Crooked Crows by Elena Lawson

2248 Fletcher Street, unit 4.

I double checked the slip of paper I’d written the address on so I wouldn’t forget it. This was definitely the place. The small L-shaped shopping plaza near the northern ridge of Thorn Valley had already emptied for the night. Only a single car remained in the lot, an older model Ford truck with rust around the wheel wells and a cracked side-mirror.

The large square windows of the shops were all dark, caged over with metal to prevent break ins. Except for unit 4. The window of Parker and Sons Butcher Shop still glowed with a dim light from somewhere deeper inside the narrow space.

I really had no idea what I would find here, but this was the break I’d been waiting for.

After Grey left the ladies room, I locked the door behind him and prayed his phone wasn’t solely fingerprint enabled or I would need a lot more time, and a computer, to bypass it.

I almost had a panic attack when it came up with the print scanner, but swiping across the screen brought up an alternative option. Not a code, but the option to draw a password shape.

I couldn’t make out the finger smudges, so that was out. I had three tries before it locked me out and he’d know it was messed with. It’d been a hot minute since my pickpocketing days, but I still remembered the three most common shapes.

Grey didn’t strike me as a basic bitch, so I threw out the first two options and went straight for the third. A simple enough swipe path, but not so common that just anyone would be able to get in. I got in on the first motherfucking try.

I wondered if Rook’s or Corvus’ phones would be equally simple to break into, but once I was inside of Grey’s, I realized the reason it wasn’t as protected as I assumed it would’ve been.

It wasn’t a burner. Not exactly. But it was clear they did change phones semi-regularly. There were only three numbers stored in the device. Corvus. Rook. Diesel.

Every other call came in as an unknown number.

And aside from a few useless messages between Grey and Corvus (it was obvious he wiped the phone clean daily) there was absolutely nothing save for a single text message from an unknown number that was sent to all three of them.

Unknown: Billy Parker. Strike Two. 2248 Fletcher Street, Unit 4. He works late. Doesn’t get home until after midnight on Fridays. Accept?

The only reply was a single word from Rook in the group chat.

Rook: Accept.

That was it.

I had a date and an address. A place where they were going to be tonight. I wasn’t sure who Billy Parker was, but I was glad I wasn’t him.

Strike two?

I had to assume it was something to do with a debt owed to the Saints. That they were going to collect or take payment in blood. If I could get something on camera, then maybe it would be enough to buy my freedom. Or at least, it would be a good start. I had no illusions that they wouldn’t just as easily kill me if I tried to blackmail them, but if they took me down I’d make sure whatever footage I had of them went absolutely viral.

Dom once explained to me how to do that, because this one time the Kings did it to her dad. They blackmailed him with footage of Dom getting double teamed by two college guys at a frat party she’d snuck into. They told him exactly what they were going to do with the little movie they bought from the two dickwads at Theta Kappa Nu. Down to the minute details.

Dom never forgot because dear ’ol dad never let her live it down.

Her father saw to it that they got off on all charges like they asked, even though the mess they’d gotten themselves into should have wiped them off the face of the planet.

Fucking gangs.

I’d offered to castrate the little fucklets for their crimes, but Dom made me promise not to, something about not wanting me involved.

I crept around the back of the building, careful not to be seen. A single security camera watched over the parking lot from the southern corner of the plaza. Easy to stay out of view. Around back, in the wide alley between the plaza and a closed down pharmacy were the back entrances to each shop.

Big green dumpsters lined the alley opposite the back doors. There were no windows back here. None at all. No cameras, either. Fuck.

How the hell was I supposed to see what was going on inside without straight up peeping into the front window?

I settled next to one of the dumpsters, wrinkling my nose at the smell, but at least I was out of direct sight here, tucked away in the shadows.

The text message from the unknown number insinuated that Billy Parker would be here until midnight. It was just past eleven now. No sign of the Crows.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I quickly drew it out and tapped the side button to silence the sound. The screen flashed with two messages.

