’ll explain everything to Prez. He’ll understand why I did it. I did it for Ella. He would have done the same.” Nyx draws hard at his smoke after he’s gone through his plan.
My brother makes it easy to forget that it ain’t just Ella that’s had a lot to go through the last six months. The kid’s had to grow up fast. And although I know he wouldn’t change a thing about his life, it ain’t been easy for him to get here.
“I got this,” I hear the words before I’ve thought them through in my head. “Get Marilyn to give you and Tac a ride back to the studio. And get some rest. We’ll deal with this when you got a ring on your old lady's finger.” I toss him the keys to my truck.
“I want Danny.” The girl’s becoming much more alert. She even looks like she might find some fucking fight. So I quickly open one of the drawers from the table and pull out some rope. Tying her to the chair so she can’t move.
“Brax, I can’t leave you to deal with this. This is my fuck up. I should have checked in more with Danny. I thought because I didn’t hear from him that he’d got her straight. I don’t know, reunited her with her parents or some shit. I guess I didn’t really think at all. And then when he called me earlier today and told me she’d relapsed and he had to get out of town, I didn’t know what to do.”
“I want Danny. Get him back here.” The girl’s demands interrupt Nyx’s rambling.
“Shut up,” I turn my attention to her.
“Brax, she may have done some shit, but she means something to my girl. Ella thinks she's traveling Europe with her folks. It’s the only reason she hasn’t been in contact with her. We gotta help her get clean. She’s the only thing Ella’s got from her past that she’d want to keep.”
“If you don’t call Danny back here right now, I swear to god I will shoot up again,” the girl threatens, and I ignore her, grabbing the roll of gaffer tape off the table and ripping off a strip with my teeth. I slam it over the bitch’s mouth and grab her by her shoulders.
“You won’t be shootin’ up shit, not with your arms tied down.”
I look back up at my brother, whose eyes are red rimmed and swollen with concern.
“Get out of here. Get some sleep and we’ll deal with this tomorrow.”
“Brax.” Nyx comes at me, his strong arms crushing around my shoulders. “You know, you’re getting better at this whole big brother thing, right?” he tells me, before I shove him off.
“You owe me. Now fuck off before I change my mind.”
I wait for him to leave before I pull out my phone and call Maddy.
“Helloooo,” she answers, sounding tipsy. She, Ella and Gracie are all drinking in Jessie’s cabin tonight. Some kinda bachelorette thing that Gracie got real excited about.
“You mind putting Gracie on the phone?” I ask looking at the mess of the girl in front of me, I can’t help feeling sorry for her. Addiction is cruel. It strips all the good out of your soul and leaves you empty. I know, because I’m addicted to hate. It’s the reason I’d never be able to keep a girl like Gracie.
“Hey, hot stuff,” Gracie comes to the phone sounding like she’s had enough to drink herself. And when I imagine her sassy little smile, it makes me wish I was going home to her tonight.
“Listen, I’m not gonna be home tonight. Something came up and I gotta take care of it.”
There’s a long pause on the other end of the phone, and I wonder what she’s thinking. Whatever it is it ain’t gonna be accurate.
“What kinda something?” she asks suspiciously.
“I can’t tell ya, Gracie,” I close my eyes and sigh in frustration. I won’t burden her with this, especially while she’s with Ella.
“So you're not coming back to the cabin and you're not gonna tell me why?” The disappointment in her tone feels like hot pins digging into my skin.
“I can’t—” The phone goes dead on me and I wanna throw the fucking thing at the wall.
I stand over the girl who’s struggling against her restraints, there’s fire instead of tears in her eyes now. Her hate directed at me, which is good. That hate is what’s gonna get her through a real tough fucking night.
“You’re in for a rough ride, I’m not sympathetic and I got zero tolerance. But when I get given a job, I see it through. And I don’t care how much suffering it’s gonna take. You're gonna get clean,” I promise.