Ricochet

CHAPTER 1

Nick


Cull: transitive verb



1: to select from a group; choose



2: to reduce or control the size of (as a herd) by removal (as by hunting) of especially weaker animals; to hunt or kill (animals) as a means of population control





According to Newton’s Law, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

You punch a brick wall, your knuckles bleed.

You shoot a gun, it recoils.

You destroy a man’s life, he seeks revenge.

An eye for an eye.

So, there I waited, beside a broken window, ten stories in the air, fingers stretching and clenching to a fist, while the early October winds whipped past the abandoned building where I’d hidden.

The place must’ve been a classroom at one time. Desks stood spaced and lined, some tipped, a few standing. Dirty, weathered books lay plastered to the floor, splayed open like dead crows in a snowfield of papers. Like an apocalypse had stricken the city and the workers had been forced to flee with no warning.

Outside the window, broken and abandoned husks dotted the landscape, set against a gray, dishwater sky. Scarred and beaten, the perfect metaphor for the people who lived within its forgotten neighborhoods, Detroit was like an abused kid, just waiting for the day someone would come along and give a fuck about it.

The third world city of America.

In any other part of the country, what’d happened would’ve been an atrocity. There would’ve been a candlelight vigil, stuffed animals set outside the ashes and rubble where my home used to stand. Parents would’ve clutched their kids a little tighter at night, given thanks they weren’t me.

Instead, the murder was never reported. Not even the fucking neighbors bothered to call the fire station to report a burning house.

I tugged the black hoodie forward to conceal my face and tipped the barrel of my M24 below the windowsill, out of sight.

On the streets below, a crowd had gathered around two white vans packed with care packages for the homeless. In the throng, a white couple, casual but too clean-cut to belong so far east, passed out the large clear bags with easy smiles plastered on their faces, pausing every so often for the camera.

Michael and Aubree Culling.

Care packages. The mayor didn’t give a shit about the city, let alone the scum homeless who littered his streets and left a blemish on his blue prints. I wouldn’t have been surprised if those packages had been laced with rat poison by the asshole, or his obedient little wifey, always there to stroke his shoulder and smile for the camera.

I could’ve killed them from my vantage point. Watched their brains paint the pavement, while the crowd dispersed in a ripple of panic.

The arguments for not pulling the trigger seemed to diminish with each day that Michael Culling was able to forget he’d ever given the order to murder my family.

Whereas, my memories continued to churn.

With every nightmare that plagued my sleep, a greater need burned somewhere in the darkest corners of my mind—one that left me questioning my own humanity. I needed to see the devastation on Michael Culling’s face as I took everything from him. I wanted to watch him curl into himself, cursing the heavens, as the pain of watching his entire world slowly drift from his fingertips mercilessly ripped his heart from his chest.

I needed Culling to feel what I’d felt in those final moments. To know that the crushing blow of reality existed behind a thin veil of hope that’d burn down at any moment.

He’d know my pain. My suffering. My desolation.

No quick bullet would deliver vengeance to that bastard. I intended to gift to Culling the understanding of true hell. The realization that what he wanted most, the very reason he lived, was gone forever.

Revenge.

The word simmered in my head, a steady boil of seething that’d kept me from blowing my own brains out the last three years. Like the word held some kind of sanity. A purpose.

The crowd below dispersed, as two men, dressed in rags, fought over one of the packages.

Police guards, who’d maintained a halo of space between the Cullings and the mob of homeless, shifted closer, drawing their guns. Shouts erupted, and a visual of Michael and Aubree being torn to shreds in the shithole neighborhood had the opportunist in me bubbling up from the darkest depths of my soul, urging me to slip the rifle through the hole in the window and shoot.

Done. Over.

I’d never have to see their fucking smiling faces again.

I took a step back from the window just to prove to myself that I could, that I wasn’t stupid enough to be fooled by the chimera of a quick kill. It would be a total suicide shot, anyway. The whole fucking plan would be out the window, and all the men who’d carried out Culling’s orders would remain free.