The Monster's Fury

CHAPTER ONE

“HUNTER!!!” Her wails pierce through the night sky.

“HUNTER!!!” I hear her screams again. The only beacon I have to finding her in this darkness. I try to call out to her but when I open my mouth nothing comes out. I run and push my way through the dark woods. I’m not sure where I’m going but I know I need to get to her. I know she needs me.

“HUNTER!!!”

‘Adrienne.’

My chest burns and my legs are shaky, but I ignore the pain. I keep trying to run towards her screams but they’re coming from different directions now.

‘Adrienne, please. I’m here. Help me find you.’ Panic surges through my body and the feeling of helplessness starts to take over.

“HUNTER!!!!”

A loud explosion goes off in the distance, followed by a ray of orange light. Gray smoke starts to fill the night. Her screams are deathly, like a knife stabbing into my heart. I run towards her– towards the explosion. Fire spread and burned the trees and grass around me. My eyes burn from all the smoke but I know I just have to push through.

‘I’m coming Adrienne. Just wait for me. Please baby, just wait a little longer.’

“HUNTER!!!”

“HUNTER!!!”

Hunter POV

“Hunter! Dude, wake up!”

“Hey! Wake up!” I jolt up, gasping for air. I swing my head left and right, checking my surroundings. Alex is standing next to my bed with a concerned look on his face.

“How the hell did you get in here?” I grunt as I wipe beads of sweat off my forehead.

“I keep telling you I have a key. Had another nightmare? And why is it so dark in here?” He starts looking around the room for the remote to open the blinds.

“It’s 3 in the afternoon, how the hell are you still sleeping? You never sleep past 8:00. You going for a new record or something?”

“Get out.” I groan. He’s only been here for two minutes and he’s already getting on my nerves.

“There it is!” He shouts, completely ignoring me. He spotted the remote on the night table next to my bed and picked it up.

“Get out.” I grunted again. The blinds slowly open letting in the burning sun. I stood up from my bed, annoyed by how happy and cheerful he always is.I walk to the bathroom and slam the door behind me, hoping that he would get the hint that I don’t want company but I know my hopes would fall on deaf ears. I turn on the hot water and peel off my sweaty t-shirt. These nightmares are going to drive me crazy. One bad one being replaced by another one that’s worse. One thing is for sure, I rather dream about me bleeding out than have to dream about Adrienne again.

I look in the mirror and stare at the reflection looking back at me. I can’t even recognize myself anymore. My hair is longer than usual and I haven’t shaved in weeks. My eyes are sunken in, most likely due to lack of sleep. My face is even thinner, but I shouldn’t be surprised being that I can’t remember the last time I had an actual meal. I roll my eyes at the man looking back at me and was relieved when the steam from the hot water started to fog the mirror. I turn away and hop in the shower, letting the water wash away my pain.

As I walk out of the bathroom the sun shining through my bedroom windows warms my skin. Alex isn’t in my room anymore but I know he's still in the house somewhere. He never listens to me when I tell him to leave. I step into the closet and freeze when I see Adrienne’s favorite white blouse hanging across from me. There’s a red stain in the middle of it from this red wine she was trying for the first time. She was always a little on the clumsy side so when she went to take a sip, the wine completely missed her entire mouth. She was so pissed about it falling on her favorite shirt so, she swore off wine forever after that. She said she was more of a whiskey and beer type of chick anyway. I chuckled at the memory as I touched the blouse’s fabric.

It’s been a month since I’ve been able to hold her in my arms, since I’ve been able to hear her voice, touch her skin, or kiss her lips. Her smell is everywhere. Memories of her are in every single room. Everything she left is in the same place--including me. It’s like I’m waiting for her to come back, even though I know she won’t. Every day the pain in my heart grows more and more. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep-- I’m f*****g suffocating. The only drive I have is to kill the coward who ripped her away from me.

I’ve never felt so much hate and anger towards one person in my life. I hate Cole with every inch of my soul. If I’m not thinking about Adrienne, I’m thinking about him. Thinking about when I’m going to kill him, how I’m going to kill him. Will I give him a quick death or will I torture him slowly? Every night since she’s been gone, I sit in this room drunk on whiskey, memories, and acts of torture.

The sound of glass shattering pulls me from my thoughts– my confirmation that Alex was still here. I grab a black T-shirt and a pair of jeans and quickly get dressed. Who knows what the hell Alex broke now. I dash out of the room and down to the kitchen to make sure I still have one.

“What are you doing?” I question as I watch Alex rummage through my fridge.

