Prey Drive by Jen Stevens
Chapter 49
the wolf
my blade into Charles's thigh for the third time when Sienna appears behind him, eyes wide and mouth open in pure panic. The horrified scream that erupts from Charles's mouth as my knife assaults him drowns out whatever Sienna is trying to say, stealing away any satisfactions I may have gotten from his agony.
I'm instantly infuriated with her for interrupting this cathartic moment. I'm so close to getting him to admit the list of names working against me in The Order, and the last thing I need is to have her here muddling it all up. She knows better than to appear beside me now.
“What do you want?” I grind out once the asshole before me settles down his sobbing enough for me to speak.
He doesn't bother lifting his head to respond to me, though I doubt he can hear anything after the way he's been shrieking for the past hour. My ears are still ringing from the sheer volumes he was able to reach as his broken voice echoed off the metal walls of the shipping container I dragged him into. If I attacked him in his apartment like I originally planned, we'd definitely have been caught.
“She's in trouble,” Sienna rushes out, almost seeming out of breath.
That's new. I didn't even know she has breath.
“Who's in trouble?” I push, buying time. I already know who. But I'm confused about why Sienna would be here telling me. She hates Stardust.
Charles finally raises his slumped head enough to shoot me a questioning glare, but I ignore it. I don't have to explain that I'm speaking to my dead sister. He'll be joining her soon enough.
“Jovie.” Her appearance flickers for a moment, then evens out. “You have to get to her. The ex is there.”
“Ah, I imagine there's trouble in paradise,” the decrepit man before me says, a wicked smile spreading across his bloody lips.
“Shut the fuck up,” I bark at him.
“You'll be too late. She's already as good as dead.”
Pulling my hair in every direction, I spin in place, completely flustered. I don't know what the fuck is going on with Sienna, or why she's speaking in fragmented sentences, but her panic is a living, breathing thing that seems to steal all the oxygen out of the room.
And what the fuck is Charles mumbling about? How could he know what Sienna said?
I knew the ex was going to be a problem. I let him slip through the cracks, too distracted with everything else.
My hands are working faster than my mind, quickly sliding every knife into its corresponding pocket of my roll bag. I'm using disinfecting wipes to clean the ones coated in blood, but I've got to remember to double back and properly wash them when I get home.
Speaking of blood…
Swinging my gaze back over to Charles, I realize I've still got an audience to witness my downfall. Blood dribbles out of the slices I've made into his paling skin—on his legs, arms, and face. I've left his entire torso for last. He looks depleted, but his eyes are still full of stubborn life that I planned to drain out of him slowly and painfully. Fuck. I really wanted to savor this one, and now I'm stuck rushing through yet another kill for my little Stardust.
I'm going to make up for this with her piece of shit ex.
“Sorry, Chuck,” I begin in a surprisingly even tone, because I know how much he hates being called that. “I have to cut our little meeting short.”
Smirking at my punny joke, I slide my largest knife from the roll and hold it up while Chuck begins frantically fighting against his restraints again, as if he'll somehow be able to break free. He's sputtering out a string of curses and empty threats, which turn to promises and guarantees that he'll never be able to fulfill in the remainder of his useless life.
“Tell me who you've been working with, and I'll let you go,” I offer, dropping the hand with the knife to my side.
Charles nods, straightening himself in his chair, as if that would give him any shred of dignity after the display he just put on. He takes a few deep breaths, and I roll my eyes at him, stepping forward with the knife raised. My girl needs me, and this prick is playing games.
“It's not as simple as you think. There're quite a few people–”
“Names, Chuck,” I interrupt with a growl. “You better start listing names in the next three fucking seconds, or this knife is going straight through your heart.”
“You father. Your grandfather. They tried to screw Andrew Black and Greyson Brower over with their investments. They knew there was an initiation coming up, so they threw her name in at the last second. Logan didn't want to do it, but he had no choice. They wanted to prove a point to your family not to cross them.”
