An Excerpt from Path of Destruction

I was tuned out in my own world as I sat on the couch with Kevin and David who were watching some Christmas movie. We had a blanket over us because it the temperature outside was only in the twenties and we weren’t crazy warm inside.  In my fantasy world, Jace was all about me and he worshipped the ground that I walked on.  We were all startled as the front door opened and Carol stumbled in shrieking and crying. I jerked out of my world to find that somehow the three of us were laying all over each other. I had my head on Kevin’s shoulder, and David was lying against me. We sat up and looked towards the noise.

“Oh my God! What happened?” Kevin and David asked as they jumped up, nearly dumping me on the floor.  I recovered and muted the tv and picked the blanket up from where it had fallen. I tucked it around me.

Rick helped Carol to a comfortable chair.  “That sonofabitch Joseph beat her up.” Rick replied angrily. “I ought to kill him!”

“What are you guys into?” David asked. “This is some fucking serious business.”

I observed Carol as the story spilled out. She had a black eye, her makeup was running, the heel was off one of her shoes, and her blouse was noticeably ripped.  She had refused to go out with a client of Joseph’s.  I was thinking that she’d gotten off easy on the beating. I was sure that Joseph could have beaten her so much worse.

“So, you’ve been a prostitute just like Angel said.” David stated.

“I was an escort!” Carol exclaimed angrily. “Yeah, I usually had sex with them but I was an escort! I was making three hundred dollars a night free and clear!”

“I’m calling the police.” Rick said as he started towards the phone.

“Nope! You can’t. They’re gonna really hurt you, if not kill you if you do.” I said as I jumped to my feet and stopped him.

“We can’t just let him get away with this!” they all said.

“You have to. Do you really think crime lords want to be handcuffed and put away? Joseph is into drug dealing and everything else that’s illegal. Do you think if they land in jail that you wouldn’t be assaulted or killed by some unknown assailant as payback for reporting them?” I asked as the images flipped across my brain.

Rick opened his mouth to say something then shut it again and sat down heavily.

“Oh my God. What have you two done?” David asked, his eyes wide with so much fear that I could taste it.  I felt myself trying to diffuse the fear in the room. Huh.

“Why are you listening to her? She don’t know jack shit and y’all are acting like she knows what’s going on. We haven’t told her one thing.” Carol spouted back. She was rubbing her arm and I noticed now how bruised looking it was.

Rick put his head in his hands then.

“Rick! This is ludicrous! Call the police.” Carol said as she stared at him in shock. He always sided with her and now he wasn’t saying a thing.  

“I think she’s right.” He finally said, his head still in his hands as if he had a headache.

“Oh, fucking thanks! Now your crime lord’s gonna kill all of us. Just fucking thanks!” David said as he stomped around the living room thinking about it. All of them were yelling at each other now. I watched and listened.

“What do we do now?” David asked me as suddenly all eyes were on me.

“Stay away from them, not that there won’t be revenge. You’re small change to them at this point and I think when they realize that you haven’t called the cops that eventually they’ll forget about you. It’s gonna take a while though.” I said thoughtfully as I looked at Rick and Carol.

“Revenge? Small change? They’ll eventually forget? Oh my God. You don’t know that.” Were several of the comments.  But I did know that.

Carol’s cell phone was ringing. Everyone jerked at the sound except me.  “Oh my God! It’s him! It’s that fucking asshole!” She cried.  Yeah, her rich, young, handsome man was now a fucking asshole.

“Don’t answer it.” Rick told her.

“You answer it.” I told Rick. If you don’t, I figure that Joseph will send a few of his goons here.”  He hesitated. “Hurry. If they show up here it will be a bad, bad scene.” I told him so he picked up the phone. I was glad because I didn’t think I’d be any match for a crime lord and his goons, no matter how fierce I thought I was. 

He didn’t have to say anything. Joseph or one of his goons did the talking.  “No, we haven’t and we won’t. Just leave us alone. We’re done.” Rick said to him.  Then Rick looked at the phone. “He hung up. He said that if we go to the police that we’d regret it and that we should take his advice very seriously.” 

So as the rest of them cried and carried on, I examined the energy of the situation to see how much danger we were in. I was really glad that it felt like Joseph was more bark than bite. He wasn’t going to kill us. But still, it was going to be a rough ride.

It started that night when Carol had a miscarriage because of the beating. None of us had suspected she was pregnant. She would have had an abortion anyway but it was a sobering reality of what Joseph’s goons had done to her.  I was thinking of revenge.

When we found that Rick’s windshield was busted to pieces it angered me more.  After two of Joseph’s goons sat in the section of the restaurant that Carol waitressed and threatened her, I had more thoughts of revenge.

“I’m scared.” Kevin told me two nights later as he was putting away the clothes he’d washed of mine. I was glad he’d stopped wearing my clothes.  I was sitting on the bed trying to read a boring story in my Literature book.  “What are we going to do?” He asked.

I put down my book. I was wishing that I could have someone else take my Literature class for me so I didn’t have to read boring stories that were supposed examples of great writing. Had none of them ever read work by James Patterson or Brian Freeman? Now, they were some great writers that would be a better read than what we’d been assigned.  “It’s intimidation, that’s all. It will stop eventually.” I replied as I yawned a big yawn.

David walked into my room then and Kevin brought him up to speed on our conversation. “Why aren’t you scared?” Kevin asked me.

“The energy doesn’t seem as dangerous as before.”

“It seemed dangerous when they cornered me as I came out of work today.” David informed me as he suddenly appeared before us. “Joseph’s goons warned me that I’d better keep Rick and Carol in check or they’d break my legs.”

Anger flooded my veins and I felt mean. “They threatened you.” I stated as I puffed up in anger.  It was one thing for them to threaten Rick and Carol because they’d gotten themselves into this mess, but David or Kevin?  No way. They were my guys, my bros.

“Yeah, and I don’t mind telling you that I’m fucking scared for my life.” David replied. He went on a rant about how stupid Rick and Carol were getting us all into this mess as he paced around my bedroom.

“Joseph is going to pay for this.” I informed them. “Not this minute or else it will point straight back to us, but in the near future.”

“And what are you going to do?” David snorted. “You might have been a bully in school but these guys mean business.”

“So do I. NO ONE is going to hurt or threaten my friends and get away with it.”  And I meant that.

He and Kevin dismissed me as just spouting off. That was okay, they didn’t need to know what I was planning. It was best that they thought I was harmless.