Epilogue #3
“You could go back to your previous name, too, if you wanted. Oliver Moss.” My words steal his focus. He is looking at me, yet his eyes fog, as if he is actually looking through me as his birth name leaves my lips.
“Oliver Moss,” he tries out the name on his tongue as he wraps his bloody wire saw.
“But I met you when I was Elliot. I wouldn’t have met you had I not become Elliot.”
“We could meet again,” I mutter.
“I’m Elliot,” he says, shaking his head, focusing on me, my eyes, to tell him what he needs to hear.
“You’re Elliot, Handsome,” I confirm, seeing confidence fill his eyes, his posture. He smiles. It’s a soft, kind hearted smile, despite the blood dotting his face.
“You are Elliot Moss.”
“Let’s get married.”
“Let’s get married.” I yelp with joy as Elliot drops his weapon on the table and wraps his arms around me. His arms snake under my armpits, lifting my head to his as he rests his forehead on mine, his hands in my hair, and I reach up to kiss his lips as he laughs into my mouth.
“Yes, Little Crane. Yes.”
He doesn’t let go of me. My handsome, soon-to-be husband doesn’t let me down, and I hold his face in my hands. His soft, beautiful, handsome face.
“As my wedding gift, could you clean this up for me?” I ask, pecking his lips as I slip out of his arms. “It’s a real mess we have here.”
“Then you can’t turn it in to the Society, Little Crane,” he says, laughing as he picks up Mr. Bensen’s head by his hair. That’s one of the rules, the kills you turn in have to be fully completed by you, including the clean up.
Finally done with the night, I turn on my heel, a smile I can’t control on my lips. I stand behind a tired Mrs. Bensen and yank her head back by her hair and stare into her eyes as I plunge the syringe of foxglove into her neck. She blinks for the last time as she slumps over, dead.
“I’m not the one who still needs their six kills this year, handsome,” I say. I grab some blood slides to record these kills. Elliot always gives me the kills. We do them together now—it’s much more fun that way—but he always lets me take the credit, like a true gentleman.
Getting a drop of blood from each of them on separate slides, I package them up for a courier of the Society to pick up.
“We have a hit for Society in the morning.” I hear him sigh as puts the decapitated head into a black trash bag.
The Society is what it’s always been: an organization of hired hitmen. When people with too much money need someone killed, they call us, except it’s not no questions asked anymore.
Our clients are fully vetted. We make sure there are no ties to the trafficking ring, or the selling of skin, and if there is, they become our targets.
Our clients haven’t quite caught on to that notion, but they will soon.
“Fuck,” Elliot mutters as he starts cleaning up our kills tonight. “You know what, Top Dogs will do it.”
“No, we said that last time,” I say, sliding onto my workbench stool. “You didn’t want to leave bed, remember?”
“No, I didn’t want to leave you.” I laugh as I prepare a potted plant for the Bensens’ home. I leave Angel trumpets in our targets’ homes, normally in place of their “trophies”.
One thing about killers is, we all have our tells, our trophies. My prize is not just the kill, it’s also getting to leave poisonous flowers in their backyards.
“We’ll go together,” Elliot says. My head snaps to him, and I scrunch my eyebrows.
“Why do I have to go?” Tomorrow’s job follows two businesses in the car industries who are tired of competing. One company hired us to take out the CEO of the other. I don’t like going on kills based on cash. It’s pretty boring.
It doesn’t bother me morally as much as it should, but I’m coming to the realization that is just who I am. I’d rather stay home than kill based on who pays us the most.
I’d rather be home.
Our home.
“No, Elliot,” I plead, as I clean up the excess dirt around the pot.
“We’re to be husband and wife. We stick together, Little Crane,” he says, warming my beating heart with our new titles. In a world where legality is largely dismissed, having legally binding titles is just another way I can tie Elliot to me, and I love it.
“But you’re the face of the division."
“So are you,” he argues, wiping down my tea table. Dragging the table back, Mrs. Bensen’s body falls to the ground with a thump.
“Oh, I forgot about that,” I mumble. I forgot He and Enyo roped me into running the division with them.
Enyo is lead, as the Owner, but we are his right and left hands.
It’s the last thing I ever want to do, but…
but I like training the girls, the girls like me.
That’s the only upside, besides seeing Elliot at work. Oh, how I love seeing Elliot at work.
“I’m always better when I’m with you,” he says, his bloody hands trapping me against my workbench as I turn to face him.
“I do love a good show,” I say, leaning forward to kiss his neck. His skin is smooth under my lips, and I let my teeth nibble his skin.
“Kiss me,” he mumbles, capturing my lips against his. “Kiss me again.”
“I’ll kiss you for an entirety, handsome. Always.”