Becca: Hey, you asleep? Want to watch bad horror movies and get high?

Kit: Are you ever going to call me back?

Stage four clinger alert.

I swiped ignore on Kit’s message for the moment, re-upping my promise to myself to get back to both him and Dom ASAP. Knowing that might not happen for a while. I really was complete and utter shit at being a friend.

Ava Jade: Out for a run, sorry. Raincheck?

I didn’t wait for a reply, toggling my phone to silent and slipping it back in my pocket. I didn’t run twelve fucking miles out to this sketchy ass plaza all the way on the other end of town for nothing. I was getting in there. One way or another.

Resolving to check the front again for a good vantage point, I stood only to drop back to a crouch as the door at the back of Parker and Sons burst open.

I tucked myself into the shadows, the cool nip of the metal trash bin biting even through my long sleeve black shirt and joggers.

“I can’t tonight,” a man said, speaking over a garbled voice on the other end of a call. He chucked a bottle into the bin I was hidden beside and it shattered. The smell of stale beer wafted to me on the cool breeze.

“All right, all right. Look man, borrow the truck, I’ll leave the keys under the visor, but if you score, I want a cut.”

A pause.

“Be back by midnight. You walking over?”

Another pause.

“All right. Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”

Keys jangled, and Billy Parker cursed as he dropped his phone and fumbled to pick it up, angrily striding around the back of the other shops toward the parking lot at the front. The instant he was out of sight I sprinted across the alley to the door he exited and stepped through into the dimly lit shop.

The space was narrow. At the front, a long bank of refrigerated displays poured their blue-tinted light toward the front window. That must have been the ambient light I was seeing from outside. Nearer to the back, to the right of where I stood, was a large structure built into the wall. I crept to the front of it and found the door slightly ajar, leaking icy air out into the main shop.

A side of beef hung from a hook in the ceiling, all vivid red meat and yellowed fat and bone. Several stainless-steel shelves held long slices of aging beef along the back wall. More hooks dangled from the metal sliders in the ceiling, waiting to hold more mangled cow bits for Billy Parker to cut down to size.

Okay, think Ava…

Kicking myself into gear, I rushed for the front counter, digging in a low shelf between two display cases until I found what I was looking for. I began folding down a paper bag, my fingers working deftly until I was left with a good size chunk of paper. Peering over the display cases, I could see Billy Parker slamming his truck door shut to make his way back inside.

I let out a breath of relief when he veered left across the lot, going around the back of the plaza to the rear entrance.

Once he was out of sight, I hopped the counter and unlocked the front door, stuffing the wad of paper into the lock slot. There were no bells or anything else I’d have to worry about. If I needed to make a quick getaway, I should be able to slip out undetected through the front.

I padded to the right of the display case and sank into a crouch in the nook between the edge of the case and the wall just as the back door banged back open and Billy re-entered the shop. The exhaust fan from the display case pumped warm air around my ankles, but at least the soft noise of it would mute any sound from my shuffling feet as I maneuvered myself into place.

From where I crouched, facing the back of the shop, I could see the rear entrance door and the door to the massive walk-in cooler. If the Crows tried to come in through the front, I might be seen, but if they went around back I would be safely hidden from view by the metal cart piled with stickers and pre-cut butcher paper in front of me.

I was banking a lot on them taking the back entrance.

And this was only going to work if they attacked Billy Parker here in his shop. If they waited for him to leave to snatch him then this whole thing was just a total waste of my fucking time.

But it was the first bit of useful information I’d gotten. It would have been idiotic of me not to at least try. The Crows poked the wrong fucking bear and they would see what happened when the bear hit back no matter how long it took me.

A taste of their own medicine wouldn’t kill them.

They tried to blackmail me first, after all.

