Sons of Mayhem 2 Chaser (Sons of Mayhem Novels, #2) (17 page)

“Wine?”

Dewey grinned, pleased with himself. “Not just wine,
champagne
.”

“Sparkling wine?” I asked.

I saw Dewey nodding again as I glanced over. “Yep, but it’s real champagne, from France. Real special occasion stuff. Pretty expensive, you know.”

“Oh yeah? Awesome.”

Maybe the night wouldn’t be that bad after all, I thought. Maybe I could drink myself into deliciousness numbness. Unfortunately Dewey had a lot more planned than just a few drinks. My hell night was just beginning.

K
aren

We said “Hi” to Dad who was watching a crappy reality show on TV, before heading upstairs with the bottle. Dad didn’t really notice what I got up to anymore, and didn’t comment about me heading upstairs with Dewey on prom night.

We took the champagne up to my room with two glasses, the tall slim ones with long stems that Dewey called
flutes
. He pretended to blow into one like it was an instrument, and I pretended to laugh.

“To the future!” he said with enthusiasm.

“To the future!” I agreed with my own brand of enthusiasm as we clinked our glasses together.

He talked about the courses at the community college. He’d worked out exactly which courses ‘we’ were going to take, and when. The college was the only place I applied with my home address, and the acceptance letter was stuck above the mirror on my vanity where Dewey had placed it the day we both received our acceptances.

My other acceptance letters, the secret ones, were hidden at the very back of my closet, on the shelf, hidden so far back and so high up you needed a step ladder to reach back there.

“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yeah.” My answer was soft, and I was lost in thought as I sipped the wine.

“It’s okay love. It’s going to be great, I just know it.” He had taken my low voice for sadness at the ending of this stage of our lives, when in fact I had actually just been in deep contemplation, thinking about the logistics of moving half way across the country. How many buses would I need to take to get there? How much stuff would I take with me?

He refilled me glass two or three times, popping downstairs when the first bottle was empty and returning with another one.

“Sorry,” he said, “this one’s from California. It’s not a
real
champagne.”

“That’s okay,” I said, and it was, truthfully they both tasted fine to me. They were a little different, sure, but the expensive one didn’t seem any better to my immature taste buds.

He ran a hand over my cheek as I lay propped up by pillows on top of my bed. “I love you, you know.”

“I know.” I wondered whether he actually did love me. I knew he loved controlling and manipulating me, but did he actually love
me
. I considered the thought idly, and came to the conclusion that he didn’t. I believe he
thought
he loved me, but he didn’t,
couldn’t
actually love me because he didn’t know me. What he knew was the shell of a girl that he had created.

Inside the Barbie-doll exterior the real Karen, the real me, was fighting to get out. He wouldn’t have loved the real Karen if he’d met her. Dewey couldn’t even have put up with, let alone loved, the strong, independent girl that was fighting to get out and would soon be released once she escaped the prison her home had become and managed to start a new life far away in the north.

After the first glass from the second bottle I rapidly began to grow tired. It was not a slow descent into sleepiness, but a rapid change of state from mild buzz to severe grogginess.

“You look tired, love. Why don’t you close your eyes for a bit.”

I nodded, spilling wine as I tried to put the glass on my bedside before Dewey reached over to help me.
Isn’t he going to have sex with me,
was my last fleeting thought before I faded away into unconsciousness.

K
aren

I was in a deep and dreamless sleep. A sleep of boozy slumber, assisted by the sleeping pill I later learned he’d added to my wine.

The gigantic smash that shook the house was enough to wake me though, even in my messed up state. “It’s an—”
earthquake
, is what I would have said, but I couldn’t remember the word.

My interest waned almost instantly and I let my eyes close again, thoughts of earthquakes rapidly fading from my muddled mind. Just before I drifted back away to the land of the catatonic he appeared over me, a shadow of doom in the night. “I said I’d never let you go, love.”

Shit
. The huge crash from downstairs had barely put a dent in my sleepiness, but his quiet words whispered over me had been like a quadruple shot of espresso, leaving me wide awake and shaky.

