Jessie Ch. 21

We parked down the street from the address he'd given me, watched as cars appeared, drivers and passengers went inside. Morgan and I ate our burgers, noisily sipped on our drinks. I savored every bite. For a last meal, it wasn't the worst.

"I bet you think I'm a monster," Morgan said around a mouthful of meat and cheese.

"Yeah."

"You wanna know why I do this? What the reason is for all this bloodshed and violence and hate and bee ess?"

"Sure. Unburden your fucking soul."

He laughed, then went silent. "I was homeless with my mother and brother, growing up. We stayed in a shelter while she cleaned houses. Houses for very rich people. Very, very rich people. My brother, he got leukemia. He died. And not one of those very rich people gave even a dollar to help him. One of them even fired my mother for taking time off to be with him. Over his grave I swore I was gonna dismantle this whole fucking country."

"I'm sorry." I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Joined the Corps cuz I know I'd need the skills. Learned something about myself there - I'm really fucking good at killing. It doesn't bother me. First man I killed, I shot him, he went down, gurgled a few times, and I thought 'This is it? This is what everyone makes such a big deal about?'"

"We all need hobbies," I quipped sarcastically.

"Don't be glib," he snapped back. "I'm still the one who decides whether you live or fucking die."

"Sorry. It was a joke, not a dick, don't take it so hard."

"You really don't know when to stop."

"I just hate your guts. I'm literally imagining you dying with every second that passes, and it pisses me off I can't do anything to kill you myself. I don't give a shit about your shitty childhood, you think being poor absolves you of being a fucking terrorist?"

He leaned close and I could smell mustard on his breath. "You're worth what? Three hundred million? Give or take? You're the problem. You think you're entitled to what you have, while the rest of us little people starve and freeze and die. The engine of humanity runs on pain. Nothing moves until someone hurts significantly, and I'm gonna make this thing fucking move. For my brother. For my mom."

"Oh spare me." I couldn't take this asswipe's grandiose sob story much longer. "You're a fucking terrorist. I've helped amputate the limbs of your victims. Watched skin slough off people you've burned. Watched people try put their loved ones back together with bandaids because of shit you've done. I don't give a fuck about your family."

He regarded me quietly, leaning back against the passenger door. "You're brave, I'll give you that."

"I'm bored. I'm sitting in a car on a rainy day listening to the American bin Laden justify being a shithead. I've been poor too. Ten years in an apartment without heat. I fucking earned my money, with every bowl of ramen I ate, every lonely night freezing my ass off. And now that I have it, I give it away. I bought a new stadium for a poverty-stricken school for crying out loud."

"Do better," he snarled. " You don't need three hundred million to live. You don't deserve to have it when there are people in your city literally starving to death. People like you, I'm gonna take everything you have. You think you know better, you think buying a stadium or a school or what the fuck ever absolves of sitting there with your eyes wide open and watching people suffer? I'll show you suffering. And then I'm gonna take what you have and use it better."

His phone dinged and we both jumped. "Should get that," I told him quietly.

"Yeah." He pulled out his phone, stared at the screen. Sighed. "They're all there."

"Call the police," I said quietly. "Call em and I'll give you what you want."

He stared at the phone a long time, and the tension, indecision, and ache that radiated off him was satisfying to my soul. The one thing he cared about, and I'd found a way to hurt it.

He dialed nine one one, and the operator asked the nature of the emergency. "My name is Bradley Baker, and I'm in charge of the gang responsible for the August highway bombing. I'd like to turn us in. We're at..." he gave her the address, then hung up. He looked at the phone another long while, then popped the SIM out and snapped it in half. Another moments indecision, and he snapped the phone in half with a crunch.

"Well?"

"Now we wait," I replied.

It only took another ten, fifteen minutes for a police car to crawl down the street silently, likely scouting the location. As inconspicuously as possible, I turned the Monte Carlo and drove away from the impending crime scene. We passed a SWAT Bearcat vehicle on our way out of the subdivision. They were intent on scooping these assholes up.

I could only hope this chapter of The Brotherhood had the balls to try and shoot their way out, and got burned down to a man.

"Sienna and Jane are in an AirBnb out in the country, waiting for me to come and get them," I said. "Takes about an hour to get to them."

The blonde man sat in enraged silence, glaring at the floormat. "You bitch," he whispered, and unholstered his gun.

I glanced over. "You really gonna shoot me as I'm driving down the freeway? Good way to kill us both. Ya know what, go ahead. Do it. Pull the trigger."

He shook the Beretta at me. "You took...you... If that drive weren't so fucking important, I'd never..." There was great pain roiling him, and for just the briefest of moments, I felt a spark of pride and victory. "I know."

"You have no idea what I'm gonna do to you when we get there. What I'm gonna make you watch. You may have thought you won, but I guarantee you, you'll wish you were dead by the time I'm done." His voice was venomous, evil distilled so pure that it made me shiver in my seat. This man was vile. Subhuman. The worst of everything that was bad about humanity, and filled with enough self-pity and misplaced generosity to think he was entitled to do whatever he wanted to remake the world into what he thought was a better place.

One death at a time.

"I know what's coming to me," I said quietly.

I reached out and turned on the radio. About twenty minutes of advertisements and pop music later, the news announcers broke into the broadcast to tell us that there was major police action taking place in Milwaukee today and to steer clear of a particular neighborhood.

Morgan gripped the gun harder. And glared at me, imagining all the violence and depravity he intended to subject me to. It made me sick to my stomach, made my heart pound, worry tasting like battery acid in my throat.

I looked out at the brown, windswept, rain-sodden fields, the dark gray sky overhead . The weatherman had said the rain might turn to snow.

The driveway was five minutes down a country road, and I took the turn, my heart rate picking up as I accelerated down the gravel path. Morgan noticed the change in speed once the needle ticked past fifty, the trees flying by, the signs too fast to read. "What...?"

"Not going to the house," I said, and I was surprised how calm I sounded. I stared straight ahead, concentrating on the road.

"Stop the car, stop NOW."

"Go fuck yourself."

"Jessie, I'm warning you..." he thumb-cocked the Beretta.

"Go ahead. Do it! COME ON!" I screamed at him. "SHOOT ME!"

We hit the locked gates at sixty-five miles an hour, tore the bottom hinges, and the mangled fence scraped the top of the car. I pressed the accelerator down further as we drove into Don's range pit.

I turned my head to look at Morgan, and I was overjoyed to see real fear on his face. I smiled.

"I win."

I was still smiling when the car slammed into the rock wall of the quarry.