The Suppressor by Erik Carter (best free novels .txt) 📗

real-life Burton stepped up to Jake, blocking his view of the video.

“Oh, so you can talk.”

For once, the creepy smile left Burton’s lips. No false pretenses now; his face was simply dark.

“New Orleans was a mistake, Pete. It’s a bad habit of yours: stealing from me. You stole in New Orleans, you stole my troops tonight, and you stole my adopted poppa before that.” He paused. And quieter he said, “This is where it ends for you. Say hi to Cecilia for me.”

He straightened up and brought the smile back, turned to his remaining men.

“Boys, our friend Pete can talk again.” He began clapping. “Come on, now. Give him a hand!”

The other men applauded. Dark eyes penetrated Jake from all sides.

“Let’s give ol’ Loudmouth an appropriate ending, shall we? We shut him up for a few hours; now let’s shut him up permanently.” He looked past Jake. “Grab his hair, Gamble.”

A tearing sensation at Jake’s scalp as his head was pulled back.

Burton stepped forward. He ran his index finger along Jake’s outstretched throat. Then he made a pair of crisscrossed swipes right in the center of Jake’s neck and looked him in the eye.

“X marks the spot.”

Burton pulled back a fist, jaw clenched, arm quivering with wound-up energy, preparing for a blow destined to do a lot of damage.

And with a blur, it was delivered.

The fist cracked into Jake’s throat.

Inconceivable pain. Tearing and crunching. The sensation of air sucking, distorting, wheezing. Scalding needles. Slicing razors. A boiling in his stomach and a blinding light in his eyes.

And a strange thought.

A notion.

One that was simple and pure.

He was going to die.

Everything went white.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

As he thought about the last moment of his previous life, Silence ran a hand along his throat, grimacing slightly with the pain.

He looked out to the street while his finger traced his Adam’s apple. The quiet neighborhood of East Hill had become slightly less quiet since he’d first sat down with Mrs. Enfield. Ahead and to the left, windows were now alight in the biggest of the houses, whose modern, squarish, geometrical design reminded Silence a bit of Burton’s beach house. More and more people were walking the sidewalk, all laughs and smiles, heading west toward downtown and the upcoming festival.

The sky had been gray all day, but as dusk approached, the waning light peeked through the gloom, just slightly, as though coaxed from its hiding by the joy percolating from the imminent festivities. The streetlights had kicked on a few minutes earlier, joining the party.

Sounds were already drifting over from several blocks away—music and whistles and horns—even though the festival’s official start time wasn’t for another hour and a half. Pensacola liked its outdoor events, and start times were more general guidelines than strict deadlines. -Ish was appropriate for most situations. 8ish. 6:30ish. Pensacola Beach was located on a barrier island, so it made sense that Pensacola proper’s leisure activities had a sense of island time.

As he watched a trio of middle-aged women pass by—dressed to the nines, chatting and laughing—he pressed slightly into his neck, tickling the pain embedded in its core.

It had been a mere instant when Burton’s fist had connected with his throat. A fraction of a moment—that’s all it takes to change things completely. Silence had always looked at life as a forward-progressing line. To change its direction, you simply place a peg in front of the line, bounce it off its previous course by a few degrees. Want to change your life again? Place another peg in your path.

But other people could lay pegs in front of your lifeline as well, zapping the control you had over your destiny. Burton had placed a large peg in front of Silence’s line and sent it careening off into a dark region of life he was never meant to explore, stripping Silence of his sovereignty.

If Silence could just go back and somehow remove that single peg, he’d have control. One minor correction—that’s all would take to set things right again.

C.C., if she were there, would smile at him serenely now, and in a mediating, non-patronizing way she would tell him that his concerns were unfounded. She would say that wishing for the ability to change the past was silly and a horrible waste of life. She would say that he had no control, that he never did. No one did. Control was not meant to be. It was not a part of destiny.

She would tell him to let go.

Life doesn’t happen to you, love. It happens for you, she had told him.

He felt something on the back of his hand. Mrs. Enfield’s dry, old fingers. She pulled his hand from his throat.

“Stop messing with it.”

How could she sense these things?

He lowered the offending hand and placed it on the soft, warm, rumbling mound draped across his right thigh. When he looked down, Baxter looked up, and the moment they made eye contact, the cat’s purring spiked.

Baxter’s eyes were squinted with contentment, and his head was tilted to the left, which was thusly the side of his face from which his ubiquitous line of drool was leaking—directly onto Silence’s thigh. A gross, wet, warm little puddle, right onto a very nice pair of charcoal wool pants with a subtle plaid texture. Versatile, comfortable. Only a week old, and already one of Silence’s go-tos.

And now, evidently, their versatility extended so far as to be a cat bib.

He rubbed Baxter’s big head. The purring spiked again.

“You’ve gone quiet on me again,” Mrs. Enfield said. “Dark quiet.” She pointed at his throat. “I’m thinking that whatever gave you your bullfrog voice is also the reason you won’t open up to me. Yes?”

Not only could Mrs. Enfield see without seeing, but she was also incredibly perceptive.

And insistent.

Silence wasn’t particularly bothered by her insistence—it came from the best possible place—but still he didn’t reply.

Mrs. Enfield nodded. “On your time, Silence. On your time.”

She turned her blind eyes slightly to the west, listened, and shook her head.

“Darn Tristán Festival. I