“Dude, it’s a food frenzy in here! Since when do you keep food in your fridge?” He beams with excitement as he takes out a casserole. I look down at the shattered plate that he nonchalantly walked over.

“Don’t worry about that. I’m gonna get a broom as soon as I put this bad boy in the microwave.” He must have read my mind because he took the words right out of my mouth.

“Where did you get all this food from anyway? Usually you just have beer and water.”

“I guess this is what happens when the town finds out your girlfriend died. Someone comes every few hours and drops off some casserole or some other crap that I’m eventually gonna throw away.”

“No need. I’ll take them off your hands. No problem at all.” He grins from ear to ear, excited about the goldmine of food he just stumbled into. He prances to the supply closet and pulls out the broom and dustpan.

“What are you doing here?” I cross my arms, trying to restrain myself from tripping him. His good mood was straining my last bit of patience.

“What?”

“Are we deaf today? What are you doing here?” I ask again as I walk past him and to my favorite cabinet recently. I take out a bottle of whiskey and a glass and watch as the brown liquid pours into it.

“Well no one’s seen you since the funeral. Everyone is worried. Your mom has been calling me nonstop. She said she comes by all the time but you’re never here. Where the hell have you been?”

‘I’ve been here. Ignoring her and everyone else.’ I think to myself, but I don’t respond to him. I just take a sip of my whiskey and sit at the table.

“Oh, so we’re playing the ignore Alex game again? If you haven’t noticed yet you lose every time.”

“If this is what you came here for then hurry up with your casserole–”

“Sandy found a location.” He blurts out before I could finish my sentence. My heart sank when he said those words. We’ve been to five locations after San Marino and Santa Monica. There was no sign of Cole in either of them.

“Is it legit this time?” My voice is barely audible but Alex didn’t need to hear me to know what I was saying. He rest his hand on my shoulder, giving me a small squeeze.

“I think this might be the one. After what happened last time I doubt Sandy would call us unless she was 100% sure.” I gulp down the last drops of my whiskey. If this is it then I’m ready. This is what I’ve been waiting for.

“Let’s go.” I stand up from the chair and march out the kitchen, each step more eager than the last.

“Hold up! My casserole!” Alex tries to get me to slow down but that’s not happening. I could hear him fumbling around in the cabinets and draws, probably looking for a fork to take the whole thing to go. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’ll all be gone by the time we get to Sandy’s.

****

We arrive at Sandy’s. I push through the crowd of people and head straight to her office. The last thing I want to deal with is people coming up to me, asking me questions about something they know nothing about-- or even care about for that matter. I know they just want to be nosy. What happened to Adrienne has been the talk of the town, something like this never happens here, so having nosy people in my face was inevitable.

Alex follows and closes the door behind us. He strides to her bar and takes out two shot glasses and a bottle of whiskey, just what the doctor ordered. I walk up to the bar as well and watch as the dark liquid pours into the glasses. As soon as he’s done pouring one I grab it and welcome the burn that hit my chest. Sandy walks in a few minutes later with Brody following behind her.

“No shot for me?” She questions as Brody closed the door behind them. Alex didn’t think twice before taking out another shot glass and pouring Jose Cuervo in it.

“What’s the new lead?” I ask, grabbing the shot glass and passing it to her. I want to get straight to the point, I don’t have time for chit chat. She looked at me like she wanted to throw the shot right in my face.

“Well, Hi Hunter! How are you doing? I’m doing great by the way, thanks for asking.” Her words drip with sarcasm.

“Sorry Sandy. How are you?” I open my arms to bring her into a hug. She wraps her arms around me and holds on longer than I was expecting her to but I let it be. Sandy and my mom were the only ones to make me buckle like this. They raised me, and disrespect was an automatic backhand.

“I know there’s a lot going on right now and you didn’t sign up for any of it-- especially what happened to Adrienne.” I tensed up when she said her name.

“You have to stay focused Hunter.” She continued.

“No matter what, stay focused. It’s gonna be hard without her but you have to do it. Do you understand me?” If she was talking about Cole then that’s not a problem, killing him is all I think about.

“Yes ma’am, I do.” I reply. She breaks our hug and takes the shot Alex poured for her.

“Phones.” She points at Brody who starts making his way towards us. Alex and I pull out our phones and hand them to him. He grabs them and walks outside, closing the door behind him.

“We have a location.” Sandy says, walking to her desk.

“There’s been a lot of activity there recently and more men are being stationed there as we speak.”

“Where is it?” I probe.

“Monticello.”

“f*****g Utah?!” Alex blurts out. “He went all the way to f*****g Utah!”

