Huck

When I woke up, the room was dark. There were blinds over the windows, and they were drawn, so none of them let any light in. I blinked several times, trying to figure out why nothing looked familiar, and then it came to me. I was in Venezuela, visiting my father, and this was the hotel room I’d rented.

I rolled to my side and reached across the bed but felt nothing, except for cold sheets.

Arin wasn’t there.

I went to my other side and tapped different parts of the lamp until I found a knob and twisted it, and then the light turned on.

Arin wasn’t on the couch. She wasn’t in the closet that was right next to the bed either.

“Arin,” I called out, knowing she had to be in the bathroom. “I’m coming in. I’ve gotta take a piss.”

I rounded the corner. The bathroom door was open, and the light was turned off. When I looked inside, she wasn’t in there.

What the fuck?

I did a quick scan of the whole room, and that was when I saw the note on the table that was written in Arin’s handwriting.

Went for a run.

Be back in an hour.

XX, A

Has this girl lost her goddamn mind?

She’d never been to Venezuela before. She had no fucking idea where she was running to or who she could be running from.

This area was filled with crime.

It wasn’t safe.

It sure as hell wasn’t the type of place where a girl should be alone on the road and unarmed.

I went into the bathroom, and while I took a piss, I pulled up an app on my phone. It was to track Arin’s cell. I’d never disabled it. That wasn’t because I didn’t trust her; it was because I was worried that something would happen during one of her walks, and I would need to find her.

As her location loaded, I flushed the toilet and walked back to the bed. When the full dot appeared and it blinked on the screen, telling me her phone was active and turned on, I pressed the map, and it showed her distance.

She was almost nine kilometers away.

I did it again, not believing the measurement.

It gave me the same number the second time.

Arin hadn’t run more than a kilometer and a half since she healed. She was still building her stamina back up.

So, would she be going for an eighteen-kilometer run today?

No fucking way.

I continued to stare at the dot, and it didn’t move. I refreshed the app, and nothing happened then either.

Something wasn’t right.

I threw on my clothes, grabbed a room key, and headed for the door. When I got to the van, I peeled out of the parking spot and drove straight toward her.

There weren’t many people on the road. There also weren’t a lot of traffic lights. I didn’t even know what the speed limit was. I didn’t fucking care. I pressed the gas pedal to the floor and swerved around each turn. The directions took me to a motel.

As soon as I saw the place, my stomach fucking sank.

There was no reason for her to be here.

Someone had to have brought her here.

I got out of the van and let the blinking dot lead me.

It took me to the other side of the motel to the very last room.

I had nothing to protect myself. No weapon. Just my fists, boots, and my goddamn mouth.

I didn’t knock.

Fuck that.

I aimed the tip of my boot toward the center of the door, and I kicked that motherfucker open.

The light from behind me filtered inside, and it lit up the scene in front of me.

A scene that didn’t just send the tip of a knife into the back of my throat. It sent one into my stomach and another into my chest and a fourth right into my fucking balls.

My father.

My goddamn fucking father.

His profile faced me while he huddled in front of a body that was on the floor. Plastic was beneath them. Blood was all over his hands.

The body was naked.

It was a girl.

My girl.

A body I had worshipped every part of, using my tongue, my hands, my beard, my cock.

My heart.

He was holding something against her skin.

My fucking skin.

He was pulling it down her stomach, and more blood came to the surface.

My fucking blood.

He stopped, as though he’d reached a good place to pause, and he looked at me. “Kid—”

“Get your fucking hands off her,” I growled.

His gaze returned to Arin. “Sorry, kid. I can’t do that.” Whatever he was holding, he now lifted it into the air, and he stuck it into Arin’s arm.

Something was covering her mouth, so all she could do was moan. Her head shook back and forth, her whole body quivering, tears streaming down her bloody cheeks.

I rushed up behind him, took the tool out of his hand, and threw it across the room. I wrapped my arm underneath his chin. “What the fuck are you doing?”

His fingers went to my forearm, and he tried to pull it away. I didn’t feel it or the way his nails were stabbing me. Adrenaline had completely taken over my body. All I saw was blood, and I had to get him the hell away from her.

“I told you, she’s not good for you—”

“So, you were just going to kill her?” I snapped. “Because you don’t think she’s good for me? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I lifted him as I stood, yanking him higher until his back was pressed against my chest. That only gave me more power to hold him with.

