Say It Ain't So (SWAT Generation 2.0 9)

“What happened?” a tall, sexy Greek god of a man asked as he barged his way inside.

Sammy’s father, Miller.

He’d been a rock for my girl over the last couple of days for sure.

“At the scene?” Sammy confirmed.

Miller nodded.

“We were traveling down the road when that asshole stepped out into the road.” Sammy’s lips tightened. “The eighteen-wheeler that was beside me swerved. I slammed on my brakes but saw what was about to happen before it happened. Speeding up, I barely managed to get in front of that truck before it fell over sideways.” He looked down at my girl in his arms. “Right on top of the car that was holding her father and sister.”

The room went utterly silent as everyone processed his words.

“After…” He shook his head, sorrow lacing his voice. “I hit another car when the truck’s tail end swung around and knocked my back end loose. I came to a while later with my truck on its side next to the eighteen-wheeler.” He looked at Patman who was sitting in the seat across from us. “And that asshole right there yanked me out of my truck and put me into the back of his. My head was all fucked up. I’m not even sure I knew what was happening. It felt like I’d gain consciousness just to lose it seconds later. I know that I was hogtied to the backseat anchors, though. Every time I tried to move, I would jar myself in surprise. Then knock myself out again due to the pain. It was only hours later that I came to enough to realize that I was handcuffed to a fuckin’ chair and Patman’s wife was giving me water trying to wake me up.”

“Patman’s wife knew that you were being held prisoner by Patman?” Luke, the sexy Viking, asked.

“Yes.” Sammy glared at Patman. “They’re both twisted fucks if you ask me.”

Patman grinned as if he didn’t care.

“Patman stepping out into the road caused all of that,” he said.

“The driver of the truck was over the legal limit,” Luke offered.

“I don’t care,” Sammy said as he looked down at Hastings who had shifted in his arms. “He stepped out, and that truck swerved hard. He wouldn’t have swerved if it wasn’t for Patman.”

All eyes turned to Patman who was now laughing.

Laughing.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I stood and walked over to the piece of trash. “You’re laughing? Eighteen people were killed because of your stupid ass.”

Patman grinned at me.

“Fuck off,” he mouthed.

I pulled back my arm and punched him.

“You fuck off,” I snarled.

When he fell over out of his chair, I reared back and kicked him with my good foot.

Right in the nads.

“Fuck you.” I punctuated that statement with one more kick.

To the throat this time.Epilogue

You ain’t shit.

-T-shirt

Sammy

Six months later

“Adrianna Aurora Baker Spurlock.”

I looked over at my girl to see what she thought of that name.

Her eyes were sparkling with tears as she said, “That sounds… perfect.”

A mouthful, but perfect.

“A beautiful name for a beautiful girl,” Suzanne said, her hands covering her face as she cried tears of joy.

Suzanne had been a rock over the last eight months.

I couldn’t have done it without her.

Understandably.

“Then you’ll be even happier to hear,” I heard my dad say as he pushed into the room, his face lit with excitement. “That Patman and his wife were sentenced to prison. Patman is getting twenty-eight years with a chance of parole at twenty. And his wife is getting fifteen, a chance of parole at eight.”

Suzanne fist-pumped.

“Yeah!” she cried. “Hopefully they’ll both die there.”

My dad chuckled, just as amused as I was to hear the fucker was going to be there for a while.

“I wish they would’ve given him the electric chair,” my mother muttered from my side as she slowly ran her fingers over my new baby girl’s cheek who was safely ensconced in my arms.

“I read some ancient capital punishment rituals,” Hastings said as she lay on her back, eyes closed, and waited as the doctor sewed her up. “I was thinking Scaphism.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask what that is,” my dad said from his spot behind the curtain so that he couldn’t see my wife’s goods.

“An ancient Persian method of execution in which the condemned was placed in between two boats, force fed a mixture of honey and milk, and left floating in a stagnant pond. The victim would then suffer from severe diarrhea, which would attract insects that would burrow, nest and feed on the victim. Where, later, the victim would die of septic shock,” the doctor who was sewing up my wife said. “Inventive. What about the pendulum?”

None of us knew what that was, so Suzanne kindly Googled it.

“A type of machine where a pendulum is actually an ax head and each time it swings, it gets closer and closer to the torso.” Suzanne’s eyes gleamed. “That’s nice. A psychological way to go. The fucker actually deserves something like that.”