The Dark Star - Lockdown Vol. 01

The following tale is set after the events of previous collections and is intended as a 4th Volume to a continuing tale.

While the story can be read in isolation many events reference are featured in other published tales. Therefore scenarios and characters may appear out of context and may contain spoilers should the reader wish to read previous releases.

Chronology (as published)

1) The Dark Star - Descent

2) The Dark Star - Aftermath

3) Bloodshed

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Prologue

Coughing.

Choking.

Lungs burning desperately gasping for clean air in the acrid environment.

The heat.

The rapidly unbearable heat.

Lungs now stifled by the toxic combination of the smoke and the dry merciless heat building all around him.

The heat of the savage flames all around him. The fire licking up the walls of the bar behind which she stood, the blaze was uncontrollable; fuelled by the discarded cans of petrol that scattered across the hard tiled floor.

He fought, fought and wrestled to free himself of the strong grip in which he was held. Even with his hands restrained he'd still back himself to take the two heavy set men in balaclavas. The heat of the fire scorching his lungs further as he breathed desperately heavy from his exertion.

He stood behind her, whoever he was he stood behind her cradling her head in his arms her slender tattooed covered arms were desperately trying to pull his far stronger arms from around her neck. The unknown figure dressed in black whispered something unheard into her ear. She nodded, she nodded in submission to whatever he'd said to her. Tears streaming down her face from petrified eyes as she looked not at her assailant but straight ahead towards him.

He looked back into those wide scared eyes his struggle ceasing for the briefest of moments.

She spoke.

Whatever she said the words were lost over the roar of the hellish blaze he hadn't heard them as her meek voice was lost to the constant roar of the raging fire, cracking glass and the sound of the jukebox playing on with an ironic macabre soundtrack to what was playing out around them.

The song that played over the speakers was as indistinguishable as her words though.

He read her lips, watched as her cherry red lips set in her pale face illuminated orange by the glow of the flames, slowly parted and closed over three simple words

"I love you"

He'd not had time to respond, he had no time to tell her he felt the same way as she did, the figure in black acted mercilessly with a swift brutal stroke that snapped her slender neck in his bare hands.

Her body spasmed briefly then slumped immediately as her lifeless body was dropped to the floor behind the burning bar.

Logan Hughes woke with a start.

He wasn't sure if he'd shouted or if his shout was part of the dream his fitful sleep had induced.

The bed clothes stuck to his naked torso drenched with sweat. He lay there regaining his frantic breath, a pulse beating heavily in his temple seemed to fill his skull like a constantly beating drum.

The room was dark barely a crack of light filtered through the thick dark curtains on the wall opposite of him. The house itself silent, almost eerily silent.

Sitting up he could still hear her screams. The screams he knew weren't real but which had haunted plenty of the fractured nights sleep he'd managed in the last five months, her demise haunting his dreams. His nightmares.

Snatching his phone off the side table it illuminates brightly causing him to squint at the display, the time display reading 05:23.

He was awake now, wide awake, unwanted adrenalin fuelled every his body, triggered synapses accentuating every sense. He wanted revenge, he wanted his own brand of justice.

That opportunity had been taken from him by another.

The cathartic and brutal release he'd imagined, planned meticulously in his own mind, the only reason he'd broken his own promise to never return had been denied him. The frustration gnawed at his very being a partner to the burning hatred that triggered his constant anxiety.

There must be another way, a way to find solace.

A way to exact revenge.

Chapter One; Incoming Storm

The running machine in the well-equipped gymnasium which faced out onto the outdoor pool was bearing the brunt of Logan Hughes anxiety, not for the first time recently.

Outside the varifold glass doors the day began to illuminate with hazy sunshine through a hanging mist that shrouded the crisp early winter morning. The weak sun accentuated the sharp frost glistened over the expansive garden that surrounded the covered pool.

