Chapter 25 #2
The statue falls from my hand and thumps against the carpet.
Slowly, I turn until I face my final foe.
As I step toward him, he straightens his back and raises his chin with a confidence that isn’t reflected in his eyes.
His face is pulled tight like he’s sucked his cheeks in.
As I look at his face, something akin to sympathy burns in my chest. He’s so young, barely into his twenties.
His glistening eyes and shaking hands tell me that he’s not a killer; not yet, anyway.
Maybe it’s good that he dies tonight, so that he’ll never end up one.
Maybe it’s a kindness that I spare him from becoming a monster like me.
His spine straightens like a steel rod as I close the distance between us, using his small body like a shield in front of a whimpering, teary-eyed Michael. Though, his build makes him a very ineffective one. His fists ball at his sides, but it doesn’t stop them from shaking.
His quivering lips open once, then twice. He swallows hard before speaking, “Who sent you?”
I look down at the pathetic mass huddled by his feet, whose eyes seem to triple in size when they meet mine. “The bitch you stole from.”
The two exchange looks with furrowed brows, but neither utter a word.
The young guard pinches his eyes shut and sighs before reaching for the gun in the back of his jeans.
His hands squeeze around it with a grip that turns his knuckles white.
The barrel shakes as he raises it toward me with quivering hands.
At the realization that the kid had a gun the entire time, my eyes roll back into my head so far that I can almost see my own brain.
The barrel hovers just inches in front of my forehead.
With one twitch, one squeeze of his finger, I’d be dead.
Staring into his wide eyes, I raise my eyebrows, daring him to shoot.
He squeezes his eyes closed and his face contorts, scrunching up in a pained expression.
“I do not have time for this shit,” I mumble on a long breath.
In a swift motion, I snatch the kid’s wrist in my hand and jerk it to the side.
His grip on the gun slackens and it drops directly into my own hand.
In a quiet room full of the dead, his gasp is loud.
It bounces off the walls, making it seem like they themselves are breathing one final breath.
Once, then twice, the gun goes off with a deafening roar.
I pinch my mouth and eyes shut as a hot spray of blood douses my face.
My eyes pan around the room where five bodies now lay sprawled out over the quickly dampening carpet.
Limbs are splayed. Heads are caved in and leaking brain matter.
It’s disgusting, honestly. The shaggy, cream-colored flooring is tie-dyed with various shades of red and brown.
My shirt is similarly patterned with warm, soggy, red splatter.
I rub my hands over my face, wiping away as much of the blood as I can before transferring it to the thighs of my jeans.
A frustrated sound rumbles in my chest as I stare at the scene around me, realizing that the amount of cleaning I need to do far surpasses what I had expected. The gunshots will likely have alerted the neighbors, so there’s no time to take this slow. The only method left is full-scale destruction.
* * *
My car rumbles. Its body rocks from side to side as the sounds of an explosion ring out through the quiet streets of Wilmington.
I watch from my rearview mirror as the little yellow house is engulfed in flames.
Maybe a little bit of red will color their beige existence.
But how else was I to get rid of the evidence other than a manufactured gas leak?
It’ll look like an unfortunate accident.
The citizens of the single-colored town will cry, impressing each other with their faux grief.
Will they give out a prize to those to bawl the hardest?
Will they award a metal to those who fall to their knees in anguish?
They’ll call it a terrible tragedy where a man and his friends perished in a horrible way. But it’ll all be bullshit.
The knotted anger squeezing my chest calms at the sight of embers shooting skyward above the house. The ash flutters back down to the ground like snowflakes. Somewhere deep inside of me, the child I used to be smiles. Let their cream-colored lives burn, he seems to say, the way they let us burn.
“Call Shawn,” I yell to the interior of my car.
I suppress a chuckle when my ever-diligent assistance picks up after the first ring.
“Hey, did you—”
I cut him off before he finishes. “Something was off about this one.”
His voice lifts an octave. “What do you mean, ‘something was off’?”
“The guy had hired protection; four bodyguards, to be exact. Shit was such a mess that I had to blow the house up.”
“Crap,” he drags the word out like he’s savoring it. “What kind of a low-level thief thinks to hire protection?”
“I don’t know, Shawn,” I hiss through gritted teeth. “Just figure out what the fuck happened here.”
I smash my knuckles into the touchscreen, abruptly ending the call.
I’ve encountered a lot of thieves in my career, but rarely ever smart ones.
There’s a nagging feeling inside me. It tightens my lungs and wraps my stomach in knots.
There’s more to this story than we know.
We’re missing something, and in this line of work, that can be a death sentence.
As I drive, my mind wanders, or maybe it goes nowhere.
I’m not really sure. Half-formed inklings seem to materialize in my head and quickly evaporate into nothing.
None solid enough to leave an imprint. I just drive.
I drive until the rain-soaked pavement of suburban streets evolves into the dark asphalt of busy highways.
I drive until the lit roads darken and the asphalt is replaced by gravel paths.
I drive until the reflection of my headlights glint off of a familiar metal mailbox on a slanted post. I drive until I find myself parked, staring at patchy wooden siding and a poorly repaired porch.
I press my fingers to the temples, massaging away the dull ache behind them.
How did I end up here, in front of her house?
Is already she so ingrained in my mind that I would find myself here instead of at my own home?
Home. The word comes to me unbidden. It screams inside of me.
It glides through my veins like water. It douses the flames of violence burning inside them. She is home.