Broken Road

Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty One

Shock. It was pure shock the shook him to his core and made him freeze. However it wasn’t shock by her words, but the shaky proudness which the tone she used to admit it.

   Devil look at her hands, studying them. “It wasn’t hard to do really. He was a monster and it would have happened to him sooner or later. Just before I shot him I had just come home for a six week hospital visit thanks to him and his boot. When I walked into the house there he was, standing over my mama and baby sister who laid on the ground, beating them to death. Blood was pooled around them both and he was even using a knife this time. So I got the gun,” she said with a small shrug, leaning towards him. “Then I pulled the trigger three times.”

   Devil pressed her fingers to each spot as she told him where, “Boom, boom, boom. The bullets hit their mark. One in the gut that hit his spinal column, one in the left lung, and then in the heart, just barely missing the most important part. But I called 911 before he could die.”

   Winthrop shivered as she pressed her cold fingertips to his skin. He could see it, as if he had been there. A young girl, no a young Devil, holding a gun in shaking hands to the man she had wished dead for so long.

   Emotions conflicted in his eyes and she smiled sadly. It hurt to see them there, the doubt, the anger, but she hadn’t really given him a reason to trust her. Suddenly it felt as if a chill spread into the room and hugged her in its icy arms.

   She swallowed and continued. “I found out that night after waiting hours in a small room that my mother and baby sister, Lily, had died from their injuries, but my father would be save,” she gave a bitter laugh, “how ironic it was for he was now paralyzed and couldn’t run away from his problems anymore. That’s way we were moving all the time, all over the country, so he could hide like a coward.

   “He became scared that one of the people he was indebt to would come after him, so he did the only thing he could think of.” Devil’s hands stilled. “He killed himself. Hung for the side of his hospital bed with a sheet like a rag doll. He silts his wrists too, just to make sure. I was the one to find him, of course he would have wanted it that way,” her voice cracked on the last word.

   “Oh Devil…” he said at a loss for words. He understood the feeling of finding someone dead for the first time, it was different then as if you had shot him and he died instantly. You didn’t have the calm control, no; it was even more sickening then that.

   Her eyes shot to his and burned. “Don’t pity me. He got what he deserved and may he burn in hell for killing a child and a weak woman who stood no chance against him.”

   Slowly inching his way to her, he slipped first one arm around her then the other in a tight hug.

   “He had no right to give you this much pain,” Winthrop said harshly against her hair. “I promise to take all I can from you, to save you from it.”

   Before Devil could say anything back there was a crash of shattering glass and she found herself smashed on the bed with Winthrop’s body thrown over hers. Her mouth quite suddenly went dry. She licked her cracked dry lips, but it didn’t help any.

   “What the hell!” Winthrop exploded, getting up and rushing over to the now broken window.

   Devil rushed after him, not taking a moment to think, saw a man in a black cameo suit running away from the house, and flung thru the broken window. She ran to the edge of the first story roof and did a flip over the edge at left her in a crouch ten feet below, then she raced off after the man. The man noticed her as she stumbled for a second over a few dead branches and pulled something out of her pocket.

   He took aim and fired three shots at her. She ducked and barely missed one hitting her in the head or shoulder.

   “Holy shit!” Devil gasped and ran faster, ducking more bullets that came flying through the air, singing a whistling song. The guy was a sucky shot, but a few came a bit to close and left her sweating under the collar.

   Suddenly Devil remembered the pocket knife Grange had given her the night before and pulled it out. She stopped to aim it just right and let the knife fly, blade over hilt, just as Royal had thought her so long ago. She watched as the man jumped aside and it sank into his left thigh and he went down. When she got to the man he was trying to get up and crawl away, but she placed an experienced foot on the man’s neck.

   Devil clenched her hand taking in a deep breath for the briefest of moments to calm her nerves. The broken window and being shot at had scared he so bad she could have shitted bricks. Devil’s lungs expanded in relief and she turned eagle eyes to the man clawing at her foot.

   “Who,” she huffed, “sent you?”

   Thuds of heavy boots sounded from near the side of the house in which she had come from.

   The masked spit at her feet. “I vill nevr’ tell!”

   Devil’s eyes narrowed. His accent sounded almost…German. She pressed the tip of her foot harder into his neck. “Tell me or you die,” she invited.

   He grunted under the new stain, what little of his face turning purple. His eyes grew wide and nervous as Devil pulled the knife from his leg and bent down to stick the point to his jugular. He swallowed very carefully, the knife’s blade slowly sliding across delicate white skin. He knew she would do it, he saw it in her eyes with a growing fear.

   “What do I get,” he croaked.

   “You life, maybe, if I’m feeling nice about it,” she drawled.

   The boots were getting closer. And voices raised up not the far behind her back. She had to be quick; she was desperate to save Lilla and herself.

   The knife bit into skin, blood welled.

   “Okay, okay,” the man wheezed, “they call him ‘Dutch’ that is all I know. I was only a paid help, they only told me what to do. They gave me no information. Please!”

   She removed her foot as two of Royal’s meaty men picked him up off the ground and she found herself crushed to a broad and well muscled chest.

   “You stupid girl!” Royal scolded her. “I taught you better then that!”

   Glaring fit to burn the world to cinders, Winthrop stepped toward her and thru thinned lips he grated, “You said listen to Royal.”

   Paying no mind to the man behind him Royal added, “You should have been faster and aimed above the waist with a knife. But your flip was very nice indeed.”

   Devil watched around Royal’s shoulder was Winthrop’s jaw dropped, finding China, as he stared at Royal’s back in stupefied amazement. She couldn’t help but giggle.

   “What are you laughing about,” asked Royal in confusion.

   “Nothing,” she cleared her throat to say. She looked over to the men. “Tie that one up and throw him into the stall that needs mucking out.”

   A hand came to rest upon her shoulder. Blinking up at Winthrop she smiled a bit.

   “We need to finish our little talk,” he said firmly.

   Her shoulders slumped. She gave in with nothing more then a sigh and a nod. She looked to her dad. “Bring Lilla to me please.”

   The older man nodded and then they were gone.