Atonement (Heart of Stone) (28 page)

Kade and I burst from the car and floored it across the
graveyard. I could make out Greg and Sam at the rear, their frantic search
alerting me that Ava was no longer here.

Fuck!

I roared in anger as I spotted her bag beside George’s
grave, the contents overturned all over the soil.

“Find her, now!” I screamed at Greg and Sam as I urged
them to carry on searching, “Find anything, anything that gives us a fucking
hint!”

Elijah appeared with Neo and a couple of others. “I can’t
get a hit off the tap cos’ the damn thing is in her fucking bag, which is in
your fucking hand” he snarled in anger, “I told you to place it in a pendant or
some other shit she would wear on her at all times.”

I hit him level on the jaw, the sensation of releasing
some anger satisfying my growing rage as he hit the floor.

“Whoa!” Kade grabbed my arms and held me back before I
punched the arrogant bastard again, “Mason, stop!”

I heaved in a breath as my chest hurt with a terror I had
only ever felt once before. “I need her found, Kade.”

He nodded as he relaxed his hold on me, “We all need her
found Mason, but punching your friend’s isn’t gonna get her found. Now pull
yourself together and feed me as much information you can about this guy. I
need everything, and then I can run it through. If he has any secrets I’ll find
them. Any safety deposits, any warehouses and
fucking                                  whore’s belonging to him, it will find
them. You listening?”

I stared at him and nodded. “I need her Kade, if
anything…”

“Shush, we’ll find her…”

“Please…” I whispered; my voice no more than a croak as I
shivered with the realisation that she could already be dead. “Kade, please…”

His arms slipped round my shoulders and he pulled me in
as my whole body shuddered in pain. I felt the eyes of the others on me but
right now I didn’t give a fucking toss, I needed Kade’s closeness, the smell of
Ava still in his hair.

My throat constricted as I embraced him just as tightly,
refusing the tears that wanted to torment me, rejecting the way my mind denied
Kade’s tenderness as I devoured everything he served me.

I needed this; I needed to feel something other than pain
and fear.

If anything happened to Ava, I knew this man holding me
tight would be just as destroyed as I would. I knew he held as much terror as I
did at this point.

I knew he was becoming more than a friend to me. I knew
he also saw me as something more.

I sat on Katie’s bed, looking around her childhood
bedroom as Brad never removed his eyes from me.

It was weird, taking a peek into Katie’s youth. The boy
band posters still hung on the wall, her Garfield bedding still covered her bed
and her dressing table still held the masses of make-up collected as a
teenager.

A soft smile lifted my lips as I saw her fun filled face
smiling at me from an old photo pinned to her mirror. She was so beautiful and
happy.

“She was happy here once.” Brad declared suddenly as
though he had read my mind.

“I know” I answered quietly, “She told me.”

He sucked in an angry breath, “Did she ever tell you why
she ran?”

My eyes flicked over his face. Now that I knew who he was
I could see the resemblance; the slightly long nose, the bow of his lips and
the faint slant of his eyes, all of which Katie modelled.

“Yes.” I answered hesitantly, wondering what his reaction
would be when I told him.

“Well?” he snapped with an eagerness to know why his
sister had abandoned him.

“You father…”

He squeezed his eyes closed and fisted his hands. “Stop,
you’re lying…” he roared as his fist connected with my already shattered cheek,
pain searing through my face and blurring my vision as my brain struggled to
keep up.

He gripped my hair and pulled me off the bed, throwing me
onto the floor as his boot connected with my stomach; his anger feeding his
violence as I became his release for years of resentment at his sister’s
desertion and an age of pain at her death.

“You fucking bitch. You left her; you left her to die…”
Each word accompanied a kick, a punch or a spray of spittle as his wrath
erupted and he beat me relentlessly. He didn’t stop as each word became louder
and angrier, “You killed my sister. How could she die when you can knock out
even Mason? Why didn’t you help her? Why didn’t you save her?”

I heard his final words as my heart slowed and my mind
shut down. My throat choking on my own blood as my lungs laboured against the
build-up of blood.

“You will join her; she will get vengeance when you unite
with her” He whispered in my ear as I felt the slice of the blade along my
neck.

“Bingo” Kade declared as he shot up from his chair and
ripped the paper from the printer, everyone already piling from the room as
Kade shouted the address to them all.

“You’re with me” I yelled at Kade as he flew behind me
and clambered in the passenger seat of my car. “Buckle up, you’re gonna need
to.” I warned and shot off the driveway as I heard the click of his seatbelt in
the socket.

“Hurry, Mason” he rasped and I realised he was choked up.