“I’m saving you, kid. The same way I saved Beard.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He was justifying his actions and trying to make me believe that this was what I needed.

Now, I saw who he really was.

Delusional.

Narcissistic.

Everything I had ever thought of him was true.

The man never thought he did anything wrong.

He thought he was a hero.

And he hadn’t just done this to his father and his best friend.

Now, he was doing it to his own son.

This man was fucking toxic, a cancer that destroyed anything good that was near him. He should have died in that explosion or in the prison that had just spit him out.

I tightened my grip, and I heard him wheeze.

“You’re not saving me,” I told him. “You’re taking away someone I love. How the hell do you not see that?”

“You don’t understand, kid. That girl—”

“Shut the fuck up! I don’t ever want to hear you say another word.” I carried him to the other side of the room, his feet dragging, his hands clawing at my arms to release him.

But I couldn’t let go.

I had to squeeze harder.

I had to make sure he never got near Arin again.

“Arin!” I yelled. “Move for me, baby, so I know you’re okay.”

“Mmm,” she moaned back, her fingers rising as high as the ropes would allow.

“You’re not strong enough to do this,” he rasped. “You’re too soft, just like Beard. You won’t be able to live with yourself after.” He tried taking a breath, and it sounded like a cough. “Your letters showed me you’re nothing but a pussy.”

“You know nothing about me.”

When I got to the far side of the room, I released him for just a second, so I could turn him around. Then, I clenched my hand around his throat and held him against the wall.

“Just like your cunt of a mother. Weak.”

“You’re the reason I’m doing this.” I lifted him higher until his feet were off the ground, and I shifted my weight forward to put all my strength on his throat. “You fucked everything up. You could have gotten out of prison and started over. But you had to go right back to the person you had been before.”

“I’m,” he gasped, “your father.” His face was red. His eyes began to bulge.

“You’re the man who raped my mother and got her pregnant.”

His hands started to loosen on my arm.

“You ruined your father’s life. You ruined Beard’s life. You ruined Toy’s life, and you tried to ruin mine again. I’m doing this for them, Shank—for everyone you hurt and for my girl who’s bleeding on that floor because you’re a sick motherfucker.”

A cough came out of his mouth, and some spit flew into the air.

“Kiiid,” he whispered.

“I’m not your fucking kid. Fuck you, Shank.”

His legs stopped moving.

His hands completely released me.

His body shook hard, like an electrical current had blasted through it, and he became perfectly still.

And then all I heard was silence.

When I straightened my fingers, my hands leaving his throat, Shank fell to the ground. I leaned down and checked his pulse.

There was none.

I didn’t take another look at him.

Instead, I stepped over his body and moved over to Arin. I grabbed one of the knives off the ground. Her eyes went wide when she saw it in my grasp, and she tried to wiggle away from me.

She knew it was me.

She’d seen me come in. She’d heard me talk to her, and she had answered me with a groan.

God, I hope he hasn’t fucking ruined her.

I held the knife in front of her face, so she could see it, and I said, “It’s me, baby. I’m not going to hurt you. I would never do that. I just want to cut the rope off your hands and feet. Okay?”

“Mmm,” she cried from behind the duct tape.

I gently sawed until her wrists were loose enough to pull out. Then, I worked on her feet and got those untied, too. She was trying to get the tape off her lips and couldn’t, so I held her face in one hand and lifted the corner of the tape with the other.

Her tears dripped past my fingers.

“It’s almost off; don’t worry,” I told her.

Her body quivered, and there was blood everywhere, but I was too focused to see all the spots it was coming from.

When I had a big enough piece to grab, I said, “I’m going to rip it the rest of the way, okay?”

She nodded.

Doing it slow would only hurt her more. So, I held her face really still, and I tore it off as fast as I could. The second her mouth was free, she screamed, and I immediately pulled her into my arms.

“I’ve got you.”

“Huuuck,” she wailed.

“I know, baby. You’re safe now.”

She didn’t say anything.

She just cried and rocked, and I held her against me. I wouldn’t let her go.

I’d promised that nothing would ever happen to her again.

And it had.

With my own fucking father.

“I’m sorry.” I buried my face in her neck. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

He’d said I was too weak. He’d said I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

He was wrong.

I was the one who had put that monster in the ground.

And all I felt was relief.