My eyes flew open. “Wha—” My mouth still wasn’t working properly and he didn’t give me time to finish.

“You made a mistake. But I’ve fixed it, you won’t be going away to college now, love.”

I was caught. Busted. He knew what I’d been up to, knew about my plan to leave him and start a new life.
Fuck
.

He slipped his arms under me and lifted me up, carrying me out of my room for the last time. “You won’t be going to college now, love.” He smiled down at me, as if he was doing me a massive favor.

It was over. My dreams, my ambitions — over. I didn’t know what he’d done, but whatever it was it would stop me from leaving him, that much I knew.

With my hopes gone and the shock of his words fading I felt myself fading away back into blessed unconsciousness. “I’ll wait for you. When you get out we’ll be together, and you’ll never leave me again.”

His words didn’t make sense to me, but not much did. I heard the sound of a vehicle door opening and my eyes flashed open again. It was my truck,
Dad’s
truck. What was it doing in the living room?

I was gently placed into the driver’s seat. “See you when you get out, love.” He smiled at my uncomprehending face. I looked away, out the windscreen of my truck.

“No, no, no,” I moaned as he placed his hand gently behind my head.

Directly in front of me was my father, crushed against the wall ahead of me, the remains of his chair scattered around him. His dead visage glared at me accusingly as I let out my final “No”, abruptly cut off when Dewey slammed my head violently against the steering wheel.

I passed out, and life as I knew it ended.

K
aren

“Holy. Fucking. Shit.” Even in the dim light of the shed I could tell that Bottle was staring at me wide eyed.

I nodded my head against his shoulder, which my head was now resting on. Somehow my left hand had become intertwined with his as I’d told him my fucked up story and I had felt his grip tighten and release with each shocking revelation.

I leaned against him, and even though he couldn’t move his arms to hold me he opened his shoulder offering me the comfort of his warm, hard body. “And the cops believed you did it? That you killed your own father?”

“Yeah. Not deliberately, it was an accident. Dewey told them I’d been sneaking away some of my dead mother’s sleeping pills for months, to cope with the stress of it all.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah. They found them in my room, hidden away. He’d been planning it for weeks, maybe months.”

“That’s fuckin’ nuts.”

“Yeah. You should have seen the fucker in court, testifying on my behalf and damning me with every word. ‘I love her, Your Honor, I love her I truly do. But she really messed up bad this time, with the sleeping pills and the drink. I should never have let her go. I should have
stopped
her, but she told me she was fine. I should have stopped her, your honor! Please, send me to jail instead of her!’”

“What a fuckin’ looney toon”

“Oh yeah. He was all over the local papers too. ‘Local fuckin’ wrestling hero defends father-killing girlfriend’, shit like that,” I paraphrased. “He made a big deal of saying how he was going to wait for me until I got out, how he knew I didn’t mean to kill Dad... all that shit.”

Bottle’s voice was soft in disbelief. “I thought I couldn’t hate that fucker any more than I already did when he locked me in here. But somehow, I do now.

I let out a soft laugh. “I’m sorry for dragging you into all this.”

“Shit, don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault—” he paused to consider, and after a moment of reflection continued, “well, maybe it’s a
bit
your fault, but that fucker kidnapped our boy, we couldn’t let that stand.”

“He kidnapped him because of me, though.”

“Well shit, I guess it
is
all your fault.” He let out a little laugh and I knew that even though I’d dragged him into this fucked up situation he didn’t really blame me. He knew I was a victim.

G
auge

Gauge and T-Bone sat in the front of the panel van at the meeting place. There was no one else for miles in any direction.

T-Bone threw the butt of a cigarette out of the rolled down window. “Well, shit, this ain’t good.”

Gauge was staring at the abandoned rock in front of them, the stake they’d tied Karen to earlier was now leaning to the side.

What they
should
have found was Dewey with a few new holes in him and a happy Bottle and Karen. Ideally, Red too. If he wasn’t there they’d have to go search for him.

Instead there was nothing. No one. This wasn’t good at all.

“Give me your phone a minute.”

