Redeeming Rhys (3 page)

Gravity was the only thing that kept the lost soul on Earth and away from the helix of fire.

TWENTY DOLLARS. RHYS
only had twenty dollars left in his jeans. He didn’t have a wallet or driver’s license. That would mean being a real person. Being a real person meant being exposed. Being exposed meant being thrown into the hell he left ten years before. The longer and longer he was away from it, the more he craved the face that breathed past it to survive.

It was only a matter of time before he broke. He had shattered into billions of irreparable shards that night, he kept returning to that dismal event, filling his bleakness a little more with each immoral crime he committed. But he wasn’t sorry. He didn’t want to be absolved from
those
sins. The only kind of reparation he wished for was from her. The more and more he thought about it, the more enraged he became.

Time certainly didn’t help. Being isolated was not something that aided his mental state either. Rhys was always alone, with the exception of the times when he played God or angel. They didn’t see him in such a way. He was the silent monster that their loving parents would warn them about. One simple, solitary gaze from his icy blue eyes would stop a man’s heart. It would make an unruly woman submit under blood-curdling circumstances when all she wanted to do was cuddle a teddy bear like she was six-years-old again, but it also did something else to the women he affected. It made them dirty and shameful for feeling such lust in a situation. Yes, Rhys made them petrified, but he also made them wet and wanton through their fight.

Through his constant searching for another girl just like the one he left behind years ago, he had left a path of irreconcilable damage. The wake of heartache and lives changed,
and taken
, was immeasurable. His heart remained unchanged. The atonement and resolution he once craved as a boy was no longer present. He knew the only thing that could make it right was through the forgiving words from her.

He wouldn’t be able to stop until he got mercy from her.

Murderous ways would soon take its toll on Rhys. How melancholy and ironic to once want your soul saved only to be transformed into a void of a human. He was a shell of a man, existing on hate and needs alone. Yet, she was the only thing that kept a spark of hope alive within the sliver of heart that he had.

Rhys had tried many times, and failed miserably, to stop. He found himself in a small grocery store parking lot. The parking lot wasn’t barren and had about a half-dozen cars in it. It was half-past-eight in the evening and nearing dark, which would work out to his benefit. He had been sitting, waiting, looking for a girl that would suit his addiction. Finally, a twenty-something-year-old with curly raven hair walked out of the grocery store and across the parking lot with both hands full of bags. Completely unaware and unknowing that control was just twenty-feet away with teeth so sharp, he could and would kill. Her life was in his hands, but she didn’t know it.

Thoughts of that made Rhys smile, realizing he would not be able to control his need to take another girl that reminded him of her. No. He had to feed the hunger that grumbled deep inside. The same one that was killing him and others. If they lived, he would run. But even if he let their hearts beat, their souls would die over time. A girl cannot sustain such things and be normal the rest of her life.

She feels dirty. Worthless. Brushed by a demonic toxin that would never waiver. Rhys was near the edge of completely losing his mind. He always hung a tight balance, but as time passed, normalcy was nihility and madness enveloped him in a tight hug, making him realize that he was nothing more than a worthless little boy who had lost him mind ten years before.

Rhys gazed on, understanding now was the time when the beautification starts. He stroked his hard cock a few times beneath his dirty, torn jeans as the girl was a few feet, from what he assumed, was her car. The black sedan was parked beneath a parking lamp and was dusted with rain droplets as a result of the summer rain shower that had left the clouds an hour before. Rhys knew he had to be swift with his next movements. Knowing eyes would see his face. Peaked ears would hear her scream. He had seconds to decide how he would take her.

Oh, how incredible it was, to have her life, her destiny, her forever in his hands. He couldn’t see her face yet to decide if she was attractive or not, but it didn’t matter. Her skin was pale and she had the same kind of dark hair as
her
. He only hoped she would cry and fight like her too. Plead with him to stop and leave her untouched. Rhys smiled again. He wouldn’t do such a thing. He was a taker of decency. It was a way to show the world the product of the fuckery that he was subjected to.

He had wallowed in a sea of horrendous nightmares for the entirety of his life. While searching for her and ridding himself from the rage he was held in, it was his way of getting back at a God that didn’t show him mercy. Not once. Why show clemency to others? It wasn’t in the question or part of the life he lived.

So, Rhys started to sing a song in his head to prep himself for the game he liked to call cat and mouse. And Mr. Cat was very hungry.

One, two, Bad Boy is coming for you. Three, four, Little Girl it’s too late to lock your door. Five six, Bad Boy is about to show you sick. Seven, eight, Bad Boy is gonna filet you like steak. Nine, ten, never see Momma or Daddy again.

And like an unknowing predator eyeing its prey, Rhys opened his door and smiled at the girl when she turned her back to him to unload her groceries. All he could think was,
too bad she won’t have a last meal.

With swift and quiet steps atop the wet black pavement, Rhys walked over to the girl who was bending over to put her stipends in the back seat. He allowed a grin to splay across his stubbled and untamed face, a result of the harsh elements in which he had been living, and reached his calloused hands out to her tiny hips. Time slowed while he wished to always remember these moments, for they were the ones that reminded him that he was the taker, once again, of civility. He could fuck the world just as he had been fucked.

He took a slight breath between his full chapped lips and let his fingers grasp the girl’s hips while bringing his mouth to her ear. He squeezed harder, a nonverbal indication of the seriousness of the situation. In perfect synchrony with his movements as the humid summer breeze danced over his rigid features, Rhys brought his lips down to the girl’s ear, who was still facing away from him, to finally speak.

“Wren…” he breathed, “If you scream here, I will fucking slit your throat and kill you.”

“I am not Wr-,” the girl tried to whisper between quiet sobs while her small frame trembled beneath his touch.

