I hear my brother’s guitar, but this time it sounds sad. He’s not playing our favorite song anymore. Cody Jinks plays softly, and everything is hazy, blurry, and white.
I see Danny in the same uniform he wore when he got out of the truck, with dead tulips in his hands and blood pouring out of his chest as he sits on my porch in the cold rain like day of our fight. Except, there’s no house. It’s just my porch in a blanket of black shadows.
I open my mouth to scream for him, but nothing comes out. I try to move, but I’m chained down.
He hangs his head low, looking at the flowers in his hands. Blood continuously pours out of his chest.
I hear a demonic laugh. It sounds familiar…it sounds like the Grim Reaper.
I bolt awake and jerk my body as if someone had pushed me.
It was a dream. But why am I dreaming of Danny? I only started dreaming of Paul like this when he died.
A horrifying sensation anchors down through me, straight to the ground.
This can’t mean he’s dead?
Oh, God.
Oh, no.
No.
No.
No.
My body hurts as if I was run over by a train. I’m conscious again but can feel a cold, hard surface underneath me.
“Ohhh,” I groan out loud in pain. The first thing I feel on one side of my body is burning pain. My eyes are closed, but I feel too tired to open them.
How did I get here?
My mind is still groggy, and I can’t remember anything, but when I see my scraped hands after a few hard blinks, it feels like someone just hit me with a baseball bat.
The memories of Danny holding me when he was about to say those three words make me choke up, and I’m sobbing.
The military ball.
Our time in his truck.
Two gunshots.
Danny was shot.
Seeing him shot when we were both vulnerable was so calculated and planned. The people after us waited for this one moment of perfect opportunity, and they took it.
Kane warned me about them, but I was assured they wouldn’t find us.
Then I remember a cloth with thick-scented drugs, causing me to pass out. I never got to see Danny again. He must be here, right? He has to be alive, right?
I can only hear footsteps as if I’m being circled like prey.
“Wakey, wakey,” someone taunts me, and I already know who it is. The voice is too familiar.
I’m freezing, shaking, and wet. I’m finally able to open my eyes firmly, and I’m staring at the ceiling. My fingers twitch, trying to reach for my eyes because I feel the need to rub them. Maybe that will help me reach some clarity from this fog.
My vision is blurry, but as the seconds pass, after heavy breathing, I can see again clearly.
I look around, trying to pull away from the rope bound around my wrists that cut off my circulation, but it’s no use.
I’m in a barn with horse stables. Except there aren’t any horses, and I’m surrounded by a group of men in the dark, cold, empty night. Some of them wear white masks.
And her.
Ms. Salem.
The flashbacks of her standing in my front door after shooting Danny return, and I want to lunge for her throat.
She shot my Danny.
My heart pace accelerates with fear.
How could she do this? This doesn’t make any fucking sense!
“I thought you couldn’t walk,” I accuse, rubbing my arms to help grow warm.
She ignores me.
“He’s dead, you know…your boyfriend.” She laughs wickedly, standing tall as if she was never injured or had a surgery.
I feel betrayed by a patient I cared for. What the hell?
She stands before me, dressed in all black, next to a man with a long beard going down to his chest, and he looks at me like I’m the scum of the Earth.
“Ms. Salem, but how? Why? Y-you.” I shake my head as she looks at me like a game she’s won.
“You’re lying! He’s not dead. I don’t believe you. Why are you doing this to me?”
She walks slowly while I struggle to get out of the ropes. She bends down, getting into my face.
Her hair is tied up, slicked back perfectly, not one strand out of place. Her expression darkens with revenge.
Her lips curve villainously, and I’m shaking with anger. I will defend myself this time. Danny has taught me new tactics in self-defense, including using a gun. “I’m lying, huh?” She backhands me with her hand. My head tilts to the side from the hateful force she inflicted on me, but I stare back into her eyes.
She pulls out something from her pocket as she bends down, her elbows resting on her thighs, as she twirls a chain.
My eyes bulge when I realize what they are.
His dog tags.