“Again?” T-Bone gave Gauge a look that said
seriously?

“Yeah again. C’mon, I don’t know how much time we’ve got.”

T-Bone pulled the phone out of the pocket of his leather jacket and handed it over with a sigh, the chunky smartphone looking like a toy in his meaty fingers. “When are you going to get your own?”

This time it was Gauge that gave T-Bone an
are you serious
look. “You know I’m off the grid.”

“Yeah, yeah. Mr. Independence. You’re not very off the grid if you keep using my phone though. If the spooks want to find Gauge, all they gotta do is track ole’ T-Bone’s phone.”

Gauge didn’t reply. He touched the screen a few times and a moment he was calling Bottle. For someone
off the grid
he was remarkably adept with modern electronics.

Neither of them were surprised when there was no answer.

“Well, shit. This ain’t good. This ain’t good at all. We’ve got to call Jase, get his ass back here.”

Gauge didn’t reply, and instead was reaching down into the green canvas bag that was between his feet. A moment later he pulled out a slim notebook computer.

T-Bone raised an eyebrow. “What the fuck’s that?”

Gauge gave a chuckle. “This is how we’re going to find Karen, Red and Bottle.”

“No shit?”

Gauge gave a little chuckle as he furiously worked the computer. A moment later a map appeared on the screen with a red dot marking a location.

“What the fuck did you just do? Did you Google ‘where the fuck is Bottle?’”

The ex-military man gave a chuckle. “This shit is why I’m off the motherfuckin’ grid. Your phones, tablets, computers — all that shit can track you. Like this.”

T-Bone looked confused. “How do you know this shit?”

Gauge grinned at him. “It’s my job. Well, it was.”

“Huh. I thought you just shot people for Uncle Sam.”

Gauge let out a little chuckle. “Did that too.”

“I thought you just had a couple of screws loose with all your
off-the-grid
bullshit.”

“It ain’t bullshit buddy.”

“Guess not. So how do you know those dots are them?”

“I don’t, not exactly. But, assuming Karen didn’t take off that hoodie I gave her yesterday, this is where she is. It stands to reason Boy Scout would have them all together. There’s only one of him, right?”

T-Bone nodded. “So what do you think’s going on?”

Gauge opened his mouth to respond, but then didn’t speak and instead his mouth widened into a grin. “Well, I guess that fucker isn’t so smart after all.”

“Why’s that?”

Gauge jabbed at the computer screen where there was another red dot, almost on top of the first. “That’s Bottle’s phone.”

“You’re tracking Bottle, too? What the fuck man.”

“I’m not tracking him. He’s broadcasting his location every second his phone is connected. Just like everyone else. That’s why I am Off The Grid.”

“Well, shit,” muttered T-Bone.

Gauge nodded but most of his attention was on the small computer as he examined the area around the target on the map, plotting their approach.

T-Bone was shaking his head as he looked at the little flashing dots on the computerized map. “Let’s hurry the fuck up before that asswipe moves ‘em.”

Gauge nodded, but grabbed the cell phone and started dialing again.

“One more thing.”

K
aren

I rested my head on Bottle’s shoulder in the dark. Things had really turned to shit, but despite it all, it was still comforting to have someone to lean against. I’d missed that.

“So, what do you think he’s gonna do?”

I thought about it for a moment. I guess I knew what Dewey was going to do and it wasn’t anything good. “Well... I really pissed him off in there.”

I felt Bottle nodding, despite the fact I couldn’t see him. “How bad?”

I let out a snort. “He’s gonna kill us bad.”

“Shit.” I felt Bottle shaking his head now. “That bad huh?”

“Yep. I much preferred it when he was just going to kill you.”

“Wha—”

I smacked him on the shoulder. “Just kidding. That was his
genius
plan you know.”

“His plan was to kill me? Neat.”

I grinned at Bottle’s sarcasm. It turns out it’s pretty hot when a guy can still joke around even when threatened with imminent death. No sniveling here.

“Not
just
you, silly. You and Red.”

“Oh good. I’d be bored on my own. What about the others?”

I let out a giggle.