The wait was longer than I hoped. Twice, Billy wandered too close to the front of the shop, taking breaks from sawing apart the massive cut of beef hanging in his cooler. Twice, I’d had to disappear into a tiny ball of black fabric and dark hair to avoid being seen. If he wasn’t at least six beers deep, there was a good chance he’d have spotted me by now.

The guy liked to talk to himself, I’d learned. Though maybe mutter was a more accurate word since I couldn’t really tell what he was saying beyond a word here and there. Something about little bitches and that hoe.

He was an asshole. It was easy to tell. Something in the drunken swagger. In the way he carried himself. In his snarling upper lip and the way he tossed back violent swigs of his beer, seeming to grow more enraged with each one he finished.

His buddy came and took the truck, honking twice before he pulled out of the lot.

Billy Parker had a lot to mutter about that guy. Apparently he was a no-good piece of shit, but Billy was really hoping he’d score for them both. I wasn’t able to get the best look at his face, but Billy was a tall, lanky guy. With lean muscle and a pin-up girl neck tatt. His skinny legs swimming in the bootcut jeans he wore. He ditched his Mötley Crüe t-shirt sometime past eleven, working bare chested, a dusting of dark brown curling hairs on his chest making him seem somehow even more pale than he was.

I was about to call it and head home, drawn by the promise of a joint and bad horror movies, when I heard a car veer off the main road and into the lot. I wiggled in my little hidey nook to get a better look, finding a silver sedan slowly rolling through the parking lot. I ducked my head as it passed Parker and Sons, but I could still make out the shapes of three figures inside.

Where the hell were they getting all these different cars from?

I mean, I had my own ideas, but their supply of borrowed vehicles seemed to be endless.

The car vanished around the edge of the lot, and I closed my eyes, hearing the faint sound of an engine rumbling somewhere in the distance. I was willing to bet they’d parked out behind that closed down pharmacy. That was where I would’ve parked.

The idling stopped.

I held my breath.

The bang of the door being kicked into the opposite wall rattled the building and rang in my ears.

I sank impossibly lower, drawing out my phone as I waited for the perfect shot.

“Oh, Billy boy!” Rook rasped, and three reapers spilled into the shop.

Dressed all in black, they appeared to almost blend into the shadows. The stark white of their Scream masks with their hollow black eyes and overexaggerated smiles making their heads seem to float in midair.

Dammit.

Unless they said something to give themselves away or removed the masks, any footage would be pretty much useless.

I ground my teeth as I switched my camera screen to record and nestled it against the corner of the metal trolley to get a clear and unwavering picture.

A clatter from the meat cooler and rushing footsteps.

The tallest of them, Corvus, threw his foot into the cooler door before Billy could lock them out, not even flinching as it thudded against his boot. Between their dark bodies, I saw Billy Parker fly backward, knocking into the hanging meat before slipping to the floor with a shout.

“Billy, Billy, Billy,” tutted Rook, stepping past Corvus and popping his knuckles.

Grey entered last, and I guess luck was at least a little on my side because no one moved to close the cooler door behind them, offering me a fairly clear view of what went on inside.

“We warned you, Billy,” Corvus drawled, his voice a detached rumble.

Billy put up a good fight as Rook stooped down to grab him off the floor. He squirmed, alternating between grunts and curses, but one good fist to the face and the drunken butcher was too dazed to fight anymore.

“Hold that hook,” Rook said, his masked face tipping up to the curved piece of shining metal in the track on the roof. Grey obliged, gripping the topmost part of it to steady it as Rook lifted Billy with ease.

My stomach turned as he slid Billy onto the hook, the metal biting through the skin of his back. Through his muscle.

Billy screamed, an awful drawn-out sound that ended in a sob only to start again. Scream after scream until his throat was raw and he choked up bile. Until his back was coated in red and it began to pool on the stained tiles below his hanging feet. Until he stopped trying to reach the hook with wildly flailing arms, realizing he couldn’t dislodge it himself no matter how hard he tried.

