Page 10 of Wicked Nightmare

After a lifetime of houses that belonged to people who hurt us, this shitty apartment with its rattling pipes and its view of junkies was the first place that was ours. I'd die in this apartment if the world let me. I'd die in it with her.

We had a good thing going, Lakes and me. We fucked, we loved, we did whatever the fuck we wanted. I took on odd jobs for old friends now and then, brought in some money when we needed it. She danced at the club around the corner when she wanted an outlet for her frustration. Men knew not to touch her after a few ended up with more than a broken jaw and the inability to walk for a month. But overall we loved our life.

I was just growing tired of the same tune. The marks we hunted were satisfying in the way scratching an itch is satisfying. It handled the surface, but the thing underneath, the real thing, the rot that had been planted in us when we were kids too small to fight back, that was still there. Twenty-seven bodies thrown off a cliff and I still woke up in the middle of the night smelling Carmen's house. Still heard the creak of a door that should have stayed shut. Still felt hands that didn't belong on a nine-year-old boy.

Lakes got her fill with the kills. The ritual, the mask, the karambits, the cliff. It soothed the thing in her that had been screaming since she was seven, but it wasn't enough anymore. Not for either of us. The plateau had been hit, and we both knew it even if neither of us had said it out loud yet.

So when had it changed?

When had the burning need for more started to itch and claw its way into my bloodstream? As much as this hit list was going to make Lakey squeal with joy, it was also going to free me. I'd spent years picturing how I would kill these fucks and now I would finally get my chance. Not strangers. Not marks who'd earned it by hurting someone else's kid.

The ones who'd hurt us.

Downing the monkey piss at the bottom of the can in one gulp, I grabbed another, cracking it and sipping.

Shit was about to get real, real interesting around here. This present could change everything. It would change everything.

Lakey screeched before screaming expletives from the kitchen and the smell of burning hit my nostrils, even through the closed door. I held back a chuckle.

That's my girl.

"Boss… got a hit. We got an Edward Jones living not far from here, with a Carmen and William listed as direct relatives. They're not in town though, both listed as living out of jurisdiction."

I took the laptop and scrolled through the information he had dug up. Edward Jones the Second. Ed. The younger one, the one who'd moved into the basement with his brother Bill when we were kids. The one who liked to come upstairs after Carmen passed out. I could still see his face if I closed my eyes. That greasy smile, the way he'd stand in the doorway and pick which room to walk into. I was nine the first time. Lakey was seven. He'd gone to her room first and I'd heard her crying through the wall, and I'd put my fist through the drywall trying to get to her. That was the first hole I ever punched. Not the last.

And there he was. An address. A zip code. A life he'd been living for the last eighteen years while we bled out the damage he'd done to us.

Carmen too. Still alive. Still breathing. Probably still drinking herself stupid in some other house with some other kids who didn't have anyone coming for them. And Bill, Ed's older brother, the one who'd held me down while Ed did what he did. Both listed as direct relatives of Carmen, which meant they were still in contact. Still a family. Still sitting around a table somewhere pretending they were human.

The Almines were a different kind of problem. Janine and John. I didn't have memories of them, not clear ones, just fragments that didn't fit together. But Lakey's body remembered things her mind didn't, and I'd watched her flinch at sounds that shouldn't have scared her for years without understanding why. The Almines were connected to whatever had happened to us before Carmen's house. Before the beginning of everything I could remember.

I needed Skeeter to find them all. Every last one. And then I was going to wrap their addresses in a bow and hand them to the girl who'd been waiting her whole life to stop running and start hunting.

"Damn, Skeeter, you're a fucking miracle worker. See? I knew you had it in you. Send that to my phone and I'll wire you 500."

"That's it man? You said a grand."

Eyeing him, I grinned. "You know what, you're right. I did say a grand. Tell you what. If you make it through dinner with my woman, I'll give you the other 500."

He turned white as a ghost. "Ah, na, s'all good man, 500 is good."

Placing my hand over my heart, I gasped in mock offense. "Really, Skeets. That hurts. You don't want the food Lakey has been preparing for you?"

"No offence, Cam, but I'm good. I'll just—"

I opened the balcony door and whistled. His eyes widened. "Lakes, get your ass out here! Skeeter has something he'd like to say."

His mouth opened and closed before thinning into a straight line. "Cam... please..."

"Yesssss, babe, what is it? The wellies are burning." Lakey pouted, her hand on her hip, a knife pointing straight at me.

"Well, go on Skeeter."

"It's just, Ms. Lakey, I have a lot to do, and um..."

She jutted her face forward. "Yes?"

"I can't stay for dinner, ma'am."