Right of Retribution Page 2

  “We have to wait for the DA to move forward.”

  “But what if they don’t?” Warner asked, feeling like he wanted to scream. “What if they… they decide that because he’s a cop, they don’t want to press charges?”

  “Then… no criminal charges would be put forward,” said Frias, finally meeting his eyes. She’d been looking everywhere but him so far. “But that doesn’t preclude civil charges.”

  Warner shook his head and looked toward the ground.

  “They’re not going to do anything,” Warner muttered. “They’re just… going to brush it under the rug because he’s a cop.”

  The room was silent except for the whir and click of machines. Monitors which were affixed to and keeping a round-the-clock watch on Maya.

  Machines that gave her all the nutrients she needed through an IV. At some point, they’d have to put in a feeding tube if she didn’t wake up.

  There had already been several doctors who stopped by. They’d wanted to talk to him about the various possibilities.

  Up to—and including—if he wanted to have a do-not-resuscitate order put on her.

  Now, hearing that the person who’d caused all this wasn’t even behind bars, he was losing what little patience he had. His temper was more than just flaring.

  It was boiling, straight up to the very top of his thoughts.

  Officer Frias turned, moved to the door to Maya’s room and then shut it.

  Reaching up, she turned some type of knob on the radio at her shoulder and then reached into her shirt and fiddled with something around her chest area.

  Warner’s brain hit the brakes and careened wildly out of control.

  Officer Frias wasn’t unattractive, but Warner had been “off the market” since he’d walked in on his wife having sex with another man hours after she’d served him with divorce papers.

  “There,” said the police officer, pulling her hand back out. “Turned off my mic and camera.”

  Oh. Oh, that makes a lot more sense. But why would—

  “No. They’re not going to do anything,” Officer Frias said, shaking her head. She looked quite angry. “In fact, I was told to try and dissuade you from pushing this.”

  “You’re kidding me,” Warner whispered. He simply couldn’t believe this.

  “No, I’m not. And I’ll be honest with you, after this, there’s not going to be much I can do. This is way beyond me,” Frias continued. “I’d say go after them in civil court and make the city and the officer pay. Beyond that… you won’t see justice.”

  “I… I can’t… I don’t—”

  Warner shook his head, looking back to his daughter.

  Her black hair had been shaved quite close to the skin so they could get at her skull to save her life.

  She looked a lot like her mother did, though paler. Asian descent, black hair, dark eyes, petite.

  In fact, he knew his daughter was going to be as pretty as her mother had been.

  She would have been as pretty… now… now I don’t even know if she’ll make it through the month.

  “Can you at least tell me the name of the officer who hit her? So I can press charges?” Warner asked, a very different idea coming to light in his mind.

  “Travis Pattin,” Officer Frias said, shaking her head. “Officer Travis Pattin of the Fletcher City Police Department.”

  Travis Pattin.

  Alright.

  Now… how do I kill him?

  Two

  Sitting alone in his house, Warner was contemplating what to do.

  He knew what he wanted to do, but he had no idea how to go about it. The most violent thing he’d ever done in his life was a fight in high school which ended in a strange wrestling match.

  For much of his life, Warner had avoided conflict.

  There just wasn’t any room for it in his life.

  Then again, would I even have married Asa if I’d been more confrontational? She kind of ran the relationship from the get-go and I just… let it happen.

  Shaking his head, he didn’t really want to think about his ex-wife. He still hadn’t managed to get in contact with her since the accident.

  Which wasn’t that surprising, since technically it was her fault.

  Maya was supposed to be home with Asa, sleeping. Resting for another day at school or doing homework at the worst.

  Not out wandering the city at night and getting hit by a car.

  Warner quivered in an absolute and sudden fury, his hands clenching together. He wanted to lash out at both Asa and Travis. The two people responsible for Maya being harmed.

  Standing up, Warner growled and paced to the other side of his living room.

  Only to walk back to his chair, the helpless rage still eating away at him. Like a festering wound beneath the surface of his skin which he couldn’t get at. Couldn’t lance and drain away the infection.

  Hanging his head, he stared at his feet. Closing his eyes, he tried to quiet the angry flame of injustice that burned inside his heart.

  It’d been a week now since Officer Frias had given him Travis Pattin’s name. A week to sit and hope the DA would do what they were supposed to do.

  Their job.

  Except nothing had changed. Nothing had happened. Everything was exactly what Althea Frias had claimed it would be.

  Swept under the rug, even as his attorneys began preparing for a civil case against the City of Fletcher and Officer Pattin.

  The city was trying to get Warner to take a deal, of course. One that was cheap in comparison to how much his attorneys thought they could get.

  He wanted to take action against Travis Pattin immediately. To find the man and show him his rage.

  To just… get my hands around the little mortal’s neck and wring it. Wring it until his neck breaks and justice is wrought.

  Blinking, Warner turned to one side as if to get away from the thought he’d just had. It’d felt alien to him. Like it was someone else having that thought, despite it coming from his own head.

  Except there was more behind it. There was more to the thought.