I had no idea where my next words came from, how I even
voiced them but I said them, in fact I shouted them at him, “Come with us.”

His head shot sideways as he stared at me, “Say that
again.”

“I said come with us, to Portugal, with Ava and me. Live
with us.”

He stared in shock as I shot him a quick glance. “Watch
the fucking road, Ava doesn’t need us dead what with everything else” he
growled as I slipped round a corner and mounted the pavement.

“I mean it Kade, I want you with us.”

“We’ll discuss this when Ava can provide input on your
insanity.”

I growled in response as I floored the accelerator harder
and pushed the car outside its limits. Kade’s hands were clung to the edge of
the seat as I entered the opulent neighbourhood, both of us squinting at road
names, looking desperately for the one we wanted.

“There” Kade shouted and I screeched to a stop, ramming
the gear into reverse as I backed up with an alarming velocity. I turned,
scanning the numbers on the huge iron gates that protected each wealthy home.
“This one” Kade informed me with a slight hint of excitement. I was impressed
with his hunger for violence. I could feel it pouring from him in thick edible
waves and I smiled harder when my heart beat in rhythm with his, each of us taking
pleasure in the thought of causing pain to this bastard who dared to touch what
was ours.

Ours? Where the hell had that come from?

Sam and Greg pulled to screech behind us before they both
piled out and Elijah joined us with both his men.

“How we doing this, Mason?”

“However the fuck you want as long as you get her out.
But that bastard is mine, you all hear me?”

“And mine” Kade growled out through his clenched teeth.

I narrowed my eyes on him but he stared me out, “and
yours” I acknowledged.

“Okay, let’s do this” Sam said as Nate and Lucas pulled
up, both of them virtually falling out of Nate’s car with desperation.

“What the hell?” I started as Nate pushed his face within
inches of mine.

“Enough Mason, you put her through too much” he barked
with aggression.

Kade slipped between us, feeling the rise of my wrath
with Nate’s hatred, “Nate, this isn’t Mason’s fault. The prick is after Ava. It’s
Katie’s brother.”

Nate’s eyes widened as he flicked a glance towards the
house. His eyes were still narrow and blazing as he turned back to me, but he
nodded in apology and pulled a small gun from the back of his waistband. My
eyes widened on it and Nate just shrugged, “Let’s go in.”

I nodded to Sam who plugged a device into the control pad
and the gates swung open.

Elijah, Neo and the other guy herded round the edge of
the long driveway as me and the others took the left hand grass border, each of
us pulling off the safety on our guns and checking the bullet load.

I exhaled slowly as I met the front door with a swift
kick and it banged noisily on the wall. I grimaced as I checked the area. Sam
and Greg flanked me as they proceeded to open doors and check the downstairs as
Nate and Kade followed me up the stairs.

I halted at the top and flicked my head to the side,
listening for the murmur I thought I heard.

Adrenaline engulfed my body when I heard a soft but pain
filled cry. Kade heard it too as he shot towards the doorway but I grabbed the
back of his shirt and pulled him back, “Wait!” I whispered, nudging my head to
the side to silently tell him to slow down.

He nodded and stood beside the door as I counted on my
fingers and as I got to one, I kicked it in. The hinges cracked forcefully as
the door splintered and fell into the room with a crash.

Holy Jesus Christ!

Kade whimpered as my soul screamed in pain at the sight
of my wife’s mutilated body, her blood coated the carpet as Brad leant over
her, sliding a slick blade through Ava’s pale freckled chest.

The whiteness embraced me; the pure malevolent wrath that
my spirit morphed into overtook every inch of my system, its dominance burning
the blazing ferocity inside me. My mind twisted into the monster that
structured my rage and my body hardened in preparation for the fight. The fight
that I needed to tame the beast within.

My eyes flickered as an evil calm ran through me and I
stepped into the room.

Brad screamed in a wild rage as he dragged Ava by the
hair to the back of the room and thrust the knife against her throat, “Don’t
move, Fox.” His voice was a raspy whisper and I knew he had lost it. This was
bad, his mentality had gone beyond any reason and I knew I wouldn’t be able to
talk him round at this point. He was out for blood.

As simple as that.

Kade appeared beside me and I heard the scuffled noises of
the rest of the guy’s on the landing outside the bedroom. I did a quick scan of
the room, looking for any hint of his life that I could use to placate him.

“Brad, what’s all this about?” I asked as I tried to embrace
the calm that surrounded my body; it would be the only thing that got me
through this.

“She needs to atone for her sins Mason, she’s bad, and
she’s evil. Look at her, she’s a fucking whore.”

“She’s not bad Brad, why is she bad?”

