[indent][color=Orange]I still remember the first time I saw a dead body. I don't think I'll ever forget it. We had just pulled the carnival into some bum-fuck nowhere town, I don't recall where it was even. But while we were pitching the tents and raising the jenny, they found him. In the grove of Walnut Trees. He had no ID, no possessions and he looked like a hobo. People figured he had taken the train, hopped off and come down here to lay down away from the heat - and never woke up.[/color] 


[color=Orange]We should have called the cops, I know. But that would not have been good for business, so my dad and Crash dragged him off and buried him somewhere off camp. I remember trying to stare into his eyes, desperately searching for a glimpse of the afterlife in his dead eyes. But all I found was just a hunk of dead meat.  I'd have to find my answers elsewhere.[/color]

[color=Orange]Even now... All these years later, I still find myself searching for answers when it comes to heaven and hell. Still gazing into the eyes of the dead.
The only difference these days...[/color][/indent]


[Center]
[color=Orange][b]"The dead sometimes gaze back"[/b][/color]
 
[img]https://i.imgur.com/JjgOu9V.png[/img]
One Last Ride Pt. II

[/center]

[indent]
The scrapyard was back alive after Johnny's attics. Reyes had sent his guards away and was talking everything over with Johnny. Robert knew that Johnny was once the Ghost Rider, a duty he didn't envy the biker. But Robert also had his own issues to take care off, most of them of the supernatural kind. He couldn't just sent Johnny on his way, he had to make a deal with the rider. He would know how poorly Johnny feels about deals, they've left a sour taste in his mouth in the past. Usually of brimstone and sulfur. Reyes poured Johnny another bottle of his scotch, Johnny grimaced at the expensive stuff but he drank it either way quite happily.

[color=Orange]"I always did prefer Jack Daniels to this fancy stuff."[/color]
"And that's why you're a waste of a man, Johnny Blaze." Reyes told him with a smile and Johnny smirked, swirling the whiskey in the glass.
"Not a lot of guys come back from the dead, man. I saw you, your head was blown open, you were dead as sin, my friend." And Johnny scoffed and thought back to the moment when Zarathos and left him and possessed the Accountant and pulled the trigger on the revolver, killing Mr. Blaze. How Johnny's brain had splattered on the back of the limo and how the people outside of the car had been screaming in horror as Zarathos erupted in flames and vanished. 
Johnny couldn't remembered what happened afterwards, as he woke up in hell being gnawed on by imps.
[color=Orange]"Yeah. But I crawled my way out of that pit. With purpose, too."[/color] 
Johnny began, he didn't much care to explain himself or his mission to Reyes, Reyes probably didn't care either way. Reyes was after all just a man of business and far more interested in Johnny helping him out.

"You want your bike, huh? We tried to put it to use after you died. But it wouldn't start. I think you rode it too hard." and Johnny chuckled.
[color=Orange]"It takes a special blend, I told you that."[/color] Reyes smiled
"O' Yeah. It did, I remember. What was it, sugar, spice and everything nice?"

[color=Orange]"Brimstone, tears of the damned and the anguish of mortal souls. Makes a hellfire mix of gasoline."[/color] Reyes shrugged off the rider, and continued, he could tell that Johnny was losing his patience and given how they were still picking up teeth after Johnny's entrance earlier, he didn't want to test him.

"We buried your bike. We figured if we didn't some evil son of a bitch would come asking for it." Johnny's eyes lit up 
[color=Orange]"Where?"[/color] Reyes had a sly smile on his face.
"Not so fast Johnny. First I need you to do something for me. I have a traitor in my midst. I already found the rat, he's chained up in the basement. But he's refusing to talk. This puta stole from me, and worse he used my smuggling connections to traffic people. Children!" Johnny shook his head.
[color=Orange]"And how am I gonna help? Don't you have big strong bikers who can hook him up to car batteries and twist his nipples into submission?"[/color] Reyes frowned and shook his head.
"It won't work. Carlos doesn't break. I need you to use your mojo on him. Pull that fear of god-shit on him." 