Rhys’ right hand let go of her hip and danced up her spine until it was tangled in her long, black locks. He pulled on them slightly, until the girl stood erect, showing him her watering eyes and reddened face. Rhys cocked his head to the side to study her features, less impressed with her looks. Her pixie-like nose was crooked and her eyes were a little too close together. Her lips were thin and her jaw was wide, but he didn’t care. She had the pale skin and dark hair. His mind was the master of pretending, however, it was just a matter of time before it wasn’t enough for him.

Rhys let go of her locks and held onto both hips again, pulling her into him until her panted breaths where mere inches from his needy ones, a cathartic twinkling.

“Oh, my darling. But you will be my Wren now and you will like it,” he paused, basking in the fear that was radiating from the girl. He couldn’t help but notice the shade of her trembling lips, how they would match the color of her blood. Red. Cherry-red and delightful on his tongue. Cleansing him of his sins as he drank her in. She was shaking and crying, Rhys tightened his grasp, “Now, you will kiss me, so the people who will soon come out of the store will assume we are lovers.”

Rhys was a rough looking man, but the words that danced from his tongue were like a terrifying lullaby that you never wished to hear. The girl’s eyes grew wider and she pursed her lips. Rhys almost wished for a fight, but he was certain it was not the right time or place for it. He would try for it later. His erection pressed harder in his dirty jeans as he thought about all the wicked things he wanted to do to her.

“Now, Wren. Or I will pull the knife from my pocket and skin you like a dirty fucking kitty,” Rhys seethed so calmly.

His hand danced up her curves, which again, he was less than pleased with, until it made its way up to her cheek. He gently cupped it and brought her face towards his, while she resisted at first, because girls like her usually do. He took her soft body into his hard one, pushing his erection further into her as his rough lips collided with hers. Thoughts overtook his mind, wiping it clean from the girl he was soon to take and replacing it with Wren, the one he wanted to kill, but didn’t. He let her live because she had a reason to and he was given a reason from God not to kill her.

Oh, how lovely those thoughts were for Rhys. It was hard for him to withhold the urge to strip the girl bare and fuck her into tomorrow on the black asphalt parking lot ground, hilting into her until her skin was peeled raw from her body and bleeding from his abuse, but he knew better. Over time, he had rehearsed his needs so he could go unnoticed and on the run. But again, this would soon not be enough. He knew he had to find her again and there was only one person that knew where she was. He would do anything to get answers from him too.

Thinking of that made him feral, turning from a man who could keep it together to a demon. He forced the girl’s mouth open, hungry for more, sweeping his tongue alongside hers as her tears stained his stubbled cheeks, marking him with her pleas for mercy. Her tiny breasts were hard-pressed against his chest and he knew he had to take her and get the fuck out of there before he did something that others would see as bad.

He parted his lips from hers, understanding that he needed to kill two birds with one stone.

“Grab your purse, Wren. Then you are coming with me. I promise not to hurt you… much.”

Then he smiled again, realizing all the wicked things he planned to do to her. But first, he needed money and she would be the one to give it to him.

The dark, fallen angel faced his destruction, stripping the remnants of his wings free. Hell didn’t have anything on him. May the angels have mercy on those that he pursued atonement with…

RHYS WENT FROM
ATM to ATM until the girl withdrew the max amount of her funds. He was extremely disappointed, knowing that he had several hundred miles to get to Kentucky, and to the man that held the answers that he sought. But he had to start somewhere. Three-hundred-fifty dollars wasn’t bad. He was grateful he only had to slap her around a few times to shut her up, her sobs to let her go were nothing more than an annoyance, setting off a nervous tick. The silly girl didn’t understand that her begs only intensified his guttural need; flashing Rhys back to the day where everything changed for him.

Snow white skin. Black hair. Pert breasts heaving up and down and a whispered cry that made his cock strain still. ‘
Please, Rhys. Please.’
Wren begged. Her voice haunted him like a glorious melody on repeat, tantalizing him with the tragedy and horror that ensued all at his fourteen-year-old hands. Now, at twenty-four, he was capable of so much more.

Oh, sweet Wren. Where are you hiding, and won’t you come out and play?

Rhys cracked his neck from side to side, heavy breathing from the small-framed girl sitting next to him setting fire to his soul. It was hungry. Hungry for death. Hungry for salvation. Hungry for forgiveness, yet he remained lost, even more deserted than where he was ten years before. He often wished he could throw himself into hell, to mettle away into insignificant ashes and plant away in places that didn’t matter. He could leave this Earth in hell, but his soul wouldn’t let him. It was attached by a primal need, deeper than blood or any religion. It was like it was deep-seeded in his fucked up mind, he had to see her. He needed her forgiveness. Was it love? Did he need her love? No, Rhys didn’t believe in love. He only believed in hate, hell, and despair. He wasn’t sure what Wren was, but he didn’t think it was love. Men like Rhys weren’t proficient in sentimentalities that didn’t require rage or passion.

Rhys had to have absolution from her. He was willing to go through an army of men to find her too, even the man he once sought penance from. The hand of God. The servant of faith and goodness, he would break down the walls and crucify whoever to get to
her.

“Please…” the girl he took begged once more.

He turned sharply into the run-down motel he was seeking solace in off Interstate 40, pulling into a parking space separated by crooked cinderblocks. Nothing lit the vast sky except the illumination of the fluttering neon lights that read Riverview Inn. The sky was covered by scattered clouds, a reminder of the storm that passed by, leaving puddles in the pot-holes that littered the dirty parking lot. There was only one other car parked there, but it was an older model with a flat front tire, and Rhys felt comforted by that, thinking that it had been there for some time. The young girl shook in fear, unknowing, and regret.