Chapter 14
Quill
Sixteen years old
“Destroy. Obey. Kill.”
The words, repeated over and over by a classroom of teenage boys, are suddenly interrupted by the chirping of a kid whose voice hasn’t dropped yet.
“Uhm, excuse me? What’s the difference between destroy and kill?”
I exchange an amused glance with Dane and Liam. I have a feeling the kid who asked that question isn’t going to last long.
Sure enough, two soldiers immediately approach the squeaky-voiced kid, and one of them tasers him while the other one drags him out before the initiate even has time to realize what’s happened.
“A Devil soldier doesn’t ask questions. He obeys,” thunders Tragen. He’s the commanding officer of my unit, and he looks the part, with his firm features, his carefully trimmed moustache and explosive voice.
I repress a yawn. We’ve been standing at attention for the past three hours, and as always, I’m cursing Dad and his obsession with having me become a Devil soldier.
Okay, this will make me a lot of money. Okay, this will give me a lot of power. But do I really need to stay standing for three hours straight in the blistering sun?
I could be in a swimming pool right now. I wish I were in a fucking swimming pool. That’s what the other kids my age are doing, instead of standing around while an officer drones on about obedience and death.
Isn’t sixteen years old a little young to decide what you want to do with your life?
Though I guess Dad decided it for me before I was even out of the womb.
Whatever. There’s no going back now. That was made very clear when I signed up. Sign your life away on the dotted line.
It might be a relief when I’m an actual Devil soldier, so I can channel my urge to kill the insect into killing actual bad guys, or good guys, or whoever it is we’ll be killing as soldiers.
But I still have more than one year of boring drills to look forward to before I graduate from being an initiate to being a soldier.
Luckily, I made two friends at the start of the initiation, which has made things a little more tolerable.
“Brother soldiers. Bound by blood and honor. To betray a fellow soldier is to betray myself. To kill a fellow soldier is to kill myself. To love a fellow soldier is to love myself.”
I’m not the only bored one as we intone the words, repeating them over and over again until it feels like they’ve lost all meaning.
Dane makes a face back at me from the row in front, and I bite down on a smirk. It’s nice to have friends. I’ve never had any before.
Kids were usually put off by my swearing, and maybe I was a little quick to throw punches. Apparently, it’s not normal to beat the shit out of your classmates when you’re in kindergarten.
I can’t count the number of parent-teacher conferences Dad’s had to go to over the years.
And each time, he’d come home and tell me how proud he was of me for knowing how to throw a solid punch.
Then he’d beat the shit out of me. Apparently because I was supposed to learn about consequences, or whatever.
I don’t understand Dad’s version of consequences half of the time, and I’ve stopped trying. I’ve gotten kind of immune to the beatings anyway, and I guess that’s good because I have a feeling I’ve got a lot of beatings to look forward to in the near future.
The loud squeaks of the baby-voiced initiate, blending in with the pummeling of fists in the room next door, proves that.
__
At long last the day’s initiation is over, and I head out with Dane and Liam. We decide to stop by a pizzeria on the way home, and we each order a large pie. Standing around in the blistering sun works up quite an appetite.
“Fuck. Me,” groans Dane as he shovels an entire slice into his mouth. “That was the longest day in the world. I wish I could go back to the moment I signed my name on that line, and fucking not sign it.”
“I didn’t really have a choice,” shrugs Liam. “Dad would’ve killed me.”
I nod in agreement with Liam. Same. I don’t even want to know how Dad would have reacted had I refused.
“I mean, standing still on your feet for a whole day sucks,” says Liam, chewing on his pepperoni pizza. “But you know what’s ten times worse?”
“Killing people?” I guess, trying to contort my face into an expression that would make those words believable.
I fucking can’t wait to put a bullet in someone’s brain. Someone who isn’t the insect.
The urge is still there, strong as ever, and sometimes it takes every inch of my willpower not to act on it.
I clench my jaw as Liam snorts. “Hell no. I’m looking forward to that.”
Is it my imagination or does he do the exact opposite as me? Force an expression to show he wants to be a killer?
“What then?” says Dane impatiently.