So all that bullshit my father spewed about them targeting me was a lie.
“Who dropped the charges?”
“The board told your dad he had to drop them, or risk being removed and punished.”
It’s exactly what I expected, but it still stings to hear that my own father and grandfather sacrificed Sienna for their own gain.
My father knew all along.
He fucking knew they had his daughter killed, and he let them get away with it like the coward that he is instead of giving her the justice she deserved.
“They're going after your little girlfriend next. She'll be dead before you get there.”
The wet crack of my knife piercing through the skin and bones of Charles's chest fills the air beside his surprised grunt before his last words find their way into my ears and embed themselves into my brain. I almost feel bad for the sorry asshole. He thought he was going to have a shot at walking out of here. Instead, I channeled every ounce of anger I have into that one shot, tearing through him with more force than necessary.
But he was no better than my father. He knew what happened and didn't say a word, just like the rest of them. He let his own son kill my sister over a bad deal. Over fucking money—the root of every evil there is.
Ripping the knife out of his slumped body, I quickly wipe his fresh, crimson blood off and put it back into its spot, then roll the sheath of knives up to tuck it into my back pocket. I scan the small space, taking inventory of what's left for me to do. I've covered each surface with plastic and taken every effort I could think of not to leave any trace of DNA behind, but I can never be too sure. I thought I’d have more time.
I planned to scrub it all down and remove his body from the site so no one came across it, effectively erasing any trace of myself here. Instead, I'm pouring the can of gasoline I brought as a precaution onto every surface, taking great care in soaking the still-warm body that sits in the middle of the shipping crate.
Sienna appears again beside me, urgency burning in her eyes.
“You need to hurry, Bash,” she screeches.
I strip down to my boxers and throw the blood-soaked, black clothes into the crate, then toss the gas can on top of them.
“I'm fucking trying here. Tell me what's going on.”
“He's at the house. He wants to kill her. I can't keep her safe, Bash. She needs you.”
He wants to kill her.
They're going after your girlfriend.
She'll be dead before you get there.
Those fucking bastards. They found Stardust.
Tugging a box of matches from my oversized boot, I light one and toss it into the metal container, running backwards as the tiny flicker immediately ignites into a sea of flames before me.
I'm running through a dark maze of containers, careful to stay away from any major aisleways that I already noted cameras in. Sienna has disappeared again, but I didn't expect her to come along for this part. She told me enough to get my blood boiling hotter than the quickly growing fire blazing behind me. Alarms begin to sound off all around the shipyard, and I have to stop a few times as employees rush toward the container I just left on their utility carts. Hopefully, Charles's body is mostly incinerated before they can control the fire, or I might face the serious risk of being caught.
I'm tripping on the toes of the boots I wore, irritated strings of curses leaving my lips every time I stumble. They're two sizes too big in case anyone comes across my tracks and tries to pin me down based on my shoe size, though that won't matter when they catch me falling on my ass. My knees and palms are getting scraped up from constantly catching myself in the gravel, but I can't stop.
I thought I was being so careful with this one. I planned everything out down to the second. Everything except Stardust.
This is why having her around is such a fucking risk.
A burner vehicle I purchased for cash yesterday sits at the entrance of the shipping yard in the same spot I left it in earlier. I paid one of the shipyard attendants to use his cart for an hour, and then shoved Charles in the back of it to avoid leading any trace of him back to the car. I’ll ditch this one in a parking garage that doesn’t use cameras down the street, where I left my own vehicle and a change of clothes. Then, it’s about an hour before I can make it to Styx—forty-five minutes, if I really push it. It'll be a miracle if I don’t want to catch any police attention with Charles’s blood splattered all over me.
I try to summon Sienna once I’m on the expressway, but she doesn’t appear. It only feeds my panic, and the drive turns into a blur of lights and cars as I race to help my little Stardust, mentally planning for every scenario.