  A driving force which was demanding action from him. Demanding he do something.

  Do it right now, in fact.

  Before he realized what was happening, he was driving away from his home. Driving straight for the city of Fletcher.

  As if on autopilot, Warner didn’t actually know where he was going until he got there. And when he did, he regretted it.

  Pulling his car into a small parking lot, Warner closed his eyes and put his forehead on the steering wheel.

  He was on the street where Maya had been hit.

  In fact, that particular spot was just behind him on the road. He’d driven right past it to turn into this lot.

  Everything was quiet right now. Which really wasn’t abnormal, given the time. At one in the morning, most people were long since asleep.

  Except for thirteen-year-old young girls, who really should have been home sleeping.

  Where the hell were you, Asa? What the fuck were you doing?

  Why the hell weren’t you watching our daughter?

  Were you chasing a new boyfriend again? Out partying the night away? I swear to Go—

  There was a loud clack next to his head that obliterated his thoughts. It was the sound of someone tapping on a glass window.

  When Warner glanced up, he found himself looking into the barrel of a gun.

  Moving to the side, the gun barrel tapped on the glass twice more.

  As his eyes moved upward, he found the owner of the gun. A young man who was holding the front of his hoodie over his face. Warner was pretty sure it was a man, given the lack of breasts, but one couldn’t always be sure.

  Apart from the hoodie, all he could see of the young man was that he had white skin and brown eyes. Standing next to him was another young man holding his hoodie up in the exact same way, though he had dark skin and brown eyes.

  “Get out of the car before I fuck you up,” said
the man with the gun.

  Oh shit, I’m being robbed.

  Oh shit. Oh fuck.

  Holding his hands up in front of himself, Warner slowly undid his seatbelt, unlocked the car door, and got out of the vehicle.

  “Great, good for you, fucker, now gimmie your wallet,” said the man with the gun, pointing it at Warner’s face.

  He’d known this area of Fletcher wasn’t the greatest, but he hadn’t expected something like this at all.

  Reaching down to his back pocket, he pulled out his wallet and held it out to the young man.

  “The watch too, give it over,” said the second young man.

  Frowning, Warner glared at the man without the gun. A lot of the fear he’d felt had burned off in that instant. As if someone held a match to a balloon filled with hydrogen.

  His fear had rapidly become a small angry ball of fire.

  There was no way he was giving anyone this watch. It’d been a birthday gift from his daughter several years ago. Before everything had started going wrong for him.

  “Did you hear him? The watch,” said the first young man.

  Turning to look at the speaker, Warner felt an itching feeling spreading across his back and spine. Like his skin was peeling and needed to be thoroughly scratched.

  No one’s taking Maya’s watch from me.

  “I said—”

  Warner’s right hand came up in a blur and snatched the gun away from the young man. There was a hideous cracking noise at the same time.

  Screaming, holding to his wrist, the first man stumbled away from Warner. Turning, he started to run away, not bothering to look back.

  The second young man was scrabbling for something in his waistband.

  I-I-I what’d I—

  Finding what he wanted, the man started to pull his hand back up. Clutched in his hand was a pistol.

  Extending his arm, Warner put the gun barrel of his own weapon to the man’s forehead.

  Freezing, the man stopped, the gun still only pointed toward the ground.

  “Yo… I uh, I just wanna go now,” said the man. “I didn’t do nothin’ and I just wanna go.”

  There was a lie in his words.

  He’d done plenty. Plenty of things.

  Warner could see it. Could feel it.

  Knew it.

  This man had robbed, assaulted, dealt drugs, raped, and maimed other people. This man burned with injustice. He’d skated through all of it because those he’d wronged never went to the police.

  Warner didn’t know why they hadn’t, but he didn’t even need to understand that. What he understood was that this man in front of him was no different at all from the one who’d run his daughter over.

  Justice needed to be done.

  And in that moment, Warner pulled the trigger.

  The revolver went off with a boom. Red mist and chunks sprayed out behind the man’s head and he collapsed to the ground in a pile.

  Reaching down, Warner grabbed the pistol the man had been holding, along with his own wallet which the first man had dropped.

  Stuffing both weapons and his wallet into his pockets, Warner got back into his car, put it into gear, and got out of there. Driving away from the scene and the man he’d just gunned down, Warner felt very odd.

  He felt vindicated.

  As if he’d provided the world with a resolution it needed.

  There was no fear in him that he’d done wrong. No fear that he’d killed an innocent.

  He was elated.

  His only regret was that he hadn’t killed the first man.

  Hearing his own thoughts, Warner shivered and kept driving. He didn’t stop until he got twenty minutes away from the scene. Only then did he pull over into another parking lot. This one was much better lit and clearly had people going in and out of the twenty-four hour grocery store.

  Warner felt his entire body trembling.

  From head to toe, he was shivering, his hands quivering as soon as he let go of the steering wheel.

  Shifting into park and turning the car off, Warner let out a breath. Sitting there in his car, he felt the heavy weight of the two handguns in his pockets.

  Pulling both weapons out, he set them down on the floorboard before he got out and closed the door to his car.

