The air in the abandoned parking garage was thick with cold and silence, broken only by the distant hum of the city beyond. Flickering fluorescent bulbs cast pale, uneven light over cracked concrete and rusting pillars. Shadows stretched long and twisted, curling like smoke through the cavernous space.
Tires screeched into the night, the roar of the police cruiser echoed off the walls of the abandoned parking garage, as the car can be seen pulling up to a silhouette of a man, the glow of a cigarette momentarily lighting his scarred face. The man smirked, eyes cold and cruel.
Caleb's boots echoed as he exited the car stepped forward, heart pounding beneath a shell of numb rage. He found Jamal leaning casually against a graffiti-scarred pillar,
"Well, well," Jamal sneered, flicking ash onto the ground. "where's the bitch cop? You kill her?"
Caleb didn't respond. His hands clenched into fists, knuckles white beneath his worn leather gloves. The ghost that haunted him was more real than Jamal ever could be. More alive in his blood and bones.
Jamal just looked at Caleb and sucked between his teeth.
"oh well, we was gonna kill the bitch anyways" He stepped closer to Caleb.
"You listening to me?"
Caleb just glared at Jamal with cold dead eyes.
"you killed my wife and my boy..." Caleb gritted his teeth so hard you could hear them cracking. "I'm going to kill you!"
Without warning, Jamal swung a heavy crowbar, the metal whistling through the stale air. Caleb ducked, feeling the air graze his hair. The fight ignited — raw and vicious. Jamal's blows came fast and furious, but Caleb moved with a grim, desperate precision. A quick jab to the ribs, a harsh elbow to the jaw, blood spat and shot across a stone wall.
Caleb wrapped his arms around the cretins neck, picked him up into the air, and slammed Jamal into a dented car hood. The memories hit him hard — the way Isaac had fallen, helpless, broken, that night. He pushed Jamal down, forcing him into the same vulnerable position.
"You killed my son," Caleb hissed, voice low and raw. "pray to whatever god you believe in, pray that he will have some semblance of mercy on your rotten soul, because tonight…..it seems I'm running empty on mercy myself!"
From his jacket pocket, Caleb drew a knife, the same kind of cruel blade that had ended Isaac's life. The cold steel felt almost alive against his palm, slick with a thin sheen of sweat.
Jamal's eyes widened with panic. "Wait! No—don't—"
The air hung heavy with dust and the faint metallic scent of rusted steel. Flickering bulbs above cast fractured shadows, making the cracked concrete seem to pulse with menace. The cold metal bit through Caleb's jacket as he pressed Jamal's chest flat, pinning him with a weight fueled by years of grief and rage.
"This is for Isaac! This is for my wife! No more running! No more silence!"
Caleb screamed with unbridled agony.
The first thrust drove deep into Jamal's left shoulder, just above the joint, slicing through muscle and tearing fabric with a sickening rip.
Jamal gasped, a strangled sound caught between a scream and a cough, the blade twisting as Caleb forced it further, severing tendons and puncturing lung tissue. A hot, wet gush of blood erupted, pouring down Jamal's arm like molten ink, dripping onto the hood and pooling on the cracked concrete beneath.
"Feel that, Jamal? DO YOU FUCKING FEEL THIS! That's the pain you left behind!. The pain I carry every god forsaken day!"
Without pause, Caleb withdrew the blade and drove it in again — this time into Jamal's right side, just below the ribs. The sharp, wet squelch of punctured flesh filled the air as Jamal's breath hitched violently. He thrashed weakly, scraping his nails against the cold metal, but Caleb's grip was like stone, unyielding.
"You took everything from me!."
Two more stabs followed rapidly: one into the abdomen, the knife slicing through abdominal muscle and tearing into internal organs with a gruesome slurp of wet tissue. Blood spattered across Caleb's gloves and jeans, thick and dark, hot against his skin. The second struck Jamal's neck, shallow but precise, severing a major artery with a spray of arterial blood that painted the air crimson in sharp droplets.
"I'm no better than you now. But I had to do it. For Isaac. For my wife….."
Jamal's screams faltered, turning into gurgling coughs as blood flooded his throat and lungs. His eyes, wild and pleading a moment before, glazed over with the coldness of death. Caleb felt the knife vibrate in his hand, slick and heavy.
Each stab echoed like a thunderclap in the hollow garage, the metallic thud of blade meeting bone and the wet, ripping tear of flesh ringing in Caleb's ears. His breathing was ragged, mingling with Jamal's fading breath.
Finally, Caleb withdrew the blade, standing over the broken man as a heavy silence reclaimed the space — broken only by the slow drip of blood pooling beneath Jamal's lifeless form.
He noticed a single black feather, marked with the gang's cruel symbol — a vulture's talon — tucked in Jamal's jacket pocket. Caleb plucked it out, crushing it slowly in his fist.
From above, the raven watched silently, its white crescent-shaped streak glowing faintly in the dim light. Caleb felt its presence like a weight on his soul — a reminder of Isaac, and the path he was now locked onto.
He wiped his hands on his jeans, turned his back on the lifeless form, and walked back towards the cruiser.
Caleb's boots echoed against the wet asphalt as he returned to the cruiser, the adrenaline from Jamal's death still thrumming in his veins. His hands itched to wipe clean the blood slick from his gloves, but the smell of blood lingered in his nostrils, a reminder of what he had done.
He slid open the driver's side door, the engine's hum a soft accompaniment to the storm of his thoughts. Crowe.
He yanked the trunk release, expecting the cold, trapped weight of the crooked cop. Instead, it yawned open to emptiness.
"…What?" Caleb muttered, stepping closer, peering into the void.
The backseat showed signs of intrusion — the leather torn, seams sliced clean, the door slightly ajar. Her scent lingered faintly, mingling with the city rain and blood still fresh on his gloves. Crowe had vanished.
Every fiber of his body screamed, muscles taut, eyes scanning the surrounding shadows for movement. The adrenaline was no longer a buzz — it was a pulse of raw fury, a warning and a promise.
Somewhere nearby, the faintest rustle — or maybe just his own heightened senses — made him stiffen. The Raven cawed once from above, white crescent streak gleaming in the dim light, a cruel echo of Isaac's warning.
Caleb's teeth ground. Crowe had slipped through his fingers. But he was far from finished.
End of chapter 12.