Edge of Chaos (16 page)

For a second Kayla
thinks that this is the most the girl is able to put out, but when those shears
sever her right pinkie finger, she really let loose. This time her screams are
a series of rapid staccato-like shrieks. She gulps a huge breath of air each
time and releases it in the form of a scream. The girl does this about a dozen
times or more before finally passing out.

Kurt shuts the
laptop. If Kayla thought she was afraid before, it’s nothing compared to what
she’s feeling at this moment. She could not have imagined anyone in such agony
as that woman was, and knowing that pretty soon she’s going to be feeling
similar pain; well it’s just too much to take on. Before the video Kayla could
take a little comfort from her mind as she kept telling herself it can’t be
that bad and if it gets bad she’ll just pass out. But that video made it
crystal clear in Kayla’s mind just how horrifically terrible her torture
sessions are going to be. There’s no escaping that simple fact. Now Kurt
produces a compact DVD player and sets it on the floor well away from Kayla.

“You may have
trouble going to sleep tonight,” Luke’s father begins. “So I have, with a
little help from Kurt, recorded a mix tape for you to listen tonight.”

While he’s talking
Kurt brings out a pair of three inch square speakers and plugs them into the
player.

“And I think you
will appreciate the sound quality of these speakers.” Gunnar drones on. “At
first I thought, two hundred dollars, you gotta be kidding! Then I listened to
them and I was a believer just like I am sure you will be. So if you will
excuse me I’ll leave you to your thoughts.”  

The sun is nearing
its apex when Luke finally pulls off the road and stops at the edge of a
viewpoint overlooking Stinson Beach, California. It’s a ballsy move on his
part, not only returning to the San Francisco bay area, but coming back to him
and Kayla’s favourite place to ride. If his father had any of the military
training he had, he would have someone watching all Luke’s favourite haunts.
What Luke does not know is that his father is more than a little preoccupied
with his newest captive Kayla Underwood. At this very moment he is preparing to
participate in unspeakable acts of torture and revenge on the woman Luke loves.

Yeah, it took
murdering his best friend then walking away and leaving his girlfriend dying
from a gunshot wound to the head for him to realize the depth and breadth of
his feelings for her. A normal person would have figured out that what they had
was beyond special. Luke Madsen, former Army Ranger/Special
Forces/Sapper/Sniper is not your normal human being; not by a long shot. Years
of military training and years of being the US Government’s top hired gun, has
rendered Luke incapable of feeling. That’s before Kayla got under his skin. She
got more than just under his skin, she managed to burrow her way into what is
left of his soul and now is seems he just cannot function without her.

When he fled her
house that night, nearly one year ago he believed her dead. He’d heard the
shot, seen her go down, and he even saw the hole just above her eye. He had
knelt in the warm sticky blood as it pooled around her head and kissed her
goodbye. For Luke it was the kiss of death. He leapt blindly into a world he
despised all his life; the world of illicit drugs. In Afghanistan he’d
personally been responsible for taking out some of the Taliban’s biggest
players in the heroin trade; something he was immensely proud of. It’s a cruel
world in that less than a dozen years later it would have Luke standing on
street corners, wandering down piss filled alleys, and squatting on roach
filled mattresses slamming that same dirty brown drug into his veins just to
escape his own tortured mind.

Two weeks have
passed since Luke fled the roach motel and the dead hooker. Fourteen days since
he’d discovered the cryptic note saying Kayla survived the gunshot to the head.
One last time he crawled into a filthy motel room and spent the next two weeks
screaming in agony and puking his guts out kicking a $300 dollar a day heroin
habit. Probably his only saving grace was that he had only been using for 9
months or so and he was in great physical shape before he began using the drug.
Those two factors enabled him to bounce back much faster than your typical
addict. It was hell though. No doubt about that.

He shed all the
excess weight he had gained as a couch potato before a prostitute had turned
him onto heroin. Now Luke is back to his fighting weight, and at six foot two
and one hundred ninety pounds he is back to his formidable self and looking for
a fight; but first things first. Before he goes after his father for gunning
down Kayla, he first has to find her. She too seems to have disappeared. He
passed by her house yesterday and something just didn’t sit right with him.

When you’ve been
in the business of war and violence for as long as Luke has, you develop a
really strong sixth sense. When he visited her house the hackles on the back of
his neck stood at attention. Something wasn't right. Late that night he’d
decided to go in and see if he could find anything. By all appearances, she hadn’t
been home for a couple days. He was just about to leave when he noticed
something odd.

There was a
picture in the hallway leading to the front door. It’s not the contents of the
picture that caught his eye, but the position it was in. From what he knows of
Kayla she is fastidious when it comes to her house and she wouldn’t dream of
walking out the door unless everything was in order. The picture is one of her
and a group of people in Yosemite. The picture was crooked. It wasn’t obviously
crooked, but to someone with a trained eye, it was definitely cockeyed. He
touched it with his index finger and straightened it before leaving out the
back door. There was something very disturbing about her house and that
picture. He was almost willing to chalk it all up to paranoia but then passed
by her work only to find that she has missed her last three shifts and people
there are quite concerned. 

How to find her? All
he knows is she is alive, at least she was two weeks ago and that’s not much to
go on. He’s just about to start his bike back up and finish the ride when his
cell phone rings. Lately he hasn’t been in the habit of answering his phone.
The longer people think he’s dead the easier it is to stay hidden. For some
reason though, this time he finally answers it.

“What?” He barks
into the phone.

“He’s got her.” An
unfamiliar voice replies.

