Page 54 of Ballistic
Pants pulled down to his knees, cupping himself, he stood behind the young girl with a four-socket lug wrench dangling from his hand.
A tight and furious rage spooled inside my chest, spinning with razor blade edges that had me seeing red.
“Drop it.” The words hardly slipped through my clenched teeth as I rounded the bed toward him.
Keeping my eyes on the little prick, I reached out for the girl, and the second she grabbed hold of my hand, I yanked her toward me. “You okay?”
Through sniffles, she removed the washcloth he’d stuff inside her mouth and nodded. “I’m okay.”
“Get dressed.” I strode toward Jasper, who countered my steps, backing himself into the corner with his hands up. “You like to hurt little girls?”
His jaw quivered and his throat bobbed with a swallow, but he didn’t bother to answer me.
“See, we have something in common, you and me.” Gun pressed to his temple, I smiled at the vein popping out in his neck that pulsed with fear. “I like hurting, too. Only, I hurt piece of shit pedophiles like you. You’re gonna pull your fucking pants up, so I don’t have to stare at your miniature dick anymore, and you’re going to do everything I say. Clear?”
Sweat glistened across his face, as he kept his back stiff and bent just low enough to lift his pants up onto his hips.
“Y-y-you can c-c-call the cops. I won’t resist arrest.” His face twitched with the trembles I could see wracking his body.
“Oh, no. I don’t like getting the cops involved. Complicates shit, you know? ‘Sides that, I’m guessing you’ve got a buddy on the inside. Probably looks out for you. Lets you keep doing what you do, so long as you don’t make too much of a mess.” I rolled my head against my shoulders in a piss poor effort to calm the urge to watch his brains spatter all over the yellowing walls behind him. “No, I’ll handle this one myself. That way, I know you’ll be properly punished.”
“I wasn’t gonna hurt her. I was just playin’ with her. Just trying to scare her a little. I wasn’t trying to—”
“To take a twelve-year-old to a motel to fuck her?”
“She … approached me.”
“She approached me, too. But that’s the difference between the two of us. I’m not a lowlife piece of shit.” I let a smile break through the grinding of my teeth. “I like to scare my victims, too, though. So let’s have some real fun, shall we?”
* * *
Hand on the open trunk door, I stared down at Jasper, who lay hogtied with a sock stuffed inside his mouth, sealed with duct tape. His eye had begun to swell where I’d punched him a few times. At his scream, I shoved a half-smoked cigarette into my mouth and slammed the trunk closed.
Rounding the back brought me to the driver’s side door, where I slumped into the seat.
“You’re not a cop?” the girl asked beside me, wrapping my borrowed hoodie around her body.
“No.” I took one last drag from my cigarette before flicking it out the window, and fired up the vehicle, ignoring Jasper’s screams bleeding from the back of the car. “Where’s home for you?”
“Orangelawn.”
“No. Before you ended up on the streets. Where’s your mom, or dad? Your family?”
“I’m not going back to them. They’re the assholes who kicked me out.”
Damn. So young to get kicked out. Then again, I knew some kids who’d hit the streets based on some stupid misunderstanding. Shit said in the heat of the moment. Used to piss me off, because at least they had someone to go back to, if things got too rough. All I’d had was my wits and a damn good right hook to get me through the hard times. “Well, I’m not dropping you off on a corner somewhere.”
“Then, I’ll get out here.” She set her hand to the door, and I nabbed her elbow, but quickly let go when she jerked her arm.
“I can’t run from them. Do you know what happens when we run? They burn the bottom of our feet with an iron.”
“So, you stay their prisoner forever?”
“At least I have a place to stay. And food. And clothes. Whatever drugs I want. And someday I won’t have to work the floor.”
“Someday, you’ll be dead. I know a place you can stay.”
“If it’s at one of those stupid soup kitchens, forget it.”
