Reprisal

Chapter 4

Billy Madden was standing right across from me, with a wicked grin on his face; his eyes looked like dark, black puddles, and from his left arm - the one that was not pointing a gun at my head,- something was dripping down, forming a puddle of blood at his feet. His clothes were as shabby as the rest of the house had been, ripped and torn, and he looked like he either hadn't shaved or bathed - or both - in weeks, maybe months. But what caught my attention was what was lying next to his worn shoes.

Emma.

She looked like she was sleeping peacefully - only the numerous holes in her chest and the blood streaming down onto the floor in several angles told the bitter truth.

She was dead.

The sweet young woman who had been by my side through the worst time of my life, the person I loved more than anything else. Shot.

Murdered.

For a moment, I wasn't even able to move as my body and my brain tried to process what was right in front of me. Then I felt a pull inside of me, and in blind, cold rage, my mouth uttered a scream that seemed to come from a wild animal instead of myself. I threw myself towards Billy, and for a moment, he seemed too surprised to react, but then he caught himself and just as I reached him, he raised his right leg and kicked me in the groin. I screamed again, this time in agony, and I lost the grip on the gun in my right hand while I sunk down in unbearable pain. The next thing I saw while the gun slid away from me was Billy Madden grinning down on me in the most evil way I had ever seen.

"Well, well, well," he said quietly, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Guess that friend of yours isn't as useless as I thought...what was his name again? Hank?" I grunted, still feeling the pain shooting up my stomach. "You know, rookie, I'm actually surprised it took you so long to implement your little revenge plan against me. I get that five years is a long time to come up with something decent to nail me down, but seriously, I thought all this time we spent together taught you better than...this." He spread his arms out to indicate the derelict site around us.

I finally felt the pain slowly vanishing as rage took over my hurt ego, and I managed to mutter "You...bastard! What have you..." My eyes shot over to the lifeless body of my former girlfriend, and as Billy realized what I was talking about, his wicked grin got even wider.

"Oh, that? Well, I guess at least one of you was faster in taking action against me." Then he bend over even more and placed his heel into my already hurting groin, and I screamed once again. While the pressure on my lower region increased, Billy finally told me what had happened.

Apparently, for weeks, Emma had tried the same thing as me since I had been released from prison: trying to find Billy. But in comparison to me, she had not wanted to bring him to justice; in fact she had wanted to tell him to leave the country as soon as possible, fearing that if I ever got close to him again, I'd do something stupid and get busted again - and this time, I wouldn't be as lucky as I had been the first time. She had contacted him a couple of times since she had found out where he was hiding, but only as she had promised him to provide him with enough money to disappear for good had he agreed on meeting her. Unfortunately, Emma hadn't known that Billy had lost his mind a long time ago, and some sources on the street had been telling him that I was closing in on him, and that it couldn't be long until I would find him in his little hiding place. So when he heard Emma opening the doors of his shabby house, coming down the stairs with nothing but the backpack full of money in hands, Billy had thought it was me who was coming down to get him; as soon as she had reached the end of the stairs of the basement, he had raised the gun towards her and emptied the entire magazine of his gun in her upper body.

I tried to make sense of what he was saying, to make sure it was all a lie, an attempt to confuse me, but when I saw the big backpack lying in the corner next to Emma's body, looking as dead and lifeless as she did, I realized that it was all way too real.

"I'm sorry this happened, buddy," he said. "You know, I really wanted to take the money. I did. I wanted to start over, and your little lady here really was generous." Only for a second he pointed his gun at the backpack, then swung it back against my head. I barely noticed it through the agonizing pain and rage racing through my body. I had managed to turn my head while Billy had been ravaging over his story, and had seen my gun lying only a few feet away from me. If I could only reach it with the tips of my fingers without him noticing it...

"But I think you'll understand that now I can't go back anymore," he finished, looking me straight into the eyes, but not realizing how my fingers got closer and closer to my gun. He intensified the pressure on my groin once more while the muzzle of his gun landed on my forehead and his finger on the trigger. I heard a click.

"I am sorry, my old friend. But it's the best for everybody. I'm sure you'll understand."

That was my only chance.

In one swinging motion, I uttered an animalistic scream, grabbing the foot that was stuck on my groin and twisting it to the left with all the force I could muster. Billy screamed up in surprise and pain and stumbled away from me; I twisted my body around, grabbed the gun with all fingers of my right hand, turned back to Billy and shot.

Once. Twice. Three times.

I lost count while I screamed my lungs out and emptied my magazine into his already lifeless body as it collapsed onto the ground before me.

While I was trying to catch my breath, I slowly stood up, agonizing pain immediately shooting up my entire body. I put my hand on the wall next to me to steady myself and very slowly walked over to where Billy lay. I knelt down and stared at the holes that had perforated his chest and stomach, and although I knew he had to be dead, I searched for his pulse, first on his wrist and then on his neck. When I realized he was definitely dead the adrenaline suddenly left my body and I collapsed right next to his body onto the ground.

It was over.

After a couple of minutes I realized that there was still something else I had to do. I brought up all of the strength that was left inside of me and walked over to Emma. I stared down at her lifeless body, tried to ignore the countless gun wounds all over her body, and I tried to remember her the way she had looked the last time I had seen her this morning.

Emma. My girlfriend. The love of my life. Dead. Taken away from me in the most horrible way.

I broke down and started crying, collapsing on her body in front of me, all the pain, lost hopes and wrong decisions pouring out of me in heartbreaking sobs.

I had no idea how long I lay there, the sobs shaking my entire body, but when the tears finally ran dry, I looked up and noticed the backpack with all the money inside of it. It must've been a fortune in there, and I stopped my mind from thinking how on earth she had managed to get that much money. There was only one thing I could do now.

I stood up and took off my leather jacket. Before I put it down onto the body of the woman that once had made me laugh so hard that cocoa had shot out of my nose, I looked into her dead eyes. I bend down, carefully shut them and kissed her one last time, first on her forehead, then on the mouth.

Then I grabbed the backpack and slowly climbed the stairs out of the basement. I heard the dry lawn in front of the house crunching under my feet as I left my old life behind me.