The Wrath Walker (The Wrath Series Book 1) by Matthew Newson (moboreader txt) 📕

up door, and then went and opened the trunk of the car. That was my opportunity. I needed to get my gun and turn the tables on him. He was never that smart but leaving me alone in the car was a new level of stupid for him. I reached under my seat but felt nothing and continued to feel nothing as my hand frantically moved all around the floorboard. Frankie tapped on the window and held up my gun for me to see.

“Is this what you’re looking for, genius?” He smiled as my stomach sank to my feet.

He was smarter than I had given him credit for. He had gotten in my car and took the gun and put the gas cans in the trunk while I was in the Black Castle records room. My assumptions about his intelligence had blinded me to the danger he truly poised to me, and I was about to pay the ultimate price for it. I slowly opened the door. Musty air wrapped around me like a blanket as I stepped out of the car while he kept my own gun trained on me. I wasn’t going to beg him to let me live or to even make it quick. I knew that’s what he wanted, and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Part of me wanted him to just get it over with and put me out of my misery.

“So, what’s the plan here, Frankie?”

He pulled a pair of hand cuffs from behind his back and tossed them to me.

“You see that railing over there?”

I looked at what Frankie thought was a safety railing in the middle of the building but was in fact part of the frame that was left over from an old conveyor belt.

“Yeah, I see it.”

“Good. Now get over there, and cuff yourself to it. You’re about to have a very bad day, Brandon.”

“Why, because you’re about to cover me in gasoline and set me on fire?”

“You got it, smart guy.”

“What if I don’t want to do that?”

Frankie chuckled to himself and shook his head. “Then I will shoot you in your spine and drag your paralyzed good for nothing body over there myself and handcuff you to that rail. Make no mistake, you’re going out in a blaze of glory. I figured I’d give you some dignity by cuffing yourself to the pipe. Either way, you’re dying tonight, and no one will ever find your miserable corpse—not that anyone would mourn you anyway.”

“You’re probably right about that.” I tossed the hand cuffs in his face, but Frankie was ready for it, and delivered his knee to my stomach as I charged forward. As all the air exited my lungs, Frankie brought the butt of the gun crashing down upon the back of my head. I fell to the ground unable to breathe as the world around me came a blurred mess.

“You will never learn, will you. Here I was always told how we all needed to be careful because you were some great, smart, hotshot detective, but you’re just as dumb as the majority of the people around this city.”

He cuffed my left wrist and dragged me to the railing where he initially said to cuff myself. He locked the other cuff around the structure and walked back to the car to get the gas can. That left me on my back on the floor. My head seemed to throb in unison with each beat of my heart, and the room slowly came back into focus. Frankie quickly walked back with a large red gas can in one hand and a lighter in the other.

“Any last words before you die? Please feel free to beg for your life. I always love it when people beg for their lives while they are being cooked alive. They call out to their mothers or Jesus to save them, and you know what you and all of them have in common? Just like all of them, no one is coming to save you.” Frankie put the gas can down and unscrewed the cap while I was too dazed to respond.

“I’ve always found the begging to be rather tedious if you ask me,” said a voice behind me.

Frankie looked up in shock as he dropped the lighter, pulled the gun from his waist, and fired several rounds at the voice. Wrath sprang over the railing like a man off the blocks at the start of a race and landed in front of Frankie. He slapped the gun out of his hand and knocked him off his feet. Frankie landed hard on his back. Before he could react, Wrath landed several hard punches to Frankie’s stomach, and he looked to be in the same place I’d been a moment ago. Wrath dragged Frankie over by his arm to the rail and dropped him right next to me.

“Hello Brandon, it is good to see you again. We have so much to discuss, but before we do, may I borrow those handcuffs?”

I didn’t know what to do as Wrath politely smiled at me. I still was almost certain he was from another plane of existence. I only hoped he wasn’t going to kill me yet since he wanted to talk to me.

“Yeah, but you’ll have to check him for it, I don’t have the key.”

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” Wrath said as he winked at me. He grabbed the locked cuff on my wrist, and it immediately opened. I pulled my arm back as he secured the cuff to Frankie’s wrist so tight that Frankie cried out in pain. Wrath grabbed me by my shoulders and raised me to my feet with ease.

“Are you going to kill me now?” I asked somewhat terrified since we stood face to face at that point.

Wrath looked down and checked his watch like I’d seen him do so many times before.

“Time is very important to you isn’t it?”

“Oh yes, it is,” Wrath said with a smile. “And