His legs weary as the treadmill powered on at a pace set slightly above that which he would consider to be comfortable. He sought the exhaustion though; he welcomed the pain of lactic acid building in his legs as he struggled to keep a pace. T-shirt soaked, clinging to him with the exertion. Logan needed this not to focus his mind but to take his mind from yet another fitful night's sleep yet another vision that haunted his consciousness from the moment his eyes had sprung open in panic. He could console himself if such dreams were the figment of his imagination, the warped twisted darkness of his mind constantly playing tricks on him. That would be easy, such visions he could rationalise were it not for the fact that these weren't cruel tricks of the mind, these were high-definition recollections. The images haunting Logan's sleep were not figments of the imagination, all too often, and with increasing frequency he was recalling and witnessing over and over again the horrors of his past. Repetitions of reality.

It was not just horrific memories of Hetti, although in truth her fate was the most telling and the most impactful trigger to all of his current ills.

Hetti though was just the latest victim in a line of lives destroyed by his caustic lifestyle choices. As painful and as regular as the visions of her death at the hands of a masked stranger were he would be visited by other ghosts of the past, Chloe's body lay broken at a contorted angle her skull shattered, her blood seeping across dirty concrete. The harrowed face of Emily Winters of whom he'd had no part on her untimely demise, but yet still he would hear her words, almost feel her sincere appreciation as she thanked him for saving her from the hell into which his brutal uncaring nature had originally exposed her to.

In his past he'd been mentally strong enough to shut off from, or shut down on such matters, he'd close down almost immediately and pay no attention to the ramifications of his actions.

Grimacing against aching muscles and burning lungs he powered on glancing down at the digital display of the running machine which indicated in the last 2hrs he'd ran close to 14 miles at what should have been an unsustainable pace. Powering his body on determined to achieve a goal, if only for the sake of the near obsessive compulsion of a rounded number. Each pounding footstep seeking solace seeking a foolhardy redemption as if achieving his set goal would cleanse and clear his mind of all its ills. He knew it was in vain, he knew there was no solace to be found in such brutal self-abuse, but it helped and if only in the absolute here and now of the short term physically he felt better for it. Not least there were other benefits to the self-abuse as he could feel and tell he was dropping body mass and improving physical conditioning. He'd never been or aspired to be in peak physical form but given his advancing years and the more recent abuse of liquor and hard drugs, not to mention a diet that left a lot to be deserved perhaps there was some benefit to this increasingly regular early morning ritual.

As the red digits of digital display ticked over from 13.9 miles Logan slammed the palm of a sweaty hand on to the treadmills stop button. The machine slowed almost immediately and breathlessly he slowed his pace in tune with the equipment.

Standing hands on hips he regained composure and drew what fresh air he could into lungs scarred from years of heavy smoking. The irony not lost on him that the one thing he truly craved at this point wasn't the refreshment that cold water would provide but for the deep inhalation of tobacco smoke into his lungs. Grabbing a hand towel, he wiped his brow and wiped down the treadmill before heading for the glass doors out into the wide expanse of garden that surrounded and drew the eye to a focal point that was the covered swimming pool.

The early February sky now brightening to a blue with barely a cloud to be seen. Away to his left he saw the lights of the kitchen illuminate within the vast house he'd lived in for near four months since his return to the UK from Spain. It was a home of sorts, it wasn't his home for a start but for all the now familiar and none the less impressive vistas, mod cons, well decorated and well-furnished rooms he felt a stranger, an alien in another man's house. Not least as that other man was his reason for returning in the first place, returning in the pursuit of vengeance but returning for vengeance on man who was already dead by time he'd arrived.

Logan wasn't here to play cuckoo though; he was perhaps only here for necessity. Necessity and the relative solitude that the remote rural location offered.

Logan Hughes after all was still technically a dead man.

Condensation heavy on the air around him as his breathing started to return to somewhat of a normal steady pace, he ignored the chill of the air as he headed towards the house, the temperature still held somewhere around the sub-zero overnight scale on the mercury that had brought the heavy frost to the surrounding garden. Approaching the back door he saw movement, pausing briefly he watched her as she stood at the kitchen counter. Her platinum blonde hair slightly dishevelled by sleep hung to her shoulders, her slender body wrapped in a black short silk dressing gown that barely covered her ass let alone the tops of her toned thighs. Long smooth exposed legs extending beneath the hem of the garment. She'd always had great legs, legs he had once known so well.

