The Death of a King

Chapter 4

Night- 11:47 - Luke meets Jax

Torture, this is what it feels like. My mood sways as the bottle hits the ground with a crash. Soon after Aster comes bursting through the door with a worried-some look in his eyes.

“Sir, what is going on.” He gasps looking down to see the shattered glass around my feet. “How did you ev-even, I thought you got rid of your alcohol…” His eyes glare into mine.

“You know what day it is, don’t you?” I scream grabbing a lamp from the bedside table launching it across the room as tears with a mixture of anger and misery stream down my cheeks.  

“5 years ago from the day my father felt the need driving drunk was better than spending time with his disgraceful excuse of a son” My voice raises with each word as I tremble.

    “Luke, this isn’t you, just sit down and I’ll go get you some water...Just stay here.”

“No, you know what i’m sick of staying in this God forsaken house with nothing but seeing ghosts when I wake up. My days consist of pills and my nights belong to the misery within me. The time has come that I show that I have part of my father's blood, to show him I am his son.”

    A bad idea forms in my head as I search for another bottle. Ashter tries to calm me but it’s useless, my mind has gone blank from all reason. Running, just running from my memory, running from my mistakes and especially running from Ashter. I don’t even think of what would happen, I guess the saying is true, like father like son. The car lights blaze on as the garage opens and the rubber screeches on the cement. The local clubs and local bars should be open at this time of night so I head out to a bar that’s near me, the same one my dad visited before the accident and was sent away. The lights of the bar shine and the open sign is up, people stumbling out and more going in, must be a busy night, then again it is the weekend. I stop the car just barely missing a trashcan and I trip out of my car and look around as this is not a usual stop for me.

    Traffic is low in this part of town and not many street walkers are around either. I walk through the lightly snow covered parking lot and make my way inside. The heat is what first hits me, I hear a crash and look in the direction as a biker looking guy drops a beer and yells at the bartender, she must be use to this sort of thing because she just sighs and gets another beer and hands it to him as if this was natural, I walk towards her and sit at the closest chair. She seemed busy and rushed to clean the mess the biker guy made. Her brunette hair tied up in a bun and a messy dark colored flannel shirt with part of the sleeve wet now.

    I raise my hand, “Give me your top counter stuff,”

The first thing I notice is she flinched when I raised my hand. She has a slight black eye that looks likes it’s been healing for a week or so. She holds up one finger to show me that she’ll need a moment. Looking to my left, I see smoke slowly rise into the ceiling fan, from one of the bikers playing pool. To my right, I notice the bathrooms, people stumbling in and out. I don’t belong here.

    “Hey can I get something to drink here!?” is screamed from the pool table, the biker again. The girl behind the counter is obviously tired of him as she rolls her eyes. I continue to study my surroundings as I notice what I’m wearing, Im likely to get mugged just as easily than ever. I hear a crash behind me, the biker is standing over a man on the ground, he tries to get up but the biker just as fast slams the pool cue into his chest and pins him to the ground, yelling at his buddies to come and take care of the guy. This all happens in a blink of an eye it seems. The owner comes out from the back office, I fall out of my seat, he’s holding a shotgun. Pointing it at the biker he begins to yell at him to get out. His mistake, the bikers are drunk and they don’t like taking orders apparently because they pull their pistols out and start yelling back. The people start to lose control and freak out. They run for the doors, but as they run one of them hits the bar and knock a few glasses over and they shatter against the wood floor, sounding everything off. It must have freaked one of the drunk bikers, he shoots at the bar where the sound came from, barely missing my leg as I’m still on the floor paralyzed from thinking and moving. The owner hops behind the bar with someone else I can’t see very well, when I realised that it’s the girl that was already behind the counter, hiding behind it. I hear someone that must have been the owner telling the girl to call the cops. I crawl towards the nearest table and turn it over on it’s side to get cover from this whole ordeal. Gun shots blaring throughout the establishment. There’s not a police station remotely close to our location. If someone doesn’t call then there will be a death. I shakingly pull my phone out and dial 911.

    “911 what’s your emergency.”

“Gunshots fired, 4 bikers. 3707 Patterson Fork Road. Hurry”

I hang up. The glass is flying all over, bottles getting shot behind the bar. I can see the girl inching her way towards the phone. I yell at her and point to my phone. She looks at me and nods her head to signify she understands, she sits back and mouths the words ‘What are we going to do?’ as if I know anything on what to do. Just then the owner gets up and fires in the bikers direction and nails one of them in the leg. Bikers get just as lucky, he gets hit in the shoulder and hits the shelfs with a hard bang, sliding to the floor. The girl sees this and panics, she runs out of cover to head to the back door. I can see the bikers change their line of sight, looking at her. The leader of this shoot out must remember that she didn’t get him that drink and aims at her. I stand up and get in the middle as he fires. My vision goes blurry red, I manage to take the pain longer than I figured. I rush to push the girl through the door, as another pain shoots up my calf. The door closes and we’re in the alley way.

    “We have to go help...oh my God you’re bleeding. You need help, a doctor, something..do you have a car somewhere?” She rushes all this and I can barely make out what she says.

    “Black Bentley, sidewalk.” I croak out, holding my chest.

“Okay..okay.. Let me help you, give me your arm, wrap it around my neck.”

    We half walk, half stumble towards my car. It’s still slightly parked on the curve, dented by the trashcan I hit. She sees the car and gasps, in awe of the car but that lasts for a split second as she slams us into the right side door, trying to open the door but it’s locked.

    “Shit, shit. Where’s the key?”

    “Inside….jacket….pocket,” My wound is right where the pocket is, stained with blood, sticking to my shirt, I move my hand so she can get the keys. Clicking the button the car beeps twice and she opens the door. Carefully dropping me into the passenger seat, rushing to the driver side. She cranks the car and puts it into drive. Slamming on the gas turning onto the road, she fast tracks it. Mumbling under her breath, as many cuss words as she knows it seems. Swerving through the trickling traffic, running red lights.

    “Hey..hey what’s your name guy, I need to know for the emergency room.”

“Lu...Luke...King...nice to meet you.”

    “Wait, as in the Luke King, the guy that owns that giant building upstate? Aren’t you like one of the richest men in Chicago?”

    I nod my head, clearly not wasting the strength to speak. She gets wide eyed, looking not only scared but nervous. As she continues to speed towards the nearest hospital, cop cars turn a corner up ahead heading towards us. I can only assume that they are racing to the place we just came from. They don’t pay us any mind for breaking the speed limit by almost double. I start slipping slowly and my vision begins to blur.

    “Hey!...Hey!! Stay with me Luke, can you tell me where you were hit exactly, anything else?”

    “Leg...calf area...chest...bleeding out...faster…” I black out.

    “HEY! WAKE UP!...You gotta stay awake Luke! I open my eyes, “Shit...you scared me”

    “Let..me..die..don’t waste...the time…” I cough blood out, clearly not going to survive long. I have minutes at most. I slip into darkness. Closing my eyes one last time. “Goodbye Father.”