“You about done?” Corvus asked

He kicked a milk crate under Billy, enabling him to stand on his tip toes to alleviate some of the pressure no doubt shifting the bones of his shoulder blade. Ugh.

“P-please,” Billy pleaded, his arms hanging in defeat. “Don’t kill me.”

“We’re not going to kill you, Billy,” Grey said, crossing his arms over his chest, making his fitted long-sleeve black t-shirt bulge around his biceps. My mouth went a little dry, and I chastised my aching cunt for wanting another taste of his cock. Even now. Even while I watched them torture someone, she still thirsted for him.

I mean, I knew I was fucked up, but...that had to be some next level shit. Maybe Aunt Humphrey was right; I needed therapy. Copious amounts of it.

“We explained this to you last time,” Corvus droned. “That was strike one. This? This is strike two. Your last warning.”

Snot dripped down Billy Parker’s face, mingling with the drool leaking from his gaping mouth. “I won’t…” he said, the words choking off on a pained intake of breath. “I won’t ever touch them again, I swear.”

Silence in the meat cooler.

“I swear,” he repeated. “You’ve...you’ve made your point. Now please, please just let me down.”

“Oh no,” Rook said. “We’re nowhere near finished.”

If it were possible, Billy went even paler. His eyes, wide and round, terrified as he took in Rook.

“What was it you did to your little Ashley two nights ago?” Grey asked, his voice so cold, so different from the playful cocky tone I’d come to know as his. “Oh, right. You broke her arm.”

“And to Stella?” Corvus asked. “Go ahead and tell me what you did to your five-year-old daughter.”

Wait...what?

Billy began to sob quietly, hanging his head as my thoughts raced to catch up with exactly what I was witnessing here. This was clearly not what I thought it was. This wasn’t gang business at all.

My chest burned, ignited by the accusations they were slinging at Billy. By his inability to deny them. If it were true, this coward of a man broke his daughter’s arm. And apparently that wasn’t all he did. Nor was it the first time.

My eyes burned and a muscle in my jaw twitched, remembering the time my mother hurt me. How it’d felt. The man at the train tracks. The feeling of helplessness after the initial shock subsided. Of being too small to do anything to stop it. Too weak.

“Say it!” Rook demanded, gripping him brutally by the arm and pulling downward, making the metal skewer in his back dig deeper. Billy whimpered, trying to pull away, and I hoped it fucking hurt.

“I…”

“Say it, motherfucker,” Grey growled.

“I...I hit her.”

“And then what?” Corvus prodded, his voice dangerously level.

“And then she fell,” Billy croaked, his voice a hoarse mess of broken sounds. “She...she hit her head on the table and p-p-passed out.”

“Go on, you piece of shit. Then what?”

“I…”

Rook gave Billy another sharp tug and his eyes bugged out of his skull as bloody foam gathered in the corners of his grimacing mouth.

“I locked her in her room,” Billy blurted, the words overlapping so I wasn’t even certain I heard him correctly. “For two d-d-days.”

“Without any food,” Grey finished for him in a snarl, his body going taut, his hands flexing at his sides.

Corvus stepped forward, but stopped, digging his hand into his back pocket as an audible buzzing broke the tepid silence.

“Hold that thought,” he said, lifting the phone to his ear.

I held my breath as he left the meat cooler and walked toward the front of the shop, tugging off his mask. “Yeah,” he said as he answered the call. “I’m a little busy at the—”

His words cut off as a garbled voice on the other end of the receiver interrupted him. I rushed to check the angle of the camera, to see if I caught him removing the mask, but he was just out of frame. I reached out to tilt the camera, but then he turned sharply toward me, pacing along the bank of refrigerated display cases. Fuck. I couldn’t stick my hand out there without risking him seeing it. I’d have to pray he wandered back in view without that mask on.

“It’s late, what are you doing calling me right...shit. All right. Yeah. Yeah, I have a sec. What is it?”

