Page 47 of Ashes to Ash’s

“What’s more important is that he feels fear like he’s never experienced before. He needs to suffer. He needs to feel completely fucking helpless, and terrified, and he needs to beg us for death, and only then will we gift it to him, if we’re feeling like he’s suffered enough. This man is a fucking monster, who forces young boys into rape, because he thinks that boys liking boys is some kind of sickness, rather than it being part of who a fucking person is.”

“But I’m starting to think I can’t do this, Ash. I’m just a normal person, I don’t have this killer instinct you all seem to have, and I think when I’m faced with him, I’ll lose my nerve. He breaks me down from the inside out. He makes me hate every fucking breath I take. He makes me wish I would die, because I can’t be what he says I should be.”

Jesus fuck. This cunt needs to die in so much pain that he’ll keep passing out, but we’ll wake him up every damn time, purely to let him feel a ton of agony before he dies.

“We need smelling salts or something,” I blurted out, and Cal frowned, clearly not keeping up with the part of the conversation he couldn’t possibly have heard.

“Uh… for waking him up when he passes out from the pain.” Damn, and that made me realise that we should have brought something to shove up his ass too, so he can go to hell having been assfucked, that so called satanic act that he denounced so fucking brutally.

“Ash, you’re scaring me. Look, I’m all for him dying, but I don’t know about torture, and I don’t know if I can even be the one to strike the blow that kills him. Fuck! I’m such a coward. He broke me, and I should be able to do it right back.”

I grabbed his shoulders as he tried to turn away, to pace or something, which would take him further away from me.

“No! Baby, no. You’re not a coward. He is. He’s so fucking afraid of people just being who they were born to be, that he thinks he gets to try and ‘correct’ it, like it’s a failing, and not a fucking blessing. He needs to die, and he needs to suffer, and you need to be there, at the very least. He’s your demon, and you need to witness it to know he’s fucking gone forever.”

His gasp turned into a ragged sob, and he tried again to turn away from me, but I wouldn’t allow it. I might have been the fucked up psycho my parents raised, but you know what else I learned from them? How to look after the people I love. How to protect and love, despite what needs to be done to keep them. This is the important shit that people don’t understand in life. Sometimes people make choices, and sometimes they need help making those choices. Sometimes they don’t realise love is love, until they’re left with no other option, and then they could see it for what it was. My dads taught me that, and they had their heads screwed on right, for sure. It was exactly how it went for us. It’s like they were psychic.

Cal

Ethan and Blaze joined us in our room, and I watched as the two of them practically buzzed with excitement. It was unnerving, even though I knew I’d be thankful for it, because they were about to be the reason I’d get through this. Ash was talking up a big game, but I could see his nerves too, no matter how well he tried to hide them. His eyes were darting about a bit, like he was anxious, and expecting attack from all sides, and his hands were firmly stuffed in his jeans pockets now, which told me he was trying to hide the trembling.

“Little bro, don’t worry, we have this under control. You guys can do your thing, but if you can’t finish it, we will. Killer here’s just itching to spill his first blood, right, Eth?”

Ethan grinned widely, savagely, looking nothing like the older teacher who really should have been shopping us all to the police. I’d heard from Ash that his sister’s influence had caused some kind of psychotic break, and it was so evident in moments like this, if not by the highly visible tattoo up the side of his neck, declaring that he belonged to her.

“Kinda wish Em was here, so I could fuck her in the guy’s blood as he dies, but beggars can’t be choosers, right?”

He walked out into the hallway, and we all exchanged a look. I saw disgust on both Cross brothers’ faces, but I had a suspicion it had nothing to do with the blood, and everything to do with the reference to their sister. Call them hypocrites, but they’d come out with all sorts, until there was any reference to their siblings and sex, and they acted weird about it.

I suppose that’d be the most normal thing about them, but even that was a stretch.

“Come on, fuckers, I wanna get started!” Ethan yelled from the hallway, and with matching rolls of their eyes, Blaze and Ash headed out after him, leaving me to close the door behind me.

Once we were in the car, again with Ash beside me in the back seat, Ethan and Blaze bickered over the best route to take, even though they were using Blaze’s phone to direct them, and I stayed silent. I was too lost in my thoughts to even focus on being in the car. I felt like cold fingers were trailing down my spine, and a disembodied voice inside my head kept calling me a filthy boy, and a godforsaken devil child.

“You’re shivering, baby,” Ash whispered, resting a warm hand on my thigh, and grounding me a little, but I needed more.

“Kiss me,” I breathed out, needing his attention on me, because it drew me out of myself. Ash didn’t need to be told twice, releasing his seatbelt and leaning over me, one hand on the back of my head as he lowered his lips to mine, kissing me firmly. His tongue bullied its way into my mouth, and I kissed him back, putting my focus, my everything, into this brutal connection of ours.

“Great, now they’re making out while we do all the work,” Ethan muttered, but for once I completely ignored his inappropriate comments, staying focused on Ash, on how he made me feel, on how his touch gave me the strength I needed to do what had to be done. My uncle would die tonight, and I knew if I pussied out, and couldn’t do it, Ash and his family would make sure it happened anyway.

“This is it up ahead, right? Jesus fuck, it’s really fortress like. You didn’t mention that part,” Ethan called out, making Ash reluctantly pull away from me, even as my lips tried to chase his.

“To be continued, baby. We’re here.” He leaned between the front seats to check out the compound we were approaching. I didn’t need to see it with my eyes, because I could see it in my mind. I’d been a terrified fifteen year old when I arrived here, and I was right to be so afraid, because these people destroyed all that was good in me, all that was pure and decent and hopeful. They created the person I’d become, and maybe now they’d get to see the devil for real, because we were about to send them all right to hell.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ash

The place was absolutely like a fortress, as Ethan said, but it wasn’t all that secure. We made our way through the chain link fence in mere minutes, because people like my brother, and his new sidekick, tend to carry all kinds of messed up shit in their cars.

“Head to the main building, up ahead, but we’ll go around the back and get in that way,” Cal hissed at us, already making his way along that path, so we followed him. I was worried about him, and about whether he could follow through with this murder plot, because on the journey he’d retreated further into his head every fucking minute, and he was practically monosyllabic by the time we arrived. If I had to fuck him hard to break him out of his head, I would. I wasn’t sure Blaze or Ethan were really up for watching that happen, but nothing was off the table, if Cal needed it.

“Hold up.” Cal motioned us into the shadows around the side of the building, and pointed up to a camera above the alcove we’d hidden in. “Have to wait for it to rotate toward the front, then we can leg it around the side.”

Whoa, the place had a little security then, but it wouldn’t stop us. They’d learn that nothing stopped the Cross family when we wanted something, and what we wanted was everyone in this place fucking dead. When it became clear that this wouldn’t be just one murder, but a fucking massacre, my dads really wanted in, but mum kicked off, refusing to be left behind with the twins, like she couldn’t help as well. See how great my parents were? Instead, they were on standby, ready to head here if we needed help. They’d shacked up at a hotel in the small village not far from here, planning to leave the twins behind in the room if we needed help. I tell ya, families who kill together, fucking thrive together.

“Okay, go go go!” That was Ethan, who’d taken the lead because the crazy fucker was itching to get his kill on already. Blaze snorted, running after him, and I grabbed Cal’s hand, because suddenly he was frozen to the spot, and breathing fast, like some kind of panic had gripped him. I cupped his cheek, turning him to look at me, and his eyes were wide and blinking fast, like he was trapped in some kind of terror. God only knew what they’d done to him here, in the name of fucking religion.