“Yeah, we had to do some digging to find this place. It’s his mother’s grandfather’s house. Her name was Cara, Cara Murphy.

“Why is this just popping up now?” I ask, obviously still doubtful.

“That’s because once Cara died Danny made sure she was gone for good. He switched everything over to his name– businesses, properties, bank accounts, life insurance. They were married and Cara didn’t have any other living relatives at the time so he was able to rob her blind without drawing any attention. Nobody has mentioned her or the Murphy’s at all since then. The only reason we found this is because I remembered seeing her name on some paperwork in his files when we were still together. I just never asked him about it at that time.”

“Did he kill her?” I question, realizing the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in the Sullivan family.

“In a way.” She bobs her head side to side, trying to find her next words.

“When Cara and Danny were together she got heavily into drugs. She was a junkie and she overdosed. Danny found her at the Murphy Mansion dead with a needle in her arm. They found Cole and his brother Conner tied up in the closet. Nobody has ever mentioned her name since then.” She shakes her head and from the look she’s trying to hide, I could tell this story struck a nerve.

“Cole and his brother were pretty much babies when that happened. He shouldn’t remember anything from that time. He shouldn’t even know about that house but I guess a child’s memory is better than we think.” She pauses.

“He’s been preparing for a long time, but what is he preparing for? Why take these crazy measures?” Her elbows rest on the desk and her head lowers onto her hands. She exhales and runs her fingers through her hair. I could tell her not knowing what Cole is up to is putting her on edge.

“Every one of his moves has been carefully thought out this entire time. We’re always a step behind him. It wouldn’t surprise me if this is just another trap. If Santa Monica showed us anything, it’s that Cole is f*****g ruthless ” Alex adds.

“You’re right he has been having the advantage over us, but now we have one too. He doesn’t know that I know about his mother. I came into Danny’s life years after the Murphy’s were wiped out, so we might have the element of surprise.” Sandy and Alex continue to go through different scenarios and plans to get Cole and get out with the least amount of damage as possible. I don’t care about any of that. All I want is Cole.The only thing driving me right now is the feeling I’m going to get when I take his life away with my own hands. I don’t care if a war comes out of this. In my eyes we’re already at war.

“What do you think Hunter?” Alex asks me, pulling me out of my lethal thoughts.

“I don’t care either way, just remember nobody touches Cole but me.” None of them say a word, they just look at me with pity in their eyes and it just pisses me off. If anything can make a person like me feel small, it’s f*****g pity.

“I need some air.” I voice, ending the silence that took over the room and giving me the space I need before my anger gets the best of me again. I walk out the back exit. The crisp air enters my lungs as I take a well-needed deep breath.

I feel like a kid again. Having all this anger built up inside me that just festers and doesn’t go away until I unleash it onto someone’s face. Jiu-Jitsu kept it under control. It kept me calm, focused-- disciplined. As a kid that was exactly what I needed but now it’s not working so much. Sparring, wrestling-- I would go for hours until my body couldn’t take it anymore, just trying to get some control back. Everything has been out of my control since I lost her and it’s driving me insane. I miss her-- I miss her so f*****g much.

****

Alex POV

I decide to check on Hunter. It’s been a little while since he stormed out of the office and if I know him, I know he’s probably losing his cool right now. I open the back door and see him punching the brick wall of the building. I could see the blood dripping down from his knuckles but I know he’s too far gone to notice.

“HUNTER!” I yell out trying to get his attention but it doesn’t work. I run up behind him and loop my arms through his, locking my hands on the back of his neck.

“Dude, calm down! What the hell is wrong with you?” I start losing my grip on him as he struggles against me. ‘f**k he’s strong.’

“GET OFF OF ME!” He roars as he finally forces himself out of my hold.

“Just leave me the hell alone Alex. You think I need you’re f*****g pity?!”

“What the hell are you talking about?! This isn’t pity, I’m just being your f*****g friend!” We glare at each other. My eyes scan the person in front of me who is supposed to be my best bud but instead I’m just looking at an angry shell of himself. He scoffs.

“You’re really going to sit there stoned face and lie to me? I can see it every time you look at me. I can feel that s**t emanate from every word you say to me and it drives me crazy. Just give me my f*****g space.” His eyes are on fire and his veins are popping through his arms. Anything I say to him at this point is just going to piss him off even more. He turns around and stalks off leaving drops of blood behind him.

“Fuck.” l exhale, running my hand through my hair. This is stressful. I pull my phone out of my pocket to call Rebecca, my stress relief.

