Free Payback by T. S. Worthington Page A

certainly a party pooper, “Arnold said. “ We will just have to hope for the best here.”
     
    When Brian got home that night and laid down he found himself unable to rest. It was almost four in the morning and he had to get up and report to the station by nine to start his regular shift, but he was wide awake. Although he was tired as hell and his legs and back both felt like he had just fallen off the side of the Sears Tower. He was always in so much pain these days. He wondered if he should go see a chiropractor or if he should follow the advice of his awesome wife and just eat better and get more exercise.
    The chief would probably understand if he didn’t make it in till a few hours after normal because of the late night they pulled, but Brian wasn’t wired that way. He couldn’t live with taking the baby way out and giving in to the sleep monster when he had responsibilities he had to live up to. He could guarantee that the chief was not even going to go home. He would possibly change his shirt with the backups that he kept in his office and he would probably brush his teeth and shave with the travel pack that he also kept. The man was a machine and that was probably why he had been chief for twenty years. He was the best and he was willing to do what most would not to make shit happen. Brian had to admit that he deeply admired the man.
    When he got home Amber was fast asleep, which was a relief because the last thing in the world that he wanted to do was discuss the new developments about the case with her. She had finally calmed down enough about it all to stop fretting and thinking every single second of every day that someone was coming to kill her. Brian had come so close so many times to divulging the fact that he had a cop stationed outside their house at all times to report any suspicious activity and to make sure that his family stayed safe during this ordeal. So far the chief had not even said anything to him about using the extra resources to accomplish this. He knew why Brian was doing this and he was perfectly fine with it all.
    Brian closed his eyes and tried to drift off to dream land and hoped that he could at least salvage a few hours of precious sleep time. It was rather unlikely with all of the thoughts that were swirling around his monstrous dome. He kept thinking about the blood sample that they had discovered. If it did turn out to be a match for someone in the data base then it was game over for this bastard. They would throw him in a cell before he had any idea what was about to hit him. It all sounded too easy and it sounded just like someone who was ready to give up on it all would be banking on. It was a coward’s way out and he was not going to think about the possibility of it anymore. It was easy to find yourself giving up on things if you did that. He wanted to remain focused on this and then he wanted to move on and put it all behind him. The whole damn police career; he was so done with it. He realized it more and more all the time. Working this case had actually taken its final toll on him. He did not want to do it anymore.
    As he lay there thinking of the way his life had started to crumble down around him, he found sleep and he slept like the dead.
     

Chapter 8: The Darkness Consumes
     
    He winced as he rolled out of bed and brushed his chest wound against the bed. After taking a copious amount of pain killers that he had stolen from a small veterinarian clinic he had finally drifted off to sleep just fine. Looking at the clock beside his bed he saw that he had slept for six straight hours.
    The chest wound was not throbbing as badly as he thought it would be. It had subsided a bit and he felt like only a small bit of that was the pain meds. He liked to think that pain did not affect him the way it did other people. It was a weak, human feeling that people allowed to govern their lives. People lived their whole lives to avoid pain of any sort and it was just a feeling. The