Burn Out *18+*

Chapter 38

Everyone wants to think that they could spot a bad guy a mile away. You would never get kidnapped because you knew the warning signs. You were too smart for that. And when I stared at Axel, I knew that all of those assumptions were wrong. He was a short man, slightly shorter than me with a large belly and aviators that had been out of style for the past ten years. Chest hair plumed from the top of his shirt and he sported a leather jacket as if he were trying to relive his glory days. Just a dad in the middle of an identity crisis.

But he was still in his glory days. And those wrinkles around his slightly cloudy eyes didn't mean that he wasn't capable of killing.

"What seems to be the problem, missy?" he pressed.

I felt my lower lip quiver, the words almost falling out of my mouth. You murdered my mother. but I said, "I don't know! the check engine light is on, but I'm only renting it. I just wanted to go on vacation because my boyfriend just broke up with me and everything is ruined. I don't even have money for a hotel, much less to get this rental car fixed or to have penalty charges."

If I hadn't been quite so good at reading people, I would have thought he genuinely wanted to help. Unfortunately for him, I knew his background and I saw that glint in his eyes. He didn't see this as a moment to be a good Samaritan. He saw this as a chance to get a new victim, to offer me a wonderful world of riches and treasures, then to use me as he deemed fit. That's why men like him were so successful in what they did: they were so good at pretending to care and offering safety when the reality was just the opposite.

"Alright, let's not get too upset just yet. Are you sure it was the check engine light that was on?"

I swiped at my face with my hand to get rid of the fake tears. "No, not really. It was red and flashing, that's all I know," I explained.

"Is there an owner's manual in there? Did you check?"

"No, I didn't even think to look."

"You just wait here. I'll have a look," he assured.

Most likely, he was going to make sure that I was actually alone, then he was going to pretend that this could be some extremely costly repair that I couldn't even fathom. He would want me to break down so that he could offer me shelter and funds. Things that I was so desperate for I wouldn't even consider the consequences.

But none of that mattered. Because I wasn't some poor, confused girl stuck on the side of the highway.

I was his worst fucking nightmare.

He turned away from me. I no longer felt the fear gnawing at my belly when I grabbed the hefty hunk of wire off the engine. This was my chance, probably the only one I would ever get. I wasn't going to let this man walk away after what he did to my mother and he wasn't going to go down without a fight. This happened now, no matter how it ended.

He heard me moving behind him, but as he glanced over his shoulder, I dropped into a lunge, using the momentum of my whole body to swing the cable forward, aiming right for his ankle. The snapping noise was sickening. Bones breaking under the power of my body and the rigidity of the metal wrapped in plastic.

Axel dropped with a howl of pain.

But people like him didn't just lay down and die when they were challenged. He wouldn't have made it this far if he had. Even when he was going down, his ankle undoubtedly shattered, he prepared for the next attack. His body shifted. He landed on the icy pavement with his back, face up and one foot dangling awkwardly to the side.

It was then that I heard the sound of tires on the crunchy ice, ripping towards us. Axel's men coming to save him, of course. I had been a fool to trust that he really would have made this journey alone. There was the sound of brakes and ABS systems fighting the treacherous conditions. They would be here any second.

And I might have cared about that, if I didn't see Axel reaching for his waistband. So, I had been right to think that I had been unprepared for this gun fight. However, he underestimated me and was now reeling while I held the upper hand and the high ground. If I was going to die at the hands of his men, just like my mother, that I was going to make sure that he was dead before he could witness it.

As the hand reaching into his waistband withdrew, I struck with the speed of a viper and I could almost hear Alistair praising my mind-body connection in that moment. The cable connected with the wrist and the small gun that had probably been custom made the nineteen hundreds flew from his grasp. There was no scream this time, just a strangled groan as his forearm folded in two.

I scrambled for this gun. And just as my fingers touched the cool metal, sirens.

Then, I stood above the man who had killed my mother, the man who had struck down the woman who raised me into what I was today, gun pointed right at his head.

"Should have known the minute I saw you," he said.

I blinked, mostly stunned that he could even form words with all of his shattered bones. I was about to fire this weapon, and he was talking. My finger rested on the trigger. I should have pulled it. I needed to pull it. I needed to end this.

"Should have fucking shot you the second I saw you," he continued. "I thought you had the same eyes. Should have trusted my gut and blew your brains out right then."

"Is that what you did to her?" I demanded through clenched teeth. I couldn't feel the cold on my skin anymore, or how hard I was grinding my teeth. All I could feel was my withering heart.

A cruel smirk twisted up one corner of his mouth. "I bet she fucking wished we just shot her, kid. I don't take people messing around with my business too lightly."

And that's all this was, wasn't it? I wasn't here because my mom had died heroically. She wasn't saving people from meteorites and natural disasters that no one could control. There was no secret alien invasion or monsters hidden beneath the deep. She was fighting greed. She was fighting money and power.

And she had fallen against the worst of humanity.

I heard a car door slam. My head snapped up and my finger twitched on the trigger. My time to end this was running out. But when my blurry eyes focused, I didn't see a local police department out in full force. I didn't see a specialty task force or even Axel's own men who had come to end me before I destroyed the head of their organization.

It was just to men I knew well.

Jasper and Alistair.

I sucked in a shaky breath as I watched them approach. What would they think? What would they do to me after? Could they even comprehend what I was going through? Did they understand that I had to do this?

Both men stopped moving when they caught my eye. Alistair was stoic, his lips pressed into a line, but his features giving away nothing more.

I turned to Jasper. Dark hair and darker eyes that had seen the true horror of this world. Slowly, he clasped his hands behind his back and cocked his head to one side. "Do whatever you need to do, Alligator. The highway has been shut down from both sides. Just the three of us will see what happens here today. No one else needs to know."

I shifted my attention back to Axel who was still grinning like a mad man from the ground. "Go on, girly. Do it. Or are you too afraid? Just like you mother. That's why she's dead, you know. she was waiting for backup, trying to do the right thing. We got her alone, trapped, and scared. She died screaming for her teammates that would never come to her rescue."

~~~Question of the Day~~~

What do people have strong opinions about, even if they know little about it?

For me, it's cars. I'm moderately car inclined and when I ask people to explain their recent vehicle purchases they usually can't.