BORRASCA - Bagian 5 - Chapter 17 (English)

“Oh, quit your yelling, I tried to warn you, Sammy.” The sheriff said through the echoes of the shot still resonating through the camp.

I dropped to my knees and screamed into the snow until I had burst every capillary in my face.

“Jesus Christ, son.” The sheriff said in disgust. “Enough theatrics, I didn’t even act like this when your mother died.”

“You killed her!” I screamed at him. “You murdered her!”

He shrugged. “I’ve killed a lot of people. Although, I must say, I do regret that I’m not gonna get a turn with her again. Usually I don’t like redheads, but there was something about her. Like father, like son I guess.” He laughed.

“I told her not to come, I told her not to come,” I mumbled, barely coherent. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” I screamed at him. Grigg took a step toward me but my father stopped him with a hand.

“Let him throw his tantrum. He did the same thing when I took away his toys as a kid, this ain’t no different.”

Richards stepped over Kimber’s lifeless body and exchanged a few quiet words with the sheriff. I couldn’t hear them over the dry heaving of my stomach, which didn’t stop until my abdominal muscles ached from the force of them.

“Richards just had an interesting idea – you’re in for a real treat, Sam. Get him up,” the sheriff said to the men behind me. They hauled me to my feet and shoved me in the direction of my father. I stumbled but didn’t fall.

“We don’t use it too much anymore on account of the noise, but how about we throw your girlfriend’s body into the Shiny Gentleman and scatter her bone fragments all over the mountain?” He slapped me on the back. “That way she can be here at the mine for all eternity! I bet she’d like that.”

I was shaking so violently I could barely wipe the blood out of my eyes. “No.” I said and fell back down on my knees in the snow.

“No? Are you sure?” He asked. I could hear the smile in his voice.

“No. No, please.” My voice broke over my words.

The sheriff’s smile fell into a look of distaste. “Don’t beg,” he spat. “It makes you look weak. Get off your fucking knees.”

“Please don’t touch her.” I continued.

“You know what your problem is, Sam? You’re not man enough to take what you want. You’re not strong enough to say: fuck what’s polite, fuck the consequences, fuck the law.”

“You’re a fucking cop!” I choked.

“See? Now there’s a bit of spirit. Sometimes in life you just have to claim what should be yours. That’s what society is built on. Now our operation may not work within the laws of the land but we sure as hell work within the government.”

“But Whitney. Look what it did to her. This place- “

“I ain’t gonna warn you again, boy, keep my daughter’s name out of your mouth.”

“Which daughter?” I asked.

The sheriff sneered. “What can I say? Whitney is a beautiful name.”

“It’s sick. You’re sick. You need help.”

“I have help. Look around you, Sammy.” He gestured to the fourteen men standing in a half circle around me. “I am a sultan. These are my governors and that is my harem.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

He sighed. “I’m starting to think you’re not gonna come around, Sam.”

“I will never be a part of this. And I will never stop trying to kill you.”

“Well, I’m real sorry to hear that. That’s a pity. Looks like we’re gonna have to break you in like a horse. I kinda wish I’d left the Destaro girl alive, now.”

“Fuck you.” I spat into the snow.

“You say another fucking word like that to me and I’m going to execute you right here on your fucking knees.” The sheriff’s men seemed to lean in, smelling blood in the water. I knew this was it.

“If you wanted me dead you would have already shot me.”

“Are you sure about that?” The sheriff asked and leveled his gun at my forehead. “Why don’t you pull that gun on me and find out.”

“Oh, I’m sure about that. You need me. Through the sea of your bullshit, I see the truth: it’s a pride thing. You want your son taking over your business. You want another Walker in charge.”

The sheriff’s mouth spread into a wide smile but he didn’t lower his gun. “I can make another son.”

“You could, but you want me. You want to break me. You want to mold me into you. Because that way you win.”

“Oh, I’ve already won, Sam.”

“No. I have. You’re a slave to your own fucking hubris. I can say and do whatever I want and your pride won’t allow you to kill me.”

“Maybe not,” the sheriff shrugged and dropped the barrel of his gun to my chest. “But I can break your ribs with a fucking bullet.”

I heard the shot, but didn’t feel it enter my body. I instinctively put my hands over the entry wound on my chest – I didn’t have to feel it to know it was there.

Sound was pulsating in and out of my ears in time to my deceptively calm heartbeat. But through the waves of sound and silence I could hear them all laughing.

“Hurts like a fucking bitch, doesn’t it?” The sheriff laughed. “A shot to a ballistics vest hurts a hell of a lot more than a kick with a steel-toed boot. But of course, your ribs were already broken so that must really sting.”

I knew I was going into shock. I pulled my hands away from my jacket and saw that they were covered in thick, warm blood. The laughing died immediately and the sheriff took a step in my direction.

“What in the hell?” He asked.

“Fuck you.” I answered.

