Did Audra know who Lloyd was when she brought him here? She had to. She just had to. Fate is not kind enough to toss a bone this big my way by accident.
“Lloyd Owens.” I say the two words slowly. He'd be thirty-five years old now, a convicted felon released on good behavior. A murderer. Slime. Pig slop. Garbage. Trash. Nothing. Lloyd Owens is nothing, and his life was forfeit the moment he murdered his baby sister, the love of my life. It belongs to her and since she's not here to take ownership of it, it is now mine. Mine.
Lloyd Owens now belongs to the monster inside of me.
“Where have you been?” Clarice asks when I come out of the bathroom. I'm not sure how long I've been in there. Ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? I have no fucking clue, but it doesn't matter. Audra has kept Lloyd occupied and right now, he seems to be embroiled in a lap dance with a stripper who looks suspiciously like Miz-E. I consider this to be a sign from, if not above, then down below. At this point in my life, even hell's blessings seem precious.
“Do you like what you see?” Audra asks, sidling over to me on the pretense of buying another round of drinks.
“H-how?” The word barely makes it past my lips. Now that I'm staring at my prey again, my body's gone to ice, frozen itself in place to keep me from ripping the skin off his bones at this exact moment in time.
“Well, it's complicated … ” Audra trails off with a sigh. “After you let that name slip, Aliyah, I did some research. It wasn't hard. A little Google search on Lucas Carter Aliyah pulled the articles up in the hundreds.”
“That explains how you knew to find him, now how you actually did.” I try not to let my voice simmer with the murderous tendencies brewing in my blood. Somehow, Audra hears them anyway. Perceptive little bitch.
“Lucas, save that for later.” Audra grabs onto my shoulder and shakes me. “Savor the moment, bite into it and let go. This is your chance to get rid of the demons.”
I tug my arm away and suck in another breath. I'm having trouble remembering to fill my lungs with the stale air of the club; they're already filled to capacity with revenge.
“Killing Lloyd won't get rid of my demons,” I tell her, watching her brows pinch together. “It wasn't the anger or the rage that made them; it was the sadness.” Loss. Pain. Loneliness. These are the real ingredients for my inner darkness. My monsters aren't actually made up of justice or vengeance or rage. That's the difference between me and Audra, Margarite Simmons, Lauren Houssard. This is why I've been able to do what I do, drain their darkness away. The devil on my shoulder is melancholy, and that can't be cured, at least not in any way I'm aware of.
I squeeze my hands into fists.
“So … you don't want to do this?” Audra asks me, as I feel some of that power draining from my skin. In a split second I go from wanting to twist Lloyd's head from his shoulder to wanting to run far, far away. Robbie's face fills my thoughts, the sound of her voice fills my ears, and the feel of her body surrounds mine, shielding me away from the rotten energy of the club, of my own revenge.
“I do,” I force myself to say as Lloyd's lap dance comes to an end. “Or rather, I have to.” I don't tell Audra, but I don't know if I could live with myself if I let the man get away.
“Okay, Lucas,” Audra says, her voice full of desperation and violence. “Okay, let's make this thing happen.”
If I didn't know any better, I might say her words were inspirational.
I move outside and bum a cigarette off a group of strippers on break. As soon as one of them offers me a blow job in the alley around back, I know that there are no cameras there. Call it a trick of the trade.
“Is that even safe?” I scoff, looking up and surveying the roofline around the club. No cameras here either. Nowadays, it's getting harder and harder to find a place without any, but I suppose if you want to attract criminals and lowlives, you have to take risks. Nobody in this crowd wants their face on camera.
“You're a man, ain't ya?” one of them asks me, and I swear to God she isn't a day over eighteen. I want to hit her across the face, knock some sense into her and tell her to run, far, far away from this miserable hell hole.
I say nothing.
“I'm a man, but it don't mean I wanna be shanked. Fucking bitch.” I snatch the stripper's lighter and fire up my borrowed cigarette, the one I have no intention of smoking. Apparently, my act is believable and the girls all giggle. I swear, they can smell money.
“It ain't a nursery back there, baby, but I'll make it worth your while. Time I'm finished with your ass, you won't care if you was shanked or robbed blind.” The blonde girl flicks my crotch and tosses a wink at the teenager. I brush them both off and disappear back inside, signaling Audra from the doorway with a smile. I wave Clarice over next and the two of us walk out arm in arm.