Pulling open the door that led from the kitchen to the patio area she didn't turn as she busied herself. The smell of dark rich coffee filled the air. In the background a wall mounted television was tuned to news coverage.

"Coffee?" Arabella Walker Smith offered without turning to face him.

"Please," Logan responded headed to the fridge to take a bottle of water to quench the thirst he only now recognised before he crossed the kitchen and perched himself on a high-backed stool sat before a marble breakfast bar. His eye immediately drawn to highlights of the previous evenings football playing out on the TV Screen to his left, despite the fact that he'd watched the game.

"There you go," Ari slid the white mug across the counter to him as she stood opposite, "Another rough night?"

"What makes you say that?" Logan responded to her question with a question.

"It's a little before seven thirty in the morning and you've been in the gym for several hours..." a grimace come half smile crossed her slender lips "... And our rooms aren't that far apart that I can't hear you when you cry out in your sleep."

Logan inhaled slowly pressing his lips together firmly to adopt as neutral an expression as he could muster. She spoke before he could, extending the delicate fingers of her right hand to the back of his left hand across the black marble surface.

"I don't like to pry... I just wish you'd open up a little...give me a slither of an inkling as to what's going on in that head of yours at times." Ari's expression was soft, sincere he knew she only had his best interests at heart even without her adding. "I care about you...and you worry me at times."

"Trust me kiddo," Logan offered a little too quickly. "I'm alright."

Looking up at him from under a wisp of platinum hair that fell across her face Ari couldn't help but offer him a look that suggested she was far from convinced by his response. He knew she wouldn't be phased by the truth; yet somehow, he couldn't bring himself to tell her about the reasons behind his lurid nightmares. He knew she wasn't naive to the noxious stigma associated to her former fiancé but something within him prevented him from offering up the simple truth that the women he'd loved had been brutally murdered before his eyes at the bequest of the man who Ari was set to marry, that was without contemplating the complexity Ari brought to his troubled personal history. The complexity of their entwined lives were like the premise for the plot of a piss poor soap opera.

"You spend your days holed up here," Ari continued in his silence on the matter, "I'm not sure that's healthy either."

"What's a ghost to do all day?" Logan could barely contain the sarcasm in his voice.

The truth being he actually had no issue with the routine of his life, mundane or otherwise. There were worse places he could find himself holed up than the twelve-bedroom grandiose building set in 15 acres of gardens and surrounded by rolling countryside on all sides. Without hesitation. on his return. Ari had offered him accommodation and had welcomed him with relative open arms, having herself been left kicking around the vast property on her own following Marco Mancini's brutal murder. The property itself had been inherited by Mancini from his Father, Gio Mancini. A man whom Logan had held ill-fated business relations with himself years ago. Relations that had turned sour on the tides of fate. Relations that had ultimately turned even more sour for Gio Mancini's daughter Laura.

Logan's troubled mind instantly turning to the last time he'd seen the egotistical poisonous, yet beautiful olive-skinned girl; gagged and restrained and sold to an oriental cartel via an auction to the highest bidder. Whilst he had no idea, he assumed that her ultimate fate would likely now be the same as that of her Brother and Father by now, unless she still served a purpose.

Logan suppressed a dark smile thinking how fate had transpired so that he now resided in the family residence. If he were to believe in such nonsense perhaps, he'd believe their ghosts to be the cause of his anguish.

"I think...I dunno I just feel you need to get out a little bit," Ari responded.

"Shall I try Tinder?"

"It wouldn't be the worst idea." Ari smirked. "Getting laid might help you sleep at night."

"Is that an offer?" Logan grinned at the blonde opposite of him supressing memories of her in their most intense of moments, ".... a chance more than imagine what's under that little black dressing gown you've got on."