“Where are you?” I asked as soon as she picked up.

“On my way home.”

“Good, wait for me there. I’m on my way.”

I run to my truck, turn it on and slam on the gas pedal. My d**k starts to throb as I think about Rebecca’s sweet ass bouncing up and down on it. I pull up to the driveway and excitement runs through me when I see Rebecca’s car is already there. I hop out the car and barge through the door.

“Rebecca!” My voice echoes through the house as I take off my jacket and let it drop to the floor. I wait for her response but there isn’t one.

“Rebecca!” I yell again as I walk down the hallway looking for her. She still didn’t respond but I could hear the water running in my bedroom shower. I open the door to my room and walk into the bathroom.

Steam from the hot water fogged the glass door but I could still see her sexy silhouette. My buddy downstairs jumps with delight. I creep further into the bathroom and strip out of my clothes. I open the glass door to the shower and watch as soap suds trickle down her back and her luscious ass. She turns her head and smiles which is my indicator that she knew I was here the whole time. She loves when I gawk over her. She loves anything that keeps my eyes on her and off of other women.

“I see someone needs some d**k relief.” Her eyes lock onto my hard c**k. She wants me just as bad as I need her. I stalk towards her while the hot water hits my skin. She bites her bottom lip and my d**k jumps in response.

I push her back up against the wall and slam my lips onto hers. I use my tongue to part her lips and let it explore every inch of her mouth. My hand tugs on her brunette hair, exposing her smooth and slender neck. My lips travel down to the crook of her neck and I gently suck and tease her sweet spot.I use my other hand and gently pinch her hard n*****s. She moans and digs her nails into my back, leaving scratch marks behind them.

“Fuck.” I hiss at the pleasurable pain. I slide my tongue down to her open n****e and lick circles around it before gently taking it between my teeth. Her body jolts from the vigorous cycle of my hand and my mouth on both her n*****s.

“Mmmm, baby.” She gasps. Her fingers lock into my hair as she pulls my head back and lowers her juicy lips to mine. As we devour each other I rest my palm against her dripping entrance. It never takes long for her body to be ready for me. This is one of the things I love about her. I stretch out my middle finger and run soft circles around her c**t. Her head dips back, as she pushes the rest of her body closer into mine.

‘f**k me.” She breathes out and I am more than happy to oblige. I wrap my arm around her ass and lift her up, using the wall as support. I use my free hand to stroke my c**k before slamming into her sweet wet p***y. She lets out a lustful whimper and wraps her legs around my waist, sending me into overdrive. Pound after pound, I let out all of my stress and frustrations the only way I know best.

Her hands wrap around my neck as she brings her body closer to mine, deepening each thrust. Her grip starts to tighten and I know she’s getting close, but it’s way too early for that.

“Don’t c*m yet.” I whisper in her ear as I start to let her go. Once her feet are stable on the shower floor I turn her around so that her front is facing the wall. I bend her over and place her hands on the wall, leaving me with the best view a man can ask for. I give her bottom a nice swift smack before I thrust deep inside her, claiming her ass.

“Oh my God, baby.” She moans as she lowers one of her hands to rub on her c**t. I thrust into her again and again until I feel both of our bodies tense up.

“s**t Alex, I’m about cum.” Her body begins to shake as her orgasm starts to take over and I wasn’t too far behind. One more thrust and we both fall into a pool of ecstasy. I bite down on her shoulder as my load pours into her. Her body continues to shake and we dare not move for a little while. Once I get my bearings I wrap her in my arms and help her stand upwards. She turns around and smiles.

“Wow, that was ummmm. Mmmm.” Not being able to form a sentence, she locks her arms around my neck and pulls me into a deep kiss.

“Guess you’ve been really stressed huh?” She asked once we came up for air.

“Yeah, you could say that.” I reply as I let her go. I dip my head back into the running water and let it run over me while my body calms down.

“Did something happen with Hunter?” She asks. I shake my head and shrug.

“I don’t know what to do. I feel like we’re losing him.” She sighs deeply.

“I can’t even imagine what he’s going through, the pain he must be feeling. If something like that happened to you I would lose it too.” I look at her and can’t help but feel the same way. I don’t know what I would do if I lost Rebecca. As much as I mess around on her, Rebecca is the only one who has my heart. A conversation I had with Adrienne plays in my head.

‘That girl loves you with every bone in her body but maybe it’s time you show her you love her too.’

I smile and bring Rebecca into my tight embrace before giving her a forehead kiss.

‘Maybe you’re right Sunshine-- maybe it is time I show her.’