“She left her to die,” he spat as his eyes narrowed on
her again, his hatred physically burning into Ava’s body.

She was still unconscious and I struggled to focus on the
rise and fall of her chest. Kade shuffled almost invisibly beside me,
millimetre by millimetre and I swallowed as my rage tried to overwhelm me, its
fury telling me to launch for the bastard and tear his head from his neck in
one single movement. I smiled internally as the image filtered through my mind,
Brad’s face contorted in torture as his screams pleased my soul.

“She didn’t leave her to die,” I inched forward but Brad
pushed the knife further into Ava’s neck, her trickle of blood seeping down the
length of the blade and I clenched my teeth to stop myself from flying across
the room. I wasn’t close enough to get to her and knowing he could sink into
her throat before I could reach him, I held my hands up and backed off a
little.

Kade didn’t.

“She didn’t leave Katie that night Brad; she tried her
hardest to save your sister.”

He scoffed at my words and curled his lips with distaste,
“Fuck that bullshit, that’s what she tells us Mason but I know… I know what
evil is inside her. She helped them; she laughed as Katie screamed in torture.
Ava is a tough bitch, there is no way she couldn’t help Katie.”

“But look at her Brad,” I nodded my head encouraging him
to look at Ava but he continued to stare at me. Shit, I needed him to turn,
even for a second, so I could nudge forward. I saw Kade through the corner of
my eye as his feet slithered across the carpet gradually. “Look at her. Does
she look like she can protect herself?”

I swept my arm out exaggeratedly to get his attention on
me. It worked; he watched my arm swing through the air as Kade launched himself
at Brad.

All five men outside the door piled in as I hurled my
body into Kade and Brad. There was blood everywhere as they tumbled to the
floor, Kade on top of Brad as he rolled him away from Ava.

I slid to the ground beside her and pulled her onto my
lap as the other’s assisted Kade and pulled Brad into a hold. They wouldn’t
touch him, they knew he was mine.

“Baby. Ava…” I almost shouted at her and I frantically
pulled my rage back, I needed it for later.

Blood covered every part of her and I tried to wipe it
from her face but the blood from her body had seeped onto my hands and I just
made it worse, “Baby, please.”

“Mason” I heard Sam say but I stroked at Ava’s cheek
again, desperately trying to wake her.

“Ava…” I shouted this time, almost shaking her to rouse
her. “Ava!”

“Mason…”

“What?” I snarled as I turned to Sam. He moved aside and
my heart shattered inside my chest as I saw Kade. His eyes were dead and
staring ahead as Elijah furiously fisted his heart to restart it and Neo
pressed his knuckles into the open wound in Kade’s neck.

My whole body shook as a roar of fury surged through my
empty soul and my spirit exploded in grief as my lover died in Elijah’s arms
and my wife took her last breath in my arms.

Everything felt surreal, almost vapour like and I stared
at the wisps of dust floating in the air as they caught the stream of sunlight
in the room.

They hovered before me, the dust practically taunting me
that they were free and I would never be. I studied them, my soul trying to
leave my body to dance with them, to frolic in the sunlight and leave the shell
in which it was held prisoner.

The particles moved and cavorted in the filth of the
dirty hospital waiting room, collecting new fragments of earth’s unnatural
refuse and extending its play area.

They moved and shifted, forming a shape as they grouped
together and I finally shifted on my seat for the first time in five hours.

I stared in disbelief as they transformed in appearance
and a structure took shape. My lungs refused to accommodate the air in them as
the hairs on my body stood to attention at the sight before me.

My eyes imperceptibly swept over the form as it stood
clear before me.

“Katie…” I whispered instinctively. Although I had never
seen her, I knew.

She smiled softly at me, the specks of random atoms
floating around her caught the sun and I blinked as they reflected Katie’s
light at me.

The elements moved as she tilted her head and regarded
me, her eyes scanning my body as though she was deciding if I was worthy or
not. Her eyes lifted back up to mine and she smiled again.

Fragments shifted and reformed until her fingers appeared
at her lips and she kissed them, twisted her hand, nodded and blew the flakes
of dust at me.

I blinked at the sting in my eyes, squinting as I
reopened them to catch sight of her again but she was gone; just a cloud of grains
and flecks floating back to the floor.

I looked around the room but everybody remained
motionless, each of them as anxious as I was for news.

“They’re gonna be okay” I choked out as tears fled from
my eyes, their desperation to fall had them flowing down my cheeks in a torrent
of release.

They all turned to look at me and I smiled with a sigh of
relief as I closed my eyes and sent up a prayer of thanks. The first time I had
ever thanked god, but it definitely wouldn’t be the last.