Corvus paced behind the counter, and I flattened myself against the side of the meat cooler, willing myself to be invisible.

“I told you, Max, I’m not interested. I can’t be away that long.”

The voice replied on the other end of the call, distinctly feminine despite the name, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

“Well, I’m not most people, am I?” Corvus’ voice was growing more irritated by the second, his steps quickening as he paced the short length of linoleum flooring behind the register.

“Merch? I don’t fucking know. I’ll have him make something.”

Corvus stopped suddenly, and I dared a peek around the edge of the display case to find him pinching the bridge of his nose as he inhaled. “I might have something new. Do you think we could…yeah, all right. I’ll try to make it. Thanks, Max.”

He hung up, and I whipped my head back around and closed my eyes as he lifted his gaze, praying I was fast enough. That the shadows were thick enough to keep me concealed.

Shit.

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He cleared his throat, and I almost cracked a tooth for how hard I was clenching my damned teeth.

“All right,” he said, sighing, and his heavy footfalls retreated, heading back to the cooler. Mask back in place. “Where were we?”

I blew out a breath, tucking my blade slowly back into the strap at my ankle.

“I think we were just about to show Billy here what happens when he doesn’t heed our warnings,” Grey replied, and I heard a sharp intake of air and looked through the shelves of the trolly to find Rook smelling the guy. He shuddered.

“Please…” Billy pleaded again, his voice distant now, heavier.

Corvus slapped Billy hard enough to start to draw him out of his stupor. “Hey. Pay attention.”

Rook licked his lips.

Corvus slapped him again, and Billy slowly came around, his watery eyes widening in surprise like he was waking from a dream to find a nightmare waiting for him in real life.

“Pieces of shit like you aren’t welcome in our town,” Corvus said. “We see everything.”

Well, not everything, I preened internally. They didn’t see me barely fifteen feet away from them. Watching. Recording.

Billy’s lower lip trembled.

“This is strike two,” Grey added. “I think you know what happens if you get to strike three.”

They let the threat hang in the air for a moment before Grey backed away from Billy to lean against the right wall of the cooler where I couldn’t see him. Corvus backed up, too, leaning casually against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. Blocking most of my view of Billy.

“What happened to you?” Corvus asked Billy.

“...w-what?”

“I said what happened to you?”

“I...I had an accident. I fell onto a hook.”

“That’s right.” Rook answered him, and I could hear his smile even if I couldn’t see it behind his mask. “You also might’ve broken some bones. Maybe smashed your face into a table, too. Guess you should stop drinking at work.”

“Wait—”

“Let’s get this over with,” Corvus said simply.

“No!” Billy screamed a second before a sickening pop and crunch tunneled into my ears. I knew what it was without having to see it. Rook had broken his arm, just like Billy had broken his daughter’s. It’s what I would’ve wanted to do, too.

An eye for an eye.

When the second break came and there was no end in sight, I carefully removed my phone from the shelf and stopped recording, gripping it tightly in my hand.

It would be almost useless. They were wearing masks. They didn’t say each other’s names. They would have been smart enough to take a vehicle not registered to them and even then, they would have carved a wide path outside of view of any surveillance cameras.

All I’d done here tonight was witness something I wished I fucking hadn’t. I didn’t want to feel this...connection.

And honestly? I wasn’t sure what I’d do with the footage even if it had been usable. Godfuckingdammit.

I didn’t flinch as Rook snapped more bones and Billy screamed and cried until Rook eventually knocked him unconscious. I listened, hating how much I wished I could hurt him, too. How the sounds of his agony had almost no effect on me.

A five and seven-year-old? They were too young. Too innocent to be subjected to that sort of abuse from someone who was supposed to love them.

I’d have just killed him, the thought came viciously to my mind and a sour taste coated my tongue, making me grimace and clench my fists.

People made mistakes. Hell, I’d made plenty, but I learned from them.

