Unattainable by Madeline Sheehan Read Free Book Online Page A

people die. Homeless people succumbing to the
weather, gunshot victims, drug users OD’ing.
    But this was the first time he’d seen a
man kill another man…using his own two hands. Deuce first beat the
asshole half to death, then snapped his neck.
    If Dirty could have, he would have run
from Deuce. Compared to him, tall but scrawny, Deuce was the size
of a fucking superhero. But after Deuce had pulled the guy off him,
all he’d been able to manage was a halfhearted slump to the ground.
Where he stayed until Deuce had walked over to him, yanked his
pants up, lifted him up and over his shoulder, and headed back down
the alleyway during which Dirty passed out from either blood loss
or fear, or quite possibly both.
    The rest was fucking history. Barely.
If one could call his life “history.” The first half of it was more
like a series of unlucky events all piled on top of one another,
and the second half was just a struggle.
    Every day he struggled. He struggled
with remembering, he struggled with forgetting, he struggled with
all the fucked-up, perverted bullshit that went round and round his
head, knowing that he shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts, knowing
those thoughts weren’t his own but instead the thoughts of the
motherfuckers who’d made him this way, but also helpless to turn
them off…helpless to stop…to stop what he did to make the images,
the whispers, the ugly, depraved urges that caused him to do ugly,
depraved things…JUST FUCKING STOP.
    Once again in town, Dirty pulled off to
the side of the road and cut his engine. Toeing his kickstand down,
he swung his leg over his bike and stood up straight. While looking
around the dark and quiet street he lived on, he reached into his
cut and pulled out his smokes.
    Miles City had been perfect. The polar
opposite of New York City and all the nightmares that place held
inside of it. He could breathe here most of the time, and ride for
hours, just him and the road.
    A shrill, terror-filled scream followed
by the distinctive thump/slap of fist meeting flesh broke the
small-town silence, tearing through the empty streets, emptying
into the surrounding mountains, and Dirty felt his skin pebble with
goose bumps.
    Another scream, this one garbled, more
choked than the first, then another pounding of flesh, and
then…silence.
    Dirty had a well-practiced poker face.
Aside from Deuce, no one, not one motherfucker out there, could see
through his bullshit. He could throw down with the best of his
brothers, beat a motherfucker senseless, kill him without a second
thought, his stare as coldhearted as the rest. He’d done deplorable
things to a shit ton of people, men and women alike, and never once
did he so much as bat a fucking eyelash at his actions.
    Until he was alone. Because when he was
alone he could shake, he could tremble, he could scream and yell,
he could punch the walls, he could punch himself.
    Alone, he could cry. Alone, he could
let the fear out and, Jesus fuck, there was so much fear. He lived
and breathed fear…every day, every night, all the motherfucking
time.
    It was fear ruling him that had made
him what he’d become. That had turned him into the sort of monster
he’d most hated. And it was all that fear inside of him, coursing
through his veins, pounding in his heart, making him sweat even
more fear.
    It was fear that had him tossing his
cigarette aside, fear that had him running down the desolate
sidewalk, fear that had him turning down a dimly lit alleyway. It
was fear that had him skidding to a stop, taking in the scene in
front of him.
    And it was fear that had him pulling
his piece and, with shaking hands, trying to blow a hole straight
through someone else’s nightmare, a nightmare that was a fuck of a
lot similar to one of his own.
    The bullet cracked through the air.
Missing his target, Dirty tried again, only this time the asshole
had been alerted to his presence and was on his feet, pulling up
his pants as he ran in the opposite