was tracking. He turned toward the forest abutting the James property and raised his M40, sighting the terrain in case Chance was waiting just inside the tree line to attack. His night vision allowed him to navigate the terrain, and his thermal scope alerted him to body heat.
All was quiet. No heat signatures. Time to track and bring Skylar’s brothers home.
_______________
His hand shook, but he didn’t let it stop him from sharpening his knife. He watched the James brothers struggle against their restraints in the firelight, while he slowly ground the steel blade to a sharp point.
Chance had been waiting for the brothers inside their cabin when they got home from school. He’d wanted the sister. The one who looked like his mother reincarnated, but she’d managed to get herself beat up and was in the hospital.
He studied his so-called brothers and looked for any resemblance. He was as dark as they were fair. Nothing of his mother had come through in his genetic makeup, but it had in theirs. Just like their sister.
The older one was still bleeding from his left shoulder, courtesy of Chance. He’d tried to play the hero when Chance surprised them in their living room, rushing to grab Chance’s weapon. The bullet went clean through and lodged in the wall. He would have dug it out of the log if he cared about being caught now, but his vengeance would be complete tonight. He’d wanted the sister to take to hell with him, but the brothers would do. As long as a part of Sarah James died alongside him, he could burn in hell happy.
He glanced at the bag of bones resting on the ground against his feet. His father and Duke Remington would bear witness to his final act of revenge against the James family. He could have shot both brothers in their home, but he wanted them to suffer more than a single gunshot to the head. Just like he’d suffered for more than thirty years. He planned to bleed them to death slowly. One puncture wound at a time. To do that he needed time and privacy, so he marched them at gunpoint into the wilderness. If it took him two days, so be it. Time meant nothing to him now. He was done on this earth, and only needed to complete this final act before he could leave.
The younger brother never took his eyes off of Chance. He followed the motion of the knife as it sometimes sparked on the stone. The older one had been losing too much blood, so Chance had packed the bullet hole until they reached their destination. He didn’t want him bleeding out before he received his mother’s punishment.
“Get it over with already, you fuck,” the younger one said bravely. “If you’re gonna kill us, then just do it. This Edgar Allan Poe shit is boring. And just so you know, we already figured out you killed your daddy. You’re not as smart as you think you are. You may kill us, but Logan will hunt you down and break every fucking bone in your body.”
“Josh, shut the fuck up,” the older one growled, slumping against his restraints.
Chance cocked his head and studied the younger one. “Maybe there is a similarity between us.”
“You’re nothing like us.”
“Because you grew up with a mother who cared and loved you? No. That’s not right either. She left you behind just like she left me, didn’t she? DIDN’T SHE!”
The kid blanched then turned angry. “She didn’t fucking leave you, you dickweed,” he argued, pulling at the rope that tethered him to a tree. “They fought for two years to get you back. Everyone knows that. She loved you and it killed her she couldn’t see you.”
“LIES!” Chance rose and covered the distance between them in the blink of an eye, pinning the kid to the tree with his blade at his neck. “She left me behind to my fate without guilt. She knew what my father was like and she still left. I was beaten daily just for living, did you know that?”
The kid swallowed against the pressure but held Chance’s wild eyes.
His brother tried to kick out to put distance between Chance and the kid, but Chance batted his leg away with ease. He was weakening. It was time to exact his revenge. Time to die with her precious sons.
“You want to die?” Chance asked his youngest brother. “Die for her sins?”
_______________
He needed Max. The shout had carried through