By the time he put it all together and looked over at her, Kimber was already standing where they’d left her discarded in the snow. She was staring at the sheriff down the sights of the Beretta and before anyone could react Kimber squeezed the trigger and killed her monster.

The bullet went through the sheriff’s eye and out the back of his head where it buried itself in the wood of the building behind him. Before his body even hit the ground, guns were pulled from every side and the men loyal to money had taken control of the men loyal to fear. Jimmy Prescott had somehow come through.

“Ho-ly fucking shit, kid! You did it!” Prescott said, taking a sip of coffee and stepping over my father’s body. “I mean, I think that wound is probably fatal but, you know, don’t let that take away from your accomplishment. Hell, I’ll even name a wing after you!” He gestured to the dorm behind him.

“Take the gun off of Kimber.” I demanded. I knew I didn’t have much time to play my trump card.

“Ortiz, what the fuck?” Jimmy said. “Quit pointing that shit at the hero of the day.”

The man closest to Kimber lowered his gun. She doubled over then, clearly in enough pain of her own. “Broken bones.” Jimmy nodded, reading the thoughts on my face. “Your daddy shot her with a .357, which – well you know, he shot you, too. It’s a pretty big bullet, she might actually be bleeding but she’ll be fine. You on the other hand…”

I strained against the darkness. I needed to tell Jimmy something. What was it? Oh, yes. My insurance policy to make sure Kimber left this place alive.

“So you talked all that shit and you weren’t even armed? You had nothing on you? You sure you don’t wanna come work for me?”

“I did,” I coughed. “I did have something on me.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“This.” I pulled out the small remote control and dropped it in the snow in front of me. Jimmy laughed.

“What the fuck is that?” He said.

“It’s a remote. For the video cameras.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, kid? What video cameras?” For the first time since I’d met him, Jimmy looked rattled.

“Those video cameras.” I pointed up into the trees where a dozen small cameras blended into the dark branches, their blinking red lights all but invisible.

“I need to stop the bleeding.” I wheezed.

“Are you fucking kidding me you shit-eating, donkey cunt? Are you fucking joking? You better be joking because I will put the bullet in your head that your daddy couldn’t.” He raised a gun to my face but seemed conflicted. If he believed me about the cameras, I knew he couldn’t shoot me. It all came down to my ability to bullshit.

“I’ll just take those cameras down and break them like they were never there.” He said and cocked the gun he was holding in my face.

“They’re on a live feed, asshole.” I said. Jimmy’s face twitched a few times before he lost it and hurled his coffee cup at the building behind him.

“Fuck!” Jimmy shouted. “Fuck you!”

“The video is streaming back to a laptop in Chicago. It’s over.”

Jimmy’s men looked uneasily at one another. “Fuck this.” Grigg said finally, and dropped the gun he was using to hold one of dad’s men hostage. They scattered like roaches to all sides of the camp, starting their trucks and speeding down off the mountain. Jimmy was already on the phone with someone as he dug into his pocket for his keys.

“Delete it, all of it. Get it off the DHS intranet and make sure it’s gone for-fucking-ever.” He paused. “I don’t give a shit where you are, we need the database gone NOW. Like it never fucking existed. No, fuck the fucking backups, delete it all.”

Jimmy threw his phone on the ground and shot it four times with his gun. He ran to a nearby trunk and ripped the door open.

Prescott,” I shouted hoarsely. Jimmy paused before he slammed the door and glared at me.

“Kyle. Kyle Landy. Was all of that bullshit?”

Jimmy’s glare contorted into a bitter smile.

“Where is he? Where’s Kyle?” I asked again.

“You fuckers will believe anything,” he sneered before he slammed his car door and sped off down the mountain.

The last of my energy expended I fell forward in the snow with my back to the sheriff’s body. I could see a mess of Kimber’s red curls over the top of my arm but she was so far away. “Kimber…” I gasped through the blood in my mouth but she didn’t stir. With my strength running out like sand in an hourglass I pulled my phone from my jacket and dialed Seth’s number.

He answered on the first ring. “Tell me.”

“It worked. She’s alive. I’m…alive. The high school. Those sick fuckers host all the records on the school’s server. Drisking High.”

“Drisking High, got it.”

“Can you get in?”

“I’m working on it. That database is going to be locked down secure as fuck but like I said the other day, I’m pretty good at what I do.”

“I don’t know what the file will be called.” I muttered and dropped the phone down next to me where it sunk into the snow. I faded in and out for a few minutes trying to hold on.

“I got it,” Seth said finally. “I just looked for the most buried shit on the server. They’re scrubbing it fast, man, but I got it. They definitely know I’m here, though.”

I felt myself pulling away from my body.

“Fuck me, there are some serious heavy hitters in here. I can’t believe they kept it on a school server, what fucking assholes.”

I could barely hear Seth anymore.

“Hey you okay, bro? Sam?”

And then I was alone.