14. Talon #2
“As I was saying,” I sigh, grabbing a bottle of obscenely expensive whiskey and inspecting the label before twisting off the cap.
“You never did understand the dynamics of precision movement over brute uncoordinated force.” I pour two fingers of whiskey in a lowball glass and take a slow sip.
Fuck, that’s smooth. “But what I didn’t know was how much of a goddamn pathetic excuse of a man you were. ”
“Son of a bitch,” he growls, grabbing for the hilt of the knife.
I pull his gun from my waistband, the click of the safety snapping his attention up.
“She was more of coke-whore than a bitch,” I muse, aiming the barrel at his forehead. “Coke was her vice, and her infatuation with it is what killed her.”
Stepping over to Miller again, I sink into a squat, the dark denim of my jeans pulling tight as I crouch above him. The muscle in his neck feathers, his pupils shifting slightly to the side. Then he makes a pathetic attempt at pulling the knife free, aiming to drive it into my side.
I shift forward in one smooth motion, my knee digging into his elbow and pinning it against the floor. The knife skitters away as I ram the pistol into his mouth. He gags and chokes around the barrel as I force it to the back of his throat, my knuckles grazing his teeth.
“How hilarious would it be if you died by your own gun?”
His other hand comes in with a sloppy hook that my ear takes the brunt of, and I yank the gun back. Miller sputters and coughs, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth as I rock back and push to stand, reaching for my glass of whiskey again.
“I’ll fucking end you, you worthless bastard,” he spits, sitting upright and swiping a hand over his mouth. “Once I report you to the Vanguard, they’ll issue a death directive.”
I chuckle as I slip the gun back into my waistband and pull out my phone, connecting to the Bluetooth through a VPN scrambler and queuing up the Transit album.
Retrograde’s signature rapid fire drums and jagged guitars churn from the speakers, their annoyingly catchy lyrics punctuated with the occasional screamed hook.
It’s perfect to swallow any sound he could make as I grab the whiskey bottle for a refill, shaking my head with another laugh.
“You think the Vanguard is funny?” he sneers.
I take a pull straight from the bottle, savoring it. It’s fucking good whiskey– it’d be a real shame to waste it.
“I think it’s funny you don’t see the flaw in your logic,” I murmur, eyeing the label again.
Oh well.
Fisting the neck, I swing the bottle full force against his stupid face. It explodes on contact, shards of glass and whiskey raining down around us.
“Dead men can’t narc.”
His chest rises and falls in a frantic rhythm, blood beading to the surface of the cuts littering his face. I snatch him by the front of his sweatshirt, pulling him upright and dragging him into the kitchen.
“You can’t kill me,” he huffs. “Don’t you remember who my fath–”
The crack of his skull hitting granite reverberates through the large open-concept condo as I cut him off.
“Even with the help of a metric ton of laxatives, I wouldn’t give a singular shit whose balls you leaked out of,” I say, fisting his hair and twisting his face upward.
Blood flows from his shattered nose, dripping onto the counter.
“Not only can I kill you, but I will kill you.”
I reach for the stove knob and twist, the gas line clicking before a flame blossoms and dances beneath the grate. “My only regret is not doing this sooner, before you could hurt her again.”
“Her?” he slurs, blood coating his teeth and chin as his face screws up. Then realization dawns, and he scoffs. “Which whore is it?”
I don't say a word. I just twist the dial further, the flames growing higher.
“Let me go, you fucking freak,” he snarls, spitting a glob of saliva and blood onto my face. “I should’ve cut your throat that night instead of your fucking eye. You’re nothing but orphan scum, a pathetic errand boy for better men.”
If he’s trying to talk me out of killing him, he’s doing a terrible job at it.
The edges of my vision tinge black, a sharp, shrill sound piercing my ear drums. The