The Beats in Rift (26 page)

My phone beeps and the text from Justin with the address lights up the screen. We all rush out, the roar of our bikes vibrate the ground as we ride away.

I’M SHAKING AS I drive to the address Dad gave me. I can’t believe how far he’s gone. I always believed Jared and Meds embellished where my Father was concerned, until he came to me with the plan to mess with the DNA results, and yet I let him convince me. I just wanted to cling to something. I’ve always been left and abandoned, and I just wanted to give back some of the hurt I’ve felt over the years. I’m fucked up too. I’ve fallen so far.

My stomach rolls as I come to a stop outside a small house. The shutters are closed on all the windows and it’s secluded compared to the other houses in the block. I turn off the engine and step from the car then take a deep breath and walk up the steps to the front door.

It opens when I get to the top and my Father is standing there looking tired. He has black circles under his eyes and his hair is a mess, like he’s been running his hands through it.

He waves me in, holding a gun in his hand. I enter and the door clicks shut behind me. He marches me up the hall and opens a door. There’s a bed with no bedding on it, just Meadow laid across it in her panties and a top. Her face is bruised and there’s dried blood in her hair and down her face. Scratches and bruises mark her thighs, and I fight the bile rising in my throat. She’s shivering and my head buzzes with hurt and anger that he has done this to her.

I look at him and he shakes his head. “I haven’t touched her like that yet. I was waiting for you. She’s my gift to you,” he tells me, pleased with himself.

I struggle to believe he is the same man who raised me. I see him twitch his finger over the trigger and I step forward. “Where’s her Mom?”

“She owed me,” he states, fully believing his statement. He gestures to another door.

“I want to be alone with Meadow,” I tell him and he smiles.

“Okay, but I get her when you’re done. She wants me, too. She’s always wanted me, Justin. That’s why she toyed with you and your brother for all these years, to make me jealous, to drive me crazy.”

He has gone so far off the deep end I’m scared of him.

“We can take what she offers up then we’ll kill them both so they can’t turn your girls into whores.” He smiles and walks up the hallway.

I close the door to the bedroom and rush over to Meadow. She pulls her knees up to her chest and scurries away from me. “It’s me, Meds. Fuck, did he touch you?”

Little sobs shake her body and I grab her to me. “No, no, no,” she whimpers and my heart breaks. How could I not see how twisted he was? She was always afraid of him and I ignored the signs.

“Med, look at me. Can you walk?” I move some hair from her face.

“Justin, why?” she murmurs.

I hold her for a while until her body calms a little. She needs a hospital and I need to get the gun from him and get her to one. I lay her back down and go to the door. I hear him pacing. I open the door and step into the hallway. “I need some water.”

He nods and points to the fridge. I open the door and pull out a bottle of spring water. I look him over, stopping at the gun in his hand. “You can put that down Dad,” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “I need it. She’s sin, Justin. She will try to trick me if I don’t have it. She pretends she doesn’t want me.”

My grip tightens on the bottle. I hear the low hum of bikes approach and I feel relief for a fleeting moment. My Dad’s eyes flare wide with hatred.

I rush past him to go to Meadow. As I enter the room and go towards her, a loud popping from a gunshot rings through the apartment. I turn and hear his footsteps stomp in our direction. Meadow jumps up from the bed and clings to my back. “What was that?”

My Dad’s frame fills the doorway. “We need to end it now,” he growls.

Meadow backs away from me and curls into herself, sliding down the wall behind me. My Dad steps into the room and raises the gun towards her; my heart thuds against my chest. It feels like time slows as I watch his finger twitch. I jump in front of Meadow as a spark flashes and I feel a burning sensation ignite through my chest.

JUSTIN DROPS TO the floor in front of me and I scream. I rush to him. Shaking, I put my hand over his chest. The blood dampens his shirt, spreading like a broken ink pen bleeding onto a page. Tears blur my vision as I hear a loud thud and voices filter through the house.

“What the fuck?”