  Pressing a hand to his mouth, he felt like he needed to scream. He felt like a man torn.

  In his mind, the glorious vindication he’d felt in killing that man was still sharp and clear. Though there was also a growing and very uneasy sick feeling.

  He’d taken someone’s life for absolutely nothing. For what was little better than a gut feeling that the man who was robbing him wasn’t a good person.

  What have I done?

  ***

  Typing quietly on his laptop, Warner was doing his best to focus on his work.

  His murder had made the news and was currently being run all over. Family members and friends were being asked to talk about the deceased.

  Over and over, they said they just couldn’t believe he was dead. That he didn’t deserve to be shot down like a dog. That whoever had killed him was little better than a psycho and should turn themselves in.

  Others postulated that it was an intergang problem and that the victim had actually been running for the wrong crew in the wrong area.

  Gritting his teeth, Warner shooed his thoughts away from it all and went back to the customer email he was responding to.

  Moving his finger across the mouse pad on the laptop, he sent the email off and then sighed. Leaning his head back against the chair, he looked up to the ceiling of the hospital room.

  “No improvement?” asked a voice from the door.

  Standing there in the door was a young woman who looked somewhat familiar. Wearing a blouse, jacket, and jeans, she looked like any other young woman he’d see somewhere, but he couldn’t place her.

  Then he realized he was looking at Officer Frias.

  “Officer?” Warner asked, feeling pretty weirded out seeing the police officer without her uniform on.

  The lack of her official and visible status humanized her. It also made it a lot harder to deny that she was attractive and well put together.

  “Call me Althea, or Thea if you’re looking for a nickname,” said the police officer, walking into Maya’s room.

  “Thea, then,” Warner murmured. He really had no idea why she was here, and out of uniform on top of that. “And… well, there are a few changes. Her brain activity has been spiking lately. She’s been moving as well. They’re pretty sure she’ll wake up soon. Which is great news, because I’m almost positive they were going to put a feeding tube in her soon.”

  “Probably,” Althea said walking over to Maya’s bed. Her eyes were stuck on Maya for several long seconds. Finally, she looked to Warner. “DA’s going to release a statement today, but not until after he calls you. He’s not pressing charges on Officer Pattin.”

  Blinking twice, Warner ended up biting his tongue, his breath coming out in a soft wheeze. He’d been expecting that to happen eventually, but he’d been hoping to be wrong.

  “I’m sorry,” Althea said, shaking her head. “Not what you wanted to hear, I’m sure. But I… felt… like I owed you that. Telling you before you got the phone call out of the blue. Give you some time to figure out how you want to respond.”

  “Yeah… yeah. That’s… really kind of you,” Warner said and meant it. He knew Officer Frias didn’t owe him anything. She was just being nice. “I’m… really not sure what to do about it. Other than maybe not answer my phone at all. Maybe disable my voicemail for a time. Or change my number. Make it that much harder for him to contact me.”

  Chuckling darkly at that, Althea grinned with one side of her mouth.

  “I like that,” she said. Then she shifted her weight from one leg to the other and pulled a card out of a pocket. “Here. The one marked as emergency is my personal cell. You only have my work extension right now.”

  Taking the card, Warner looke
d down at it. The phone number listed as “emergency” had been circled.

  She prepped this card for me specifically.

  “Thanks. I appreciate that,” Warner said, looking back up to Althea.

  “Of course,” she said, smiling at him. Then she turned and looked at the TV in the corner of the room, which had caught her attention. “Ugh, they’re really running that one into the ground.”

  “Huh?” Warner asked, craning his head around to look at the screen. He’d muted it a while ago because he didn’t want to hear any more about the man he’d murdered.

  Unsurprisingly, reporters were still going on about the murder he’d committed.

  “Yeah, been on the news all day,” Warner grumbled.

  “The guy was a scumbag,” Althea growled. “Everyone in the entire precinct knew him. They’re making him out to be a saint when his rap sheet is longer than he was tall.

  “You name the crime, chances are he was suspected of it or did it.”

  “Suspected,” Warner repeated.

  “Yeah, suspected. Because he had a tendency to make witnesses go away, one way or another. Pay ’em off, kill ’em, vanish ’em, they just… didn’t make it to the stand,” Althea said, then flicked a hand at the screen. “The shame of his family. Justice was served and whoever pulled the trigger did the world a favor.”

  I see.

  So… I… was right?

  The strange feeling of vindication he’d felt just after he’d pulled the trigger started to surge up inside him again. Heady, energetic, and rather bright, it raised his spirits considerably.

  Like the world wasn’t as problematic as it had been only a few minutes ago.

  Crackling softly, the TV had a bout of static, followed by several machines in the room blipping or beeping.

  Everything quickly returned to normal, although there was one change Warner noticed immediately.

  Maya’s eyes were open. They were parted slightly, her dark brown eyes slowly scanning the room.

  “Maya?” Warner asked, setting his work laptop down to one side and immediately moving next to her bed.

  “Dad?” asked the young girl. Her voice sounded scratchy and dry.