ALL THE RAGE (writer: T.M. Frazier)(70)

I walked right up to Cody, who looked me over. At first when he saw me, he seemed pleased with himself, smirking and nodding like I was a dog who’d found his way home to his master who’d called for him. But when he looked me over, his wild smile dropped from his face into an emotionless straight line.

Then he lifted the gun, aimed at my chest, and fired.





CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO




Rage


As soon as I heard the bullet explode from the barrel, I thought it was over. And it was.

Just not for me.

After realizing I wasn’t dead, I spun around to where Cody had fired after redirecting his aim at the last second.

My eyes landed on Smoke.

Smoke who was facedown in the dirt. A pool of his own blood seeping into the ground around him.

“Serves that son of a bitch right. He never should have taken you away from me!” Cody roared, kicking up dust with his boot and sending it flying over Smoke’s body.

I turned back to Cody. Calmly. Too calmly. I was so focused, I scared myself, my heart thumping out a wildly erratic rhythm in my chest. “I know we haven’t seen in each other in years, dear friend,” I said, my voice flat and forced as I closed the space between us. His eyes went wide, and as he took a step back, he floundered for a quick second before recovering. “But it seems that you, the person who has known me the longest, has forgotten exactly who the f*ck I am.” I took a step forward and Cody raised his gun again, this time at my head. I didn’t stop. I would never f*cking stop. “And what I’m capable of.”

“He’s alive!” Cody suddenly shouted, taking a step back. Fear replacing the confidence that had been there seconds earlier. “That f*cking biker you’re f*cking. I didn’t kill him.”

I glanced to the sheet in the trunk then back up to Cody, who shook his head and pointed to the body. “That’s not him.”

“Bullshit,” I seethed. “Then who the f*ck is it?” I asked.

“Don’t believe me? Go look for yourself,” Cody said, waving his gun to the car. I ducked under him and peered into the trunk. “Why don’t you learn how to use that thing? You hold it like it’s a f*cking dog about to rip your arm off. Where’s your f*cking pride, man?”

“Fuck you, Rage!” Cody spat, the gun shaking in his hands, the weight of it in his untrained hand looked awkward and heavy. I yanked back on the sheet and held my breath.

“Why did you do this?” I asked, looking down at the bloodied body of who could only be Cody’s girlfriend. I recognized the golden curls from his social media accounts.

“She’s a gift,” Cody stammered. “For you. I thought…I thought you’d like it.”

“What the f*ck does that mean?”

“I can be like you. I wanted to show you that we could be together. That no one could come between us. Didn’t I do good? She screamed and I didn’t even stop. Not even when the shovel got stuck in her—”

“Cody,” I snapped interrupting whatever it was he thought he was doing by telling me that story. “Where the f*ck is he?”

“He’s…he’s right over there,” Cody said, pointing to a picnic table in the shadows where something large and dark was lying across the top.

“Nolan!” I yelled, running toward the table. Nolan’s right eye was swollen shut. The other just a slit. Blood stained his face and arms. He was breathing but barely conscious, strapped down to the table like a Christmas tree across the roof of a small car. My relief at him being alive was short lived. My attention shifted to the device strapped between the ropes and Nolan, pressing against his torso.

My hands started to shake. I cracked my neck and jaw to relieve some of the tension that had me wound so tight, that not only would Cody be dead at the end of all this, he wouldn’t make it out with a single limb intact. I spun around as he approached. “This is my other gift,” he said as I breathed fire, feeling the hatred burning in my lungs.

I launched myself at him and was mid-air, about to take him down, when he took a single step to the side, holding up a small black remote with a flashing red light and a single button.

I stopped my attack but not my forward motion. I was right up in Cody’s face when I said, “Your gift to me is wrapping explosives around someone I love? Shooting someone I care about?” Nolan coughed and I turned. He moaned and red sputtered from his mouth, dripping down his chin onto the table.

Cody nodded. “I saw him come to your parent’s house on his bike, so I watched him. Then I saw you arrive, and I knew this biker was something to you. Saw the way you looked at eachother. What shocked me the most is when he kissed you. Fuck, you never even let me kiss you. I thought you couldn’t feel love and suddenly it’s written all over your face? Or is that just something you told me to blow me off?” His eyes shone wickedly. “None of that matters now. I remember how much you love explosions. I’ve been learning. Practicing.” He took a step toward me. It was my turn to move back, so I didn’t snap his arm in half and accidentally detonate the bomb strapped to Nolan.

“All this time!” I yelled. “All these years and you’re pissed off at me? Why? Because I left? Because we tried the list and it didn’t work? Why Cody? Why now?”

“See, I knew this would happen” Cody said, tapping the gun against his head. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. You’ve never been good at the whole feelings thing, so I get that. I totally do. But I needed time to be able to offer you my grand gesture,” he said, waving his gun around in the air. In the corner of my eye, Smoke shifted, just slightly. Then his eyes opened and landed on me. I didn’t look over at him, not wanting to draw Cody’s attention. “And I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, Hope, but you are very high maintenance. It took a while to learn all this. Explosives, gun shit, all that took time.” He lowered his voice. “But you’re worth it. Always have been.”