The blonde raised an eyebrow with a little smirk despite doing so either consciously or subconsciously she pulled the black silk gown a little tighter around her waist.

Their relationships had been strictly plutonic since the day he'd arrived in a Cab on the gravelled drive, with nothing more than a sports hold-all over his shoulder and the clothes on his back. She'd made it clear from the start this was convenience and the only companionship she was seeking was for her own sanity given the wide lonely empty expanses of the house in which she'd been left. Although in truth the formalities of officially inheriting the property had yet to be completed. 'Squatters Rights' she'd claimed with a delicious little chuckle while giving Logan the guided tour and showing him his more than adequate en-suite room for the first time. Ari's life had taken interesting turns since they'd parted ways over four years ago. The then feisty teen had grown with a maturity that belied her still tender years. Logan had no idea how she'd become involved with Marco Mancini and his shady family business but assumed the platinum blondes no nonsense approach to life had served her well, she didn't suffer fools lightly and would have been no push over in ascending to the position of relative power and wealth that she'd indirectly inherited. That alongside of maintaining independent control of day to day running of 'The Dark Star.' Logan had to admire her.

"In your dreams," she almost childishly sniped in response to Logan, "You know the reality is off limits.... you burned your bridges many moons ago Mr Hughes."

Logan smirked. "Yeah you seem to forget I know exactly what's beneath that gown....and can recall inch after inch.... millimetre after millimetre"

"Save it for your wank bank then," she offered with a hint of a cheeky little smirk once more. "Or wait until I pop on a short skirt and some knee-high boots then let your imagine go into overdrive."

"I don't see you getting much action," Logan continued the light-hearted banter trying not to think of her in the ensemble she'd just alluded to. "Not just your special room upstairs that's gathering cobwebs"

Ari scoffed "How do you know.... besides, I'm meeting someone for lunch today I'll have you know."

"Lucky you," Logan quipped unsure if he genuinely cared for any further detail or not, "Honestly though I'm happy as I am right now.... I don't need the complications"

"Complications.... What like trying to find someone with a shit hot little Sister you can corrupt and manipulate into your sordid ways."

Her quick-witted cheek, the inner brat he'd been attracted to in the first instance was never far below the surface. He wasn't sure if the reference was in genuine jest or a subtle dig at their former circumstance. There had never been an axe to grind during their time together and despite the implosion brought about by the truth being discovered. They were both as culpable as one another in their guilt at the time. He knew she was the younger sister of his partner, and she knew the roles in reverse. The two of them had rarely spoken of their time together. There was no awkwardness but equally no need to revisit a chapter in their lives that had left all parties involved hideously scarred by the ramifications of their actions.

He was considering his response when he realised, he'd lost her attention to the television screen on the far wall. She snatched a remote and turned up the volume hurriedly; the national news had given way to regional local stories. Turning his head Logan glimpsed the not unattractive but distraught looking slender red head pulling a black jacket up over her head while being escorted by a man in an ill-fitting navy suit through a melee of journalists and reporters, to a waiting people carrier, down a flight of concrete steps.

The scene immediately cut to a close up of a smartly dressed women stood outside of the same location. A face Logan instantly recognised himself, another Ghost from the past. Another Women who knew far too much about him, but whom he'd put his faith and trust in whilst he'd unknowingly to her manipulated her position and power for his own personal gain.

Her hair was a little shorter, possibly a little darker and she looked a little gaunt, but she looked good. Across the bottom of the screen scrolled the words D.I. Rose Callaghan, her stern well punctuated tone cut crisply through the speakers of the TV.

"Naturally, we are disappointed with the outcome of today's trial. My Team and I sincerely believed that Miss Bowerman was complicit in certainly four... if not more of the murders associated to Marchant's Meats across the Summer of last year. And that Miss Bowerman deliberately misled members of the investigating team on more than one occasion during our investigations... actions that contributed to serious and life changing injuries that were sustained by a member of that investigating team. We have faith in the justice system but are aggrieved in the circumstance that no one has stood trial for the 9 murders that occurred from May to August of last year. We will be making no further comment at this stage."