“I’m not sure what you’re bragging about because I got you to fake your own death, didn’t I?”
He tsks. “I saw what you did to my nephew, Mac. You let that crazy fuck of a friend skin him alive.”
A slow curl of my lips emerges from my face. Kyson is the pure definition of my ride or die.
I carelessly lift my shoulders. “Should’ve kept his hands to himself.”
“From what I remember, the little bitch couldn’t keep her legs shut.” The pads of my fingers dig into his throat but not hard enough for Bubba to shut the hell up.
I don’t want him to.
I crave to hear all the vile shit he wants to say so that I can make his death that much more satisfying to my siblings and me that he scared and harassed half to death.
Not that I’m going to broadcast it to Scarlett and Hardy. But it’ll be nice to know he’s dead and gone. That he’ll never touch them. That his rape days are over.
“We’ve taken turns on her before, you know,” Bubba continues like an idiot. “All for that white powder that your mama liked to suck up her nose too. All those fucking whores sucked dick and would have a train ran on them just to get a hit. Even her.”
My gut suddenly twists because Camilla never told me he had raped her too. That she didn’t let herself get tied up with Bubba after…
“You still keep in contact with her?” His so-called piqued curiosity is anything but. He’s urging me to lose my temper.
To fucking feel.
Plucking a small flask out of my back pocket, I release Bubba’s neck and unscrew the cap.
He opens his mouth like I’m about to do a good deed, and when he does, I pour the contents into it. He immediately spits it out as I rise, all over my clothes, while it drips off his chin to his chest.
“That’s fucking gasoline, you stupid fuck,” he fumes, glaring up at me through slitted eyes.
“Good job, Sherlock.” I knock the top off my Zippo. “And this is fire.”
Chucking it at him, the flames abruptly kick up the flammable substance, and he ignites. The colors flick up to his face, trailing up the path I led for it to go. Bubba releases a blood-curdling howl, but I’m already ready for him, shoving the stupidass handkerchief he always kept wrapped around his head back into his big ass mouth.
My booted foot hurls into his stomach, knocking him backward and still within the circle of damp dirt. The last thing I want to do is light this whole place on fire and make people homeless.
I’m just sorry that they’re going to have to see the aftermath of what I do tonight.
“Here’s that chance I was talking about,” I quip. “Stop, drop and roll, asshole.”
Bubba either hears me or does it on instinct because he begins to turn on his tied hands to put himself out. He succeeds with his chest and face, kicking out the flames a moment later with the dry dirt.
“Good job,” I praise through Bubba’s deep-seated moans of anguish. The smell of burnt flesh infiltrates my nostrils, but it doesn’t bother nor phase me anymore.
It’s normal.
It’s nostalgic. I watched my father burn alive while Bubba, Mac, and their friends threw bottles with lit towels at the end inside his car. I remember my father’s screams, but they didn’t last long. The helplessness I felt because I couldn’t save him; the fire was too hot.
I’ve endured more than the man in front of me has in eight of his lifetimes. The pain and nightmares were what kept me strong to protect Hardy and Scarlett because Mom began to fail us months later after Dad was murdered.
“Remember when my daddy got burnt all to hell,” I reminisce, lapping around his frame. “I think you were there.”
I’m answered with a pained grunt, and Bubba moving his leg to try and push himself away from me.
“I watched him burn alive while you, Mac, and that piece of shit Mad Dog stood by and did nothing. Whose idea was it?” I get to my haunches again. “I don’t think it was you. You’re not creative enough. You liked bullying on things smaller than you, and my dad was so much bigger. But you got the opportunity to pick on something defenseless, and you took it.”
“I...didn’t…” I think I hear him say through the handkerchief.
“You may as well of.” I toss more gas on his back, smelling the fumes of euphoric feelings hit my nostrils. “This one’s gonna hurt.”
I snap another lighter and chuck it, letting it land on his back so that the flames lick up his spine.
Bubba’s screams are somewhat kept muffled as his clothes act as a secondary enemy, keeping the flames alive and hot. His skin starts to smolder under the heat, creating a dark gray cloud of smoke overhead.
Heaving on the rope that is still tied around his body, I lift him off the ground. His weight makes the strings whine in protest, but I use every muscle to make him ascend above me and overlooking the park.
At where he hurt, not only me and my father but so many others.
His death won’t be missed but appreciated.
Bubba’s frame looks like a ball of fire floating on his own as I tie the rope around a yellow fire hydrant. A message to anyone who has any involvement with my mom or fucked with me way back in the day that it’ll be like this...because I’m back.
Reaching down to pick up my things, I heave my bag onto my shoulders and steal another glance at Bubba kicking around to get free.
Someone is bound to see him, so I begin to dip out towards my truck parked on the other side of the fence.
Until my eyes
