Chapter 36: Ruger

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ruger

I can smell salmon all the way from the motel room where I’m laying low to complete this last kill. Every sense of mine is at its peak. It’s not just the smell coming off the fishing boats.

I know that motherfucker went to my house – that Curtis . I sense it. I listened to Zayna’s pretty words about trust and relationships. But modern relationships don’t work. Modern folks don’t have any ideas about commitment or how to make relationships last. I have a few secrets.

My family was correct. My first wife wasn’t right for me. But Zayna…

The longer I spend away from her, the more time I have to think. I don’t sleep anywhere fancy on my drive to kill Grant. Motherfucker must be running from his guilt because my little road trip takes me on a journey by land – following the vague path north of a fishing boat containing my last target.

I had to do a couple lines to get the energy to ride without stopping. No meth with the family, but it’s not exactly hard to find. Cut it up nice and clean on a personal mirror I keep in my pocket. Since I became a father, I haven’t done a line of meth in a Flying J bathroom, so my nose burns as the powder shoots up straight to my brain.

My mind opens like a lotus flower and my thoughts shoot in a million directions at once. It’ll take a while before I hone in on one singular obsession. If I give myself too much time, I’ll end up eating more than a fat grizzly at this Flying J gas station and getting nowhere. The entire drive up to Seward, Alaska is meant to take sixty-four hours without stopping.

Sixty-four fucking hours.

It takes me three days to get up to Seward. I have to be careful. No people out here means new people get noticed extra hard. Few hours away from Seward, I take my cut off at the last gas station I stop at and put on some clothes that make me look normal. More like a new guy looking for work on a fishing boat. Or a junkie.

I swear I put some weight on living with Zayna. Everything she cooked turned directly into muscle and now I have shoulders bigger than Gideon’s. Abs that look thick and strong on their own. My biceps and legs are more like tree trunks now. I might have looked a little more like a junkie before her constant flow of roasted venison and delicious baked potatoes.

All that shit she sprinkles on the food makes a difference. And she says a lot of it is butter but… I’m not a chef. I just know I miss this woman’s food and her warmth now that I’m out here in Alaska trying to blend in with a bunch of damn civilians. I think it works. I haven’t shaved my face since I left, so I have a thicker than normal beard.

I cut another line and continue into Seward with my tattoos and any outward signs that I’m a barbarian covered up. I look… normal. I get to the motel where I plan on staying while I carry this work out. There are two cars parked outside, neither of them activate any sort of concern in me. I pay for my room in cash, which they still let you do in the middle of bumfuck America. Then I sit and plan Grant’s death.

It’s hard to be here planning his death when every last one of my instincts tells me that Curtis will fall for my trap and he’ll be well on his way to Elk City. I have to trust Zayna now. Which I don’t, because she won’t see this coming. The thing is, no sane man could “get over” a woman like Zayna. Her strength might intimidate them into leaving her. They might find themselves put off by her spirit.

But once you love a woman like Zayna, you can’t stop. She’s the type to worm her way into your head and make a home there. She’s the type of woman you kill for. Gentle and strong. Stoic when necessary. But feminine. She keeps my stomach full. She warms my bed with her soft curves and mass of suffocating curls. When I feel her hands on my chest, I feel the love I never had growing up.

The love I suspected other people got from their families. Or even from women.

I never had that until Zayna. She has to understand that real love like that can make a man do crazy things. I’ll kill the guilty or the innocent to have her. It doesn’t matter what I do, as long as I prove to myself and God that I am utterly devoted to the cause of loving Zayna. Her past doesn’t matter, but our future does. And I want to make it a good one.

Grant’s fishing boat docks two days after I get to Seward. I spend each night at the bar collecting as much information as possible – lying about my origins and intentions. Hoping that nobody notices the stranger who rolled into town and suddenly left. I play the part of a scumbag pretty well. It’s hard to change certain parts of yourself after you join the Army.

I sit and stand a certain way. I have to force myself to be less proper. To act like I couldn’t care less about my surroundings while soaking up every last piece of information available to me. The night the boat docks, all the fishermen go out drinking. Learned that from the old guy working the bar.

Strange thing about Alaska. Been here two days and I haven’t seen a single woman. I never thought I would find the absence of women particularly unnerving. But even in the Army, you get more contact with them than out here. I can’t imagine the type of scary bastard this wilderness might produce. I become a creature of the darkness. I can’t spend too much time outside without wanting to piss myself from the cold.

Using the list of men on the fishing boat and a careful analysis of the dormitories, I guess which one will be Grant’s. Alphabetical order seems to be the name of the game here. I count off the rooms and find the right one. Nothing to secure out here, so the door might be locked, but the windows are popped right open. It doesn’t take much for me to scale to the second floor.

The men are all at the bar. Grant’s place is meticulous. Impersonal. I don’t know how much money he makes doing this shit, but he would thrive in the Army. The room would pass inspection and possibly be used as an example. No pictures anywhere. No signs of who the room actually belongs to. There’s a pair of New Balance sneakers by the door.

Like you could get away with anything other than boots this far up North. Maybe he uses them to pace the halls when his mind gets a little too fucked. I’m overthinking it and tempted to do another line of meth – which definitely wouldn’t help at this point. I keep searching for evidence, making it a game to comb through his possessions quietly.

It’s too quiet out here.

I find a black journal inside a backpack tucked away behind his bed. I hold it up to the window so I can get a little light from the street and there it is – proof he’s the man I’m looking for. It’s hard to feel anything but numb, even if I feel obliged towards some type of pleasure.

I guess I’m not a natural serial killer. I feel I have to do it for Zayna and beyond that, there isn’t much emotion that comes from a kill. The only pleasure I ever need sits right between that woman’s thighs. And right now… I don’t even know if those thighs still belong to me. That pulse of rage might be the only thing emotional about this kill.

I’m angry that I might lose her. I’m even angrier that I allowed myself to fall in love with her… to open up my heart. I’ll still have Eden. I know I can put my daughter first once I get back. But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever change my mind. After Zayna, there can’t be anyone else. I can’t put my heart through believing in love, losing that belief, and feeling so fucking desperate to get it back.

It makes me too soft. I have to kill to work that out of my body. To get some sense that I’m still strong. Still powerful, even if I love her.

The first boots are loud on the vinyl flooring as the drunk bastards howl with laughter and make crude, nonsensical jokes. Most of them are locals. Alaskans have a distinct accent that’s a little bit country and a little Canadian. You recognize it once you hear it, although you might not understand any of the words out of their mouth.

I slide from my crouched position on the floor to underneath Grant’s bed. Zayna isn’t here, so I feel no need to make this clean. This is my last kill and I need it to feel something. I need it to feel in control of who the fuck I am…

I stay pressed to the floor beneath his bed for forty-five minutes before he walks into the room – suspecting nothing. He sighs and mutters the word, “Fuck,” under his breath. He doesn’t know half of it. I slip my knife out of my boot. It’s an old knife that belonged to Doc and I forget all the words he said, but I know it’s real fancy and can cut through a tough hide like butter.

My hand juts out. I grab Grant’s ankle. He screams, but he only manages one before I have him on the ground, pressed beneath me with my knife against his neck.

“Zayna says hello,” I whisper. “And that she’s sorry she couldn’t be here to watch what I’m going to carve into your goddamn chest.”