Page 53 of Intrepid

I shook my head with the realization of what he expected of me. “No. Please. Don’t make me do this.”

“I ain’t gonna beg, son.” Fox racked the chamber, and raised the gun to my head. “Bullet like this will make one hell of a mess of that skull.”

“Do it,” I taunted. “Shoot me.”

Huffing, he tossed his cigarette onto the ground, stomping it out with his toe. “I am a man of my word. I will let you go. You wanna go free, don’t ya? I mean, it’d truly suck if your daddy had to find you laid out in the woods, with your head blown off. Little bits of skull and brains. That’ll be the visual he goes to bed with every night. And every day he’ll punish himself a little more, until he can’t handle the visuals anymore. And then it’ll be his own brains spattered on the floor.” He pointed the gun toward Eli. “So you pick up your friend here and help toss him in there.”

“No.”

“You love your daddy?”

“Shoot me.”

“Do you love your daddy!” The anger in Fox’s voice thundered through my skull, and I flinched at his words.

Still, I refused to answer.

A gunshot kicked up a swirl of dust at my feet, and a sob tugged at my chest. “Pick ‘im up.”

“I … can’t do this.”

“Ever hear of cremation? Ain’t no different than that, son. Shit, if it makes ya feel better, we’ll gather up his pieces on the other end and stick ‘em in an urn for you to take back to his momma.”

Staring down at my friend, I felt the first twinge of madness crawl beneath my skin, like a snake through the dirt. “I’m going to kill you.”

Ignoring me, Fox kept on with his manipulation. “Don’t you want to go home? Back to your own damn room, with your own damn bed, in your own shitty ass neighborhood? All you gotta do is pick up Eli there and toss him in.”

It sickened me that he’d used Eli’s name. As if he had any right. As if any of them had any right to say his name.

I lurched toward Gideon, who took a step back, and felt the cold steel press hard into my temple.

“You are testing my patience. I’m giving you a chance here, son. He ain’t gonna feel nothing. Boy’s already dead.”

Yes. Eli was dead. They’d killed him, and no one would ever know, unless I survived. I was the only one who could ensure that my best friend received some small measure of justice for what he’d suffered. If I died, Eli’s horrific death would go unpunished.

A push against my temple scraped my skin, as Fox nudged me with the gun. “Pick him up and throw him in. ‘Sall you gotta do, and you’ll be free. Don’t you want to be—”

I fell to my knees, a sob breaking in my chest as I slid my hands beneath my best friend’s lifeless body, and dragged his head onto my lap. “I’m sorry, Eli. I’m so, so sorry,” I whispered, resting my forehead against his, the tears falling from my cheek onto his sleeping eyes. “They’ll all pay for this. I swear it.”

“All right. You’ve mourned. Now, get on with it.”

I’d never grown up with prayer, but I swore to God right then that if I lived and was let go, I’d do everything in my power to make it right.

“Forgive me.” Together with Gideon, I lifted Eli’s body off the ground, and tossed him onto the blade.

As the machine sucked him in, I dropped to my knees a second time, the vomit at the back of my throat expelling in a burning torrent that hit the dirt and splashed back into my face. I dry-heaved bile and choked on the stringy slime that dangled out of my mouth.

Another round pumped out of me, until I was certain nothing remained inside my body. Not even my own soul.

As the machine chugged on, I slammed my palms to my ears and rocked back and forth, while more acids climbed my throat.

A hand gripped my shoulder, which I wrenched off of me, but the echo of my sob brought my attention toward where Fox stood beside me.

He held an object in his hand, it’s screen flipped out to the side. A camcorder. “How’s it feel to be an accomplice, my boy?”

“Motherfucker. Motherfucker!” I scrambled across the dirt toward him, and a powerful blow to my stomach shot up through my chest and exploded in my sinuses. Another blow sent me crashing to the dirt, where Trevi’s boot smashed against my cheekbone.

Sighing, Fox knelt down beside me and tipped his head, while the weight of Trevi’s fat fucking foot crushed my face. “I’m going to let you go. You get to go home and live a normal life, son. How’s that feel?”