HUNT, OR BE HUNTED

CHAPTER 36: THE TARGET

“Your number, cutie,” Jayden winked at the blonde who looked at least two years older than he was. She took a sip from the wine glass, made a pouty face, and scribbled her number onto a piece of tissue paper.

“Call me,” she made a gesture with her hand, and left the bar.

“You’re legal?” a voice made him turn. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Wha-? Jacque? How the hell did you find me?”

“I’m only here because I need your help,” Jacque said. “It’s been months since I have returned home. I have to do something about this.”

“Wait. What are you talking about?” Jayden frowned.

“Seth is dead because of me. And now Raphael, Bane and your brother-they’ve made the mansion their own.”

“What? Seth is dead?”

“You’ve missed plenty of things ever since you disappeared, man. I killed my own brother. Shot him dead, just to protect my younger brother.”

“Huh? I thought…”

“No, Jay,” Jacque sighed, taking a seat on the stool beside Jayden. “Listen. I would pick Raphael over Seth anytime. But Seth is no longer the problem here.”

Jayden gulped down the whole glass of wine, and studied Jacque with a serious face. “So what is? Wait, why did you even kill Seth? Isn’t he our master?”

“He has done enough, Jay. I hate the way he treated me. I hate everything about him. He’s better off dead.”

“You said you were in this with us. You vowed to kill them all.”

“I only want the people who dare to cross me, dead at my feet. Those who don’t stand in my way are innocent.”

“Seth is dead. If you want to stop this madness, we should kill them all, because it’s the right thing to do.”

“No. The right thing is to kill only one of them. The only one who has gotten in my way, time after time.”

“And who might that be?”

Jacque’s thin lips curved into a baleful smile. “Jared, of course.”

###

I chucked more dirt into the grave, wiping sweat away from my brow. Raphael tossed the spade aside when he was finished, and sat there, watching me silently as I continued filling up the hole.

“You’re just going to sit there?” I asked him.

“I’m burying my own brother, for God’s sake. This is going to haunt me forever,” he let out a loud sigh.

“Ain’t your fault, man,” Bane tossed a rock towards Raphael. It hit his shoulder, and bounced off harmlessly.

“I know, but you really wouldn’t want to be in my position right now. I buried my father, and now my brother. Could my life get any worse than this?”

“I know this may not have turned out the way it to, but hey, it’s all over. All our problems are gone. There is nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah, you should be happy, man,” Bane punched him in the arm. “We can go on with our lives.”

“Not with the humans hunting us down,” Raphael was shaking his head as he stared at his iPhone. “We’re on the news, man. They’re hunting us down for murder.”

“What?” I threw down my spade.

“Hell, no,” Bane put a gritty hand in his hair. “I thought it was all over, man. I thought we could finally just leave this all behind us.”

“Turns out we can’t,” Raphael swiped the screen, and I saw our faces, the three of us, wanted as murderers.

“We left the body there, didn’t we,” Bane said to Raphael. “We left a dead body right there in the middle of the road to be found.”

“Damn,” I turned to Bane. “You two killed somebody? Did I miss something back there?”

“Hell, that was five months ago, man. I didn’t think this would happen,” Bane sat down on the dirt. “I didn’t think they would lead it back to us.”

“They’re on our trail,” Raphael said. “They know where we live, who we are, what we look like. There is no escaping the police this time.”

“So what do we do? Who would possibly spread the word about us? I haven’t killed anybody,” I protested. “How would they even know what I look like when I haven’t murdered anybody?”

“That’s right, Bane. I don’t remember seeing any witnesses when we killed that creep,” Raphael snapped his fingers.

“Holy sh-, we’re being exposed, man,” Bane said after a moment. “Somebody told the cops about us, and gave them every detail about us.”

I clenched my fists, infuriated. Who the hell would do this to us? Who would even dare to expose us, knowing what we were capable of?

Leaves rustled behind us, and I heard footsteps, then the screech of tyres. The next thing I knew, a man in a uniform was pointing his shotgun directly at me, a dead serious expression on his chiseled face.

“Put your hands up over your heads, and get down on your knees!” the moment the shout rang out, I knew we were going to go straight to prison, and there wasn’t going to be any excuse.

“I said, put your hands up and get down!” the policeman repeated, and trained the gun from me, to Raphael, and then to Bane. Five other armed policemen stepped out from the bushes.

“Sh-,” I heard Bane curse as he went on his knees. Raphael followed, and I did the same.

Cuffs clicked around my wrists, and large arms hauled me up to my feet. I eyed Raphael and Bane, but they both had their heads down. I tried to read their thoughts, but there was nothing. Why were they shutting their thoughts away from me?

Did they know who did this to us? Did they know this was coming?

I didn’t even fight back when the bulky, sleepy-looking policeman shoved me into the backseat. The car door slammed, blocking my escape route.

I felt hopeless, more hopeless than I ever did in my life. There was no escaping the police. Once they had you, either you surrendered, or make matters worse by running off. I chose to surrender, because I had done nothing wrong. I could even have a slight chance of dodging the charges pressed against me.

But I was surprised at Raphael and Bane’s reactions. Probably they had been so completely caught off guard, that their first reaction was to surrender. They had committed murder, and that meant they were going to serve the rest of their lives in prison.

They were definitely not going to like that.

I had a feeling they were planning something the moment I saw them being pushed into the second and the third car. And at that instant, I heard them in my heads.

“Don’t worry, man. We’re getting our asses out of this sh-tty mess,” Bane said. I could actually hear him giving me a reassuring smile.

“Hell yeah, we are. We’ll clear our names, and find out who did this to us,” Raphael said.

Why were they being so confident? What if there was no way out of this? What if it was the end of us, the end of an everlasting journey?

“Hey, don’t even think that, man,” Bane cut in between my thoughts- he had obviously read my mind.

“This is not the end.”