Johnny shook his head in defeat. If he was gonna find his bike, he would have to play along, after all.


[center]***[/center] 

They walked down into the small basement where Carlos was chained up, he was beaten and bloodied, cuts and bruises on him. He was barefoot with his feet in a metal bucket with ice water in it. On the floor was a car battery. It was a biker blacksite in all it's glory and Johnny felt his stomach turn. But it wasn't from disgust.

It was something far worse.

"Carlos!" Reyes shouted, slapping Carlos who woke up, pulling off the bag from his head. "This is your last chance to come clean. Where is my product?!" He shouted, eyeing Johnny, backhanding Carlos "And the kids!" 

Carlos's voice was shaky from the pain and torture, but yet cool and composed. He wasn't scared. 
"Screw you." He told Reyes, awaiting Robert's raised hand to come down on his face, but Johnny stopped the hand. 
"This here is Johnny. He's an old friend. And a... Specialist. You best be talking before he gets all hot in here."

Johnny nodded for Reyes and the other goons to leave the room, they did so promptly. 

[color=Orange]"Y'know. Reyes thinks I can do something to you. Something truly terrible. He wants me to show you all of your sins, to judge your soul and let you see damnation for yourself. It's very old-testament. The burning head also doesn't hurt the freak-factor of it all."[/color] He pulled the table closer to Carlos and pulled up a chair on the other side of the table, from his side pocket, he got out a shotgun shell and a pack of cigarettes. 
[color=Orange]"But I can't do that. Not anymore. I can't show you eternal torture and damn you to it if you are judged poorly. Besides, you're a modern man. You probably don't even believe hell is real."[/color] The man who smelled of smoke and brimstone smiled, he popped the cap of the shotgun shell, revealing the gunpowder inside, Carlos's eyes got wider.
"W-What the hell are you doing?!" He asked and Johnny simply gripped his hand tightly, and poured the gunpowder onto his hand. 
[color=Orange]"I can't show you hell. But I can bring you a piece of it."[/color] He promised, lighting the cigarette in his mouth with the lighter with one hand, the other holding Carlos's hand firmly in place. The gunpowder began smouldering on his skin, red tremors running up his veins from his hand up his arm, into his chest and his eyes. He groaned in pain and within seconds, the groan turned into a cry, a howl.
[color=Orange]"Tell me where the kids are you greedy son of a bitch!"[/color] Johnny shouted, and Carlos cried in pain.
[color=Orange]"Tell me and I stop the burning!"[/color] the rider promised and Carlos cried out again
"T-Third And Oaks. They're in a warehouse... If they're still there. Please!" Carlos wept as his body - his very soul, was being charred.
[color=Orange]"Who put you up to it?"[/color] Johnny asked, and Carlos cried 
"A guy with the Mexican cartel... They called him Pride or something, he was scary as hell! Shit, please, stop this!" Carlos cried and Johnny, upon realizing he meant [i]the[/i] Pride, knew what had to be done. He was about to get out of his seat as Carlos cried for him to help him, Johnny shook his head, taking the cigarette from out of his mouth and putting it out on Carlos's hand, igniting the gunpowder, engulfing Carlos in hellfire and within seconds, burning him to bones. Johnny left the room, walking back out to Reyes

[color=Orange]"The product is on Third and Oaks, the kids maybe, too. Now where the fuck is my bike, Reyes?!"[/color]
Reyes, shocked to see the man cremated in his basement, stammered for a second.
"We... We buried the bike next to your dad. It only felt fitting."

Johnny walked up the stairs, on the way, he swiped the keys to Reyes grey 1971 Challenger, he wasn't gonna walk all the way to Seatle. 
But once he had his wheels, he'd hunt down pride. And after him, he'd take down the rest of the seven.

[center][color=Orange][b]Vengeance shall be served.[/b][/color][/center]
[/indent]