“Who’s got who?”
Luke replies, but deep down he knows what the caller is about to say.

“Your father and
his goons took her two days ago and believe me; she ain’t got much time left.
Your old man is out for revenge. He wants you and he thinks she knows where you
are and he’ll skin her alive if he thinks she’s holding out on him.”

“Where’s h-he
g-got her?” Luke’s voice is shaking with rage.

“Remember the old
quarry.”

“Aren’t the
Harbingers still using that as a lab site or something?” Luke asks, confused.

“Yeah…Luke, your
father has been teaming up with some of the Harbingers and they’ve got your
girl in what used to be their meth lab.”

“Fuck, fuck…fuck!
I can’t believe he’s teaming up with those filthy bastards,” Luke swears.

“You can’t Luke?
Who helped your father set up that ambush for you and your buddy Carter? It’s
not all the Harbingers who are helping him though. Some of those fuckers
actually got principles. It’s not all the Kings who are behind your father
either Luke; some of us still know the meaning of the word honor.”

“Well let’s bust
her out then.” Luke replies.

“I’ll need a
couple hours to get the guys together then I’ll call you with a time and place
to meet. This ain’t gonna be easy Luke so you’ll have to ignore your instincts
that are tellin’ ya to just charge over there right now, guns blazing. That’ll
get you killed and her as well. We do it my way Luke.”

“I’ll be waiting
for your call. Oh…and I’m gonna need a piece. I’m fresh out right now.”

“No problem, what
do you want?” The other man asks.

“You got any of
those Glocks lying around?” Luke asks.

“Yeah I think so…what
do you want, the 17 or the 19.” He asks.

“The 19’s for
pussies, I’ll take the 17.”

“Alright...later
bro.”

Luke remains
motionless on his bike for a few more minutes and slowly numb and bewildered.
Finally he is about to be reunited with the woman he loves and for all he
knows, she’s not going to be happy to see him.

Guess I Better
keep her away from sharp objects for a while until she calms down.” He mutters
to himself as he slams his motorcycle helmet down over his head.

No matter how you
slice it, this is not going to be the proverbial happy reunion. He starts to
close his eyes, and then catches himself. Every time his eyes close, he’s
treated to a graphic slide show as the events of their last night together
unfold on the backs of his eyelids. But it’s worse than his real life memory of
the events. It’s like his memory is some poorly shot black and white movie; in
the days before sound. When he closes his eyes now, he’s literally assaulted
with a 3D, Dolby Surround Sound, digitally enhanced, living color cinematic
masterpiece. It’s a lot to take in.

Sitting on his
motorcycle Luke recalls that night walking down her sidewalk to certain death
at the hands of his father and his father’s most loyal Kings. He can smell the
crisp cool autumn air and feel the wind tussle with his long hair. Then he
hears an audible crack and like magic he sees a lone bullet crease the air as
its shot from the barrel of a gun at 1,220 feet per second. It leaves an angry
red streak across his cheek as it passes by. Luke spins around just in time to
see the projectile striking Kayla in the head just above her right eye. Her
head barely registers the impact of the 9mm round. In fact she just stands
there in her doorway for a moment, unmoving. Luke’s eyes lock with hers. He can
see her blue eyes glisten in the dim light and he watches as they go from a
vibrant, icy blue to a pale slate grey as her life is extinguished right in
front of him. Luke lets out a cry of anguish as her legs buckle and she drops
to her knees on the hardwood floor. She wavers for a second and then tumbles
over backwards and her head strikes the floor with a hollow thud.

Luke pretends to
faint as he lets his head roll forward and his knees buckle. His captors are
caught off guard by his reaction. Annoyed, the guards let him slide out of
their grip and to the cement. Rather than grabbing him again they content
themselves on just kicking his ribs and stepping on his fingers. Neither of
them is prepared for what happens next. With a backwards motion of his leg he
sweeps one guard completely off his feet. The other guard tries to leap over
Luke’s leg but is caught as Luke sweeps his leg forwards. Both men fall in a
heap next to Luke.

He yanks a Sig
Sauer 9mm from the hands of one guard and rolls up to his feet and sprints for
Kayla’s door like a frightened Gazelle before either guard can react. Luke
dives through the door way as bullets whistle past his ears. He kicks the door
closed, fully expecting to feel the hot bite of lead, before he’s finally safe.

Lying flat on the
floor Luke rolls over and comes face to face with Kayla. Already sticky warm
blood is pooling around her head. He looks into her dull greyish blue eyes but
no one looks back at him. She is gone. Kayla just may be the only woman Luke
has ever loved and she’s stolen from him before he has the chance to tell her.
Hot tears fall on her lovely face as the heavy thud of a booted foot crashes
against her front door. Luke leans over, places his lips on her forehead and he
gives her a chaste kiss goodbye.

Another boot
smashes against the door causing it to shudder and shake. Luke gets too his
feet. He figures he has maybe five seconds before it gives way. Luke runs down
the hall to her bedroom where he remembers there is a trapdoor to her attic
that can be reached from her walk in closet.

Fortunately for
him Kayla’s neatness extends to her attic as well and Luke has no problem
navigating his way over to a small window with roof access. Seconds later he’s
kicking out the window and crawling out onto the roof. Sirens fill the night.
Luke slides down the roof to her gutter where he flips over onto his belly then
carefully slips over the edge of the gutter where he hangs for a moment,
looking around him. He takes a deep breath, then let’s go and falls about a dozen
feet to the grass below. The landing is harder than Luke expects and he goes
down in a painful heap. Swearing under his breath Luke disappears into the
night.