Danny’s dog tags.
With his name on it. The same dog tags he wears, always. But they’re covered in blood. I’m going to be sick.
I feel like I was the one who was shot. I feel like I’m going to pass out again. The thought of Danny dead has me wanting to die, too.
“No!” I murmur, my voice shaking.
I cry harder and inhale sharply when I see them sway in her fingers, and she laughs again at my pain.
My Danny…he’s gone?
“Death can be killed, after all.” She stands back up, roaring with a giddy giggle. She throws the tags to the floor, far from me, in the opposite direction. I can only see the back of her as she meets up with the man again.
The dog tags sprawl out on the floor with a scraping noise.
“Why? Why would you kill him?!” I shout again, shaking my head as more gush of tears escapes me. I try to crawl toward Danny’s dog tags.
I need to take care of them. Hold them in my hands.
He can’t be gone. Please, God, no.
Then, a man pulls me back by my hair, and I shriek, kicking my legs. He drags me back into the passageway of the barn. I close my eyes right before the man lets go of me.
“A life for a life!” she yells, running toward me.
Then she stops and kicks me in my stomach.
I grunt in pain as my lungs feel obliterated to nothing.
I’m gasping for air, choking from the impact.
“Stop this! What the hell are you talking about?” I choke out. Danny doesn’t tell me anything. I’m clueless as to what the fuck she’s talking about. What has it got to do with me?
“That one thing we have in common, Ms. Alvarez. Don’t you remember?!”
“Remember what?! What has this got to do with me?”
What the fuck is she talking about?
What did we have in common?
Then it hits me. Our brothers. But still, what does that have to do with me?
“For a nurse, you’re fucking slow. He killed my only brother, you bitch.” She thuds away again, and the man burns holes into me with demonic eyes.
“And now we killed him. Everyone that Mr. Death has managed to piss off will be thrilled to know he’s dead. Especially his ex-girlfriend, Nora. She’s the one who told us about you. We paid her a little visit in the jail. What did you do to piss her off that much?” she mocks me, grinning at me wickedly while the man who stands on her side has his arms folded across his chest.
“I told you…men are trash.”
Fucking Nora. Of course.
“What do you mean, he killed him? You said your brother died in a car crash!”
“I lied. He died at the hands of your boyfriend. The night of Damon Hawk’s execution. Someone had to get the job done, and my brother was in charge of it.”
“His whole team will die alongside him, too. Everyone will pay if it’s the last thing we ever do.” She claps her hands once like a teacher who finished up at the end of the day.
“And now we have the one thing that Death loved, and that’s you.” She smirks, then moves her hands to her waist. “Don’t worry, you’ll join him soon.”
“Hang her,” the man orders, walking away from me.
“Don’t kill me! Please!” I beg, trying to crawl away, but a man behind me stops me. He pulls me up from the floor by my hair. My heels are gone, and I’m only in my red dress.
My eyes close, wincing with pain, and I hiss.
“He killed my brother! My father’s only son! And this is just the beginning. We won’t stop until all of these so-called executioners are dead. We won’t hang you if you tell us more about his team and their names. And about Creature.”
Creature?
“I won’t say anything. They’re all good men.”
I won’t ever tell them anything. I wouldn’t dare say anything about Kane.
Oh my god, Kane will find me.
I know it. Even Rooker, maybe. He and Danny are so close. He would most likely be next in charge.
“On second thought, don’t hang her.” The man paces around me, holding a philosopher’s pose. He taps his jaw, his lips curve, grinning at me.
“We’re going to make her scream as we torture her. Record it and send it to the executioners.” He shrugs, getting into my face.
“They’re all responsible for killing my son.”
I start to sob harder, searching for Danny’s dog tags on the floor. I don’t want to die. I know I thought I did, but I can’t leave this world like this.
I won’t die without a fight. I won’t let them get the satisfaction of scaring or hurting me on camera.
I won’t be scared as they kill me.
My brother wouldn’t want that. My mother taught me to be strong and have faith in my God, and I won’t let them crack me.