This fuckwad would continue to make mistakes. I could see it in his face. Hear it in his voice. Who was to say that he wouldn’t kill one of his little girls the next time he was angry? Then it would be too late. Then strike three would only be vengeance instead of prevention.

I pressed my head between my knees as the Crows took a limp Billy down from the hook and left him on the floor in a pool of his own blood. My breaths came heavier. My pulse throbbed in my temples. Fingers twitching.

I worked hard to fight it, trying to stay calm. Stay quiet. Not let the darkness grab hold. Flashes of the man at the train tracks scorched into the back of my eyelids, and I forced my eyes open to erase them, sweat beading at my hairline.

A loud metallic chink rang out through the shop. Grey had snapped off the lever inside of the cooler and wiped it down for prints before tossing it to the floor. It scraped over the linoleum tiles and came to a clattering stop near my feet.

“What are you doing?” Corvus asked.

“Seeing how he likes being locked up,” Grey replied stoically and closed the cooler door as he shouldered past Corvus.

“And if no one finds him?” Corvus asked, and I got the distinct sense that he was waiting to judge Grey’s answer. That this was a test, and Corvus wanted to see if Grey would pass it.

“Then no one finds him,” Grey replied and left, pushing through the back door of the shop to vanish into the night.

Corvus nodded quietly to himself. He passed.

“You hungry?” Rook asked. “I could really go for some McDicks right now.”

“Seriously?”

Rook shrugged and Corvus snorted at him before the pair left to follow Grey out into the dark.

I couldn’t be sure how long I stayed there, leaning against the metal, just breathing. Taking in everything I’d seen and heard.

A thousand questions swirled in the adrenal wasteland of my brain. What they were doing...did it make them any better than Billy?

They were murderers.

Fucking psychopaths.

None of them so much as balked as Rook broke Billy apart.

Neither did you,the darkest part of my mind whispered, and I swallowed hard, forcing my legs to push me back to standing. My back ached from crouching there for so long, and I took a minute to stretch it out.

A thud sounded, echoing in the butcher shop.

Then another.

“H-hello?” A weak voice called, muffled by thick steel and insulation. “Is anybody there?”

I judged whether I’d touched anything in the shop and did one last wipe of the front door to be safe. It was time to get the fuck out of here.

Another thud as Billy pounded a fist against the door. “Help!” he shouted. “Someone please!”

I groaned to myself, stopping near the door to the cooler. The handle was right there. I could just pop it open and vanish. I could free him.

But why in the absolute fuck would I do that?

Heat licked up my spine, and I took two steps toward the back door to leave before something made me stop. Invisible hands wrapped around my ankles like ghosts demanding proper justice.

I didn’t even know what they looked like, his little girls, but I knew that they’d be better off without him. But was that enough?

What was I really considering here?

No one had seen me. I’d been careful. I’d triple check for prints.

What am I doing?

“P-please! I’ve been attacked! Please, someone open the door!”

“Fuck,” I gritted out through my teeth, the flood of new adrenaline vaulting up through me in an eruption of rage.

I stalked back to the walk-in cooler and wrenched the door open. Billy poured out, falling onto the floor with a wet slap.

He twisted, fear in his swelling eyes as he took me in. A relieved gush of air passed his lips, and I wrinkled my nose at the acrid smell of beer and blood mingling in the air.

“Thank you,” he sobbed, reaching his bloodied hand, the one that wasn’t broken, toward my shoes. I stepped back. “Thank you.”

I bent, the dull side of my blade sliding along my fingers as I drew it from the strap.

He lifted his head and his eyes met mine.

Something registered there after a second. The relief smoothing the lines of his weathered face vanished. He stopped breathing.

“Who—”

A hard and quick arc of my blade.

A clean slice.

I left him there to die, dancing away from the spray of crimson as it rushed to leave his severed carotid. I was gone before Billy Parker even finished choking on his own blood.

And I felt...incredible.