Rift has entered the room, and his Dad is still standing there with the gun pointed towards me. Rift takes a quick step, bringing a fist to the side of his Dad’s face. He falters, dropping the gun, and falls to the floor.

Rift runs to me and cups my face as he slips his shirt off and puts it over my head. I take my hands from Justin’s chest to quickly slip my arms in, then I put them back over his wound. “Did he touch you, baby?”

I hear the crack in his voice. I know what he’s asking. I shake my head and relief washes over his features. He moves my hands from Justin and rips Justin’s shirt, exposing the wound. There’s a small hole in his chest; blood is pumping from it, making me heave.

He balls up the shirt and holds it tight to the wound. I hear movement and see their Dad get to his feet. I panic and reach for the gun, gripping it in my hand. I point it at him. “Don’t move,” I choke out.

Ice enters the room quietly behind Markus.

“Give me the gun, baby. We is going to take care of him. Give me the gun,” Rift coaxes.

I shake my head and continue to hold up the gun in my shaky hand. Tears cascade down my cheeks.

“He won’t ever leave me alone until he has me,” I sob as my arms burn from holding them up. I feel so weak. Ice moves forward, his hands go to Jared’s Dad’s head. It’s so quick. I flinch from the crack it makes as he twists, breaking his neck. His body falls to the floor like lead. Ice steps over him and walks towards me.

“Give me the gun, sweetheart. He’s gone. He won’t ever get you again.”

I blink at the ice blue eyes staring into mine. I release the gun into his hand. He turns to Rift.

Sirens sound in the backround. “Turn your head sweetheart,” Ice tells me and I do. I hear a shot ring out into the room and I shake with fear.

“He killed himself,” I hear Rift tell me.

I open my eyes to see Ice putting the gun next to the lifeless body that now has a hole in the side of the head. I hear voices fade out as the sirens come closer. Minutes pass then the room fills with police officers and paramedics.

THEY SAY IF it rains when someone dies, its heaven opening the doors for their soul. There was no rain that day.

I feel the warm hand of Rift grip mine as I look down the six foot hole.

Drew told us that their mother was an extreme catholic who suffered with a mental break down when their Father left her for a younger woman. Drew went with his Father to live but Mr Jacobs, Rift’s Dad, stayed with their mother who told him women are whores who would be sent from the devil to corrupt him, with sin, she told him one would be sent to test him, to taunt him.

He believed my Mom was the whore and I was the sin. He was crazy, and I have the scars in my memory and a couple on my body that will stay with me forever to prove it.

The police told me he was the one who friend requested me on Facebook, using a fake account in Justin’s name. That was where he got my address and details from. Social media stalkers paradise.

“You ready, baby?”

I’m ready. I drop the rose I was holding down the hole onto my Mom’s coffin and let Rift lead me away.

Justin suffered a collapsed lung and huge blood loss but he pulled through. He put himself through some intense counselling at a medical facility and is coming to terms with everything that happened.

The police didn’t question the death of Mr Jacobs after I told them he killed himself. Although they did an investigation the results confirmed my side of the story, he wasn’t around to dispute it. I follow Rift to his bike, his lips dropping to mine. He pulls away and whispers, “You ready to start our life, baby?”

I smile and throw my leg over his bike.

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“HE’S HERE, THEY just arrived,” Crystal informs me.

Justin had got delayed. He had to drive instead of fly because Ellie, the waitress from Drew’s bar who gave him shit all those years ago, is now carrying his baby and didn’t want to fly.

“You look amazing,” Crystal says.

I look down at the red dress I picked out; it is Rift’s favorite. I smile, looking down at his wedding ring on my finger. We waited four months before we got hitched. Our home had just been built and we wanted to move in as husband and wife; that was two years ago.

Jules and Jasmine come running into the room, “Uncle Justin’s here, Mommy,” Jasmine mumbles. She’s been struggling with her speech since she lost a front tooth in play care when one of the other kids hit her in the face with a bottle because she wouldn’t share her lunch. Needless to say, that boy’s Father is also missing a tooth and has had it drilled into him to teach his boy never to hit girls.