Reclaim my Soul

One hundred thousand welcomes

It was dark. Jessie could tell now as she cracked open her eyes and the sunlight didn't pierce her eyes. What surprised her was the fact that she was still alive. Barely.

The tree bark on which she rested was hard and it bit into her back. She couldn't move, her legs were weak and her arms were lying limp on the root of the tree. Every part of her stung. She tried to lick her chapped lips, but her tongue was too dry. The only thing that was heightened was the metallic taste in her mouth. Blood maybe.

She felt like her flesh had been scraped clean, and what was left of her were bones.

She could feel herself slipping back to an unconscious state, hoping that she wouldn't wake up this time.

The pain on her thighs was excruciating, what was worse was how fast she was losing blood from the stab wound Logan left her.

Every part of her ached to the point of numbness. Her breathing slowed as the voices around her faded.

"Are you alive?" A voice asked. "Can you hear me?"

She cracked her eyes open again to find a guy staring down at her. She looked at him, but she wasn't sure she was seeing him. She breathed slowly out of her mouth, laying limp and ready to take the beating and assault he was bringing.

"Good, you're still alive." He said.

Jessie tried to shake her head, attempting to plead for her life like she had done all evening.

But the guy didn't hit her. Instead, he palmed the wound on her thigh, putting pressure on it, he wrapped the wound with a piece of cloth, placed a leather jacket over her shivering body and picked her up.

"I'm Nathan, don't worry, I'm just here to help. I'm going to get you out of here." He said. "Can you walk?"

Jessie whimpered as she attempted to take a step.

Nathan sighed and bent over, picking her up in his arms. "Okay. I've got you."

As he carried her away, Jessie felt his long hair brush her face. He smelled nice. That was all she noticed before she slipped back into unconsciousness.

••

Kain chewed on the conversation he'd just had with Nathan.

He didn't know what exactly he'd expected when he returned to Texas, that everything would stay the way he left it?

His own father who seemed untouchable could not even stop what came for him.

What pained him more was that he had grown so fond of that ranch before he left it behind. Then, he had expected the place to remain a safe haven of some sort, since he had trouble finding that elsewhere. The truth is that nowhere was a safe haven, demons were lurking everywhere, including the ones he brought back from combat.

If he went back to Graven, what would they say of him? He hadn't spoken with his friends in years, and last they heard of him, he was gamboling about with the Monarchs, doing their dirty jobs with them before he disappeared from the face of the earth.

His ego was too strong to let him go back and admit he had been a dickhead all along.

So he rode his bike in the other direction, back where he came.

It was dark out now, he couldn't ride all night, even if he wanted to, he would have to stop for gas at some point.

He stopped by at a fuel station and filled his tank. Glancing over to the convenience store and motel beside the station, he decided that a night or two on a warm bed would do him good. He needed a clear head to make his decision on where to go and what to do next.

As he dropped a few dollar bills on the counter, the lady stared at the bills, "Ah reckon you gonna be here a while, cause that's a lotta bills for one night."

Kain grunted in response. "Just keep an eye on my bike, would you?"

"Sure thing." She said. "Let me get Isa to show you to your door." She yelled over her shoulder for Isa. Loudly. Kain clenched his jaw.

A young lady with long, dark and wavy hair appeared from the door behind the counter. She eyed Kain and her eyes opened wide.

"Come show this fella to his room." The lady behind the counter ordered and handed her a key.

"Señor Kain?" The lady who is named Isa called. "Oh Dios, it is you." She said, her Mexican-American English too hard to miss as she came up to him.

Kain was almost sick of people talking to him like they were seeing a ghost.

"It's me, Isabella. My papa farmed the corn fields for your papa." She said with a huge smile. "Remember my papa? Matias."

Kain grunted, he knew Matias, he was a good man. But Kain didn't know he had a daughter.

"Oh it's so good you've come back." She said and led him upstairs. "Ay! It's been too bad since you left. Everything is different. Si, even my papa had to leave the farmhouse to find work elsewhere." She spoke and gesticulated so fast it made Kain's temples throb.

"You see, after Señor Elijah made Logan and his posse to start living in the farmhouse, bad things, really bad things started to happen."

Kain wanted to tell her to go away, he didn't need another person telling him this same tale.

"The worst part is that the whole town, including the sherif have turned a blind eye. They won't even punish murder anymore." She said and did the sign of the cross.

Kain gnashed his teeth and wondered why it was taking so long to get to the room. He wanted to snatch the key out of her hand and tell her off, then find the room himself.

"After my papa saw everything that happened, Logan threatened him, he nearly killed my papa, Dios mío." She said, saddened. "After everything, nothing mattered, because the whole county believed Logan and his lies."

That peaked Kain's interest. He stopped walking and turned to look at her. "What are you saying?"

"Oh Señor Kain, I can't." She said now blocking her mouth with her hands and shaking her head like she had said too much. "I swore I wouldn't talk about it again."

Kain clenched his jaw and tilted his head, he was ticked by annoyance, because the girl had spilled words like a running faucet all night, and when she finally says something Kain wants to know more about, she won't talk?

"Ah for f**k's sake, tell me!" He snapped.

She sighed and looked around like she didn't want the walls to hear what she was going to say next. "Your papa, he didn't die by overdose. Well he did, but not by his own hands." She paused and reduced her voice further. "It was Logan. He pumped him full of drugs and left him to die in the corn fields." She shook her head like she was seeing that scene happen, terror clear on her face. "My papa saw everything. He saw everything."

She ended it with another sign of the cross.

Kain was angrier now, he didn't even know how that was possible. He had been angry for years, now he boiled with rage.

He failed at resting as he laid on the motel bed, thumbing the dog tag that rested on his chest. He stared at the ceiling plotting his next move, plotting how he was going to kill Logan.

He didn't know how long he laid there visualizing the next murder he wanted to commit by choice. Truth is he hadn't truly had a goodnight's rest in a long time.

A knock on his motel door made him jump. It was two in the morning and wondered who that could be.

He grunted as he stood up and walked to the door. He didn't expect to see Isabella standing on the other side of the door, staring at him longingly.

Kain hoped she wasn't here to jabber him to death, till he saw the tray in her hand.

"Señor Kain, I um.. I'm sorry to disturb you." Her face flushed. "I didn't know if you'd eaten anything, so I brought you dinner." She thrusted the tray at him.

He stared down at it, the smell filled his nose, making his stomach rumble.

"Hm. Thanks, I could use a meal." He said and collected the tray from her. "And could you stop calling me that?"

"What?" She asked, puckering up her face. "Señor Kain?"

He looked at her with a raised brow.

"Oh, sorry. I don't know what else to call you."

"Just Kain is fine." He replied and took a bite of the food.

"It's chicken pozole. I made it myself." She said with a giddy grin.

She stayed by the door though, watching him eat as she played with her hair. He stared at her and hummed.

"I don't know, would you be needing anything else?" She asked, her face more flushed now.

Kain understood the invitation at once. He knew she wasn't just there for the meal.

He didn't remember how long it had been since he was with a woman. He had been with many women in San Angelo, but after his deployment, he was pretty occupied to even think of women.

So, he invited the Mexican beauty into his motel room and she tried to give him a good time.

He had trouble getting a good sleep and he was still half awake several hours later, the Mexican beauty passed out naked beside him. He sat up in bed and thought of his next move. He now had a better reason to go back and take Nathan up on his offer. He was going to team up with Numen and the Regal brothers, and he was going to kill Logan.