“It’s having to risk running into our dads for the rest of our lives at work.”
Dane guffaws and even I find myself chuckling. Making these friends has started to open me up just a bit.
No. Not friends. Brothers. Blood brothers.
A surge of warmth enters my heart as for the first time, the words we’ve repeated endlessly at the initiation take on their full meaning.
“To be fair,” says Dane, “every soldier has the same problem. Only the sons of Devil employees can hope to become Devil soldiers.”
“Yeah.” Liam tears off another piece of pizza. “Guess they don’t want the plebs knowing what they’re up to.”
“Well, two years down,” sighs Dane. “One year to go.”
All three of us groan loudly as we finish off the pizza and pay. Then we go back outside and rev up our bikes.
“My house,” yells Dane, and soon we’re speeding down the Astley roads, our engines so loud it feels like they can be heard in a ten mile radius.
There’s nothing like the feeling of whipping down the highway, the wind in my hair, dressed all in black with my hoodie and the distressed leather jacket over it making me sweat in the late May weather, with two friends.
I used to scoff at people who walked around in cliques, but that’s because I wasn’t in them.
Now I am, and there’s nothing like the feel of belonging.
It takes the edge off my hunger.
I could never quite figure out what that hunger was all about, I just knew the only way to satiate it for good was to kill the insect.
Which isn’t possible, because I’m not a monster. I don’t think.
I know we’re going to be killing people as soldiers, but that’s different. The people who will meet their deaths at our hands will deserve it. They’ll have gone against Devil. Their death will serve some greater purpose.
What the fuck would the insect’s death ever accomplish, other than removing an annoyingly cheerful voice from the face of this Earth?
We stop in front of Dane’s place, park our bikes and head into his garage. We topple over into worn-down leather couches and he grabs a few beers from the garage freezer. Meanwhile, Liam is stuffing a bong with weed and then lighting it.
“Gotta get this out of our system, man,” he drawls as he takes a puff. “Next year they’re starting the drug tests.”
“Fucking soldiers,” coughs out Dane, taking the bong from Liam. “Why are we doing this to ourselves?”
“To kill people,” I say, remembering Liam’s reaction earlier.
But now, he chokes on the bong as Dane passes it back to him. “Jeez, man. Why do you always sound like a fucking serial killer?”
I shrug. I guess they can tell something’s off about me. Most people can tell, but unlike most people, Liam and Dane don’t seem scared. They were intrigued at first, and now, they’re just loyal.
I don’t speak much, and I’m happy to go along with them most of the time, but somehow, whenever there’s a big decision to be made, they wait for me to make it.
Maybe the fact that we’re all training to be killing machines has made them realize it would be a smart thing to stick with a guy who looks like he was born to be one.
For them, Devil Camp can be hard. Spending a day droning boring platitudes is one thing. Gutting pigs and firing at mannequins that look eerily like people is another.
For me, it’s all the same though.
Boring as fuck.
I can’t wait till we get to the actual killing phase. One more year.
At the beginning of senior year, we’ll get our first contract, and Liam and Dane have been getting positively clingy with me. I guess they’re hoping I’ll do the hard work.
I accept the bong and take a long drag. Until I’m killing people who aren’t the insect, weed is as good a way as any to take the edge off my urge.
Ever since we started the same high school and I realized just how close I was to killing her, I’ve found a whole lot of ways of dealing with the desire to strangle her to death.
Pot. Beer. Speeding on my motorcycle on the highway. Hurting her.
Every time I see her stupid bug-eye glasses fog up and her large greenish eyes sparkle from some new asshole thing I’ve done to her, it makes me want to stomp out her life with my boot just a bit less.
I found that out the first time I stuck her head in the toilet. Fuck, it felt good. She started to cry, and weirdly, it kind of made me hard.
That was a first, too. I used to just hate her guts to the point of murder. But now, when I make her cry, or see her get all splotchy-red from anger, or realize how helpless she is to defend herself from me… I start to imagine sinking my cock in her while I strangle her.
I’ve never admitted the killing urge to anyone, and I will sure as fuck never confess to this new, weird version of that urge.
Still, the more I bully her, the less I want to kill her, and the more I just want to fuck her. Which I guess is less horrible than the old version, but still, both feel pretty repulsive to me.
I really fucking wish we didn’t go to the same high school. I’m already steeling myself, wondering how the fuck I’m going to keep myself from either killing her or stuffing her with my cock tomorrow. Or both.
Every day’s a fucking battle, and it drives me mad.
I tune back into the conversation just as Liam says, “So what’re you going to do to her tomorrow?”
“Huh?”
I blink as he takes the bong from me. “To the insect,” he clarifies, using the nickname only I’m allowed to use. “It was pretty epic when you smacked her ass in class yesterday, for telling you to go screw yourself. You should’ve done it bare-bottom, though.”
I glared at him the minute he called her insect, but he didn’t notice. Nor does he take in my murderous expression now. But Dane does, and he looks more than a little unsettled.
Realizing how my face must be looking, I hide it by way of a swig of beer and a shrug.
He’s still completely oblivious to my reaction as he continues, “But it’s all getting a bit repetitive, don’t ya think?
She barely has an ass to speak of. And I feel like you’ve made fun of her in every way possible already.
You should find some new ways to bully her.
Get a little creative, man. You’re a Devil soldier. On top of the world!”
I don’t answer, focusing on drowning the rest of my beer. My hands are shaking, but I don’t want to fuck this up.
I have friends. I never had friends before high school, because you don’t usually make friends with people you’ve beaten to a pulp.
I told myself I would not beat either Dane or Liam up.
I was actually succeeding at it. For almost two full years, I have not stuck my fist into either one of their faces.
So why is Liam making it so damn hard right now?
“Shut up, Liam,” hisses Dane.
“Why? You’re not in love with her, are you?” Liam snorts, taking another puff of the bong. “This isn’t the kind of thing where you’re secretly in love with the girl you’re bullying?”
“Shut up, Liam,” says Dane again, louder.
My hand is shaking so hard around my beer bottle I have to squeeze it to keep from dropping it.
“What?” says Liam. “I didn’t say anything. Did I, Quill? If you’re running short on ideas, I could help you out. I’d just love to bully Piper Day. Bet she’d look good with a cock in her mouth—”
The beer bottle explodes in my fist, and all three of us stare down at the bloody shards for a beat. Then I stand up so abruptly my chair falls back, and I walk outside.
I don’t know how I managed it. How I managed not to throw a punch.
Probably because I realized that if I threw one, I’d throw another. And another. I’d never stop.
It’s not that I care about killing Liam, because for all the happiness I thought I derived from feeling like he was my friend, my brother even, the minute the insect’s name was on his tongue, he was dead to me. And so was Dane, for being in the same vicinity at that moment.
Still, actually killing either of them would be a huge inconvenience.
There would probably be legal ramifications and maybe I’d even go to jail.
Dad would beat the fucking shit out of me, that’s for sure.
I’d lose my place in Devil Army, and that would suck, because where else would I be able to kill people without getting in trouble over it?
But Devil only allows you to kill the people they’ve selected. If you go on your own killing rampage, you’re on your own.
I walk toward my bike, taking deep breaths.
I’m a bit calmer, but I don’t trust myself to go back in there yet, and I have a feeling the boys will come out looking for me soon.
I can’t have that either. It’s going to take me all of tonight to get over this.
If I do get over it. Maybe I won’t entirely, but at least, I’ll get myself under control.
I rev up the bike and soon I’m speeding home. When I arrive, I see a few text messages on my phone.
Liam: Sorry, man. Didn’t realize I crossed the line. Hands off.
Dane: He gets it now. No problem, mate. She’s yours.
That’s fucking right she is. I go inside, still shaking with barely repressed anger, and head to my room. I delete the fucking messages and fall down on my bed.
It’s only then that the situation suddenly strikes me as weird.
Liam’s supposed to be my friend, but the only thing that kept me from killing him was the consequences. Going to prison, getting beat up by Dad, losing my place in Devil Army.
I always figured I hated the insect, but the one thing that keeps me from killing her is… well, that I really don’t want to.
What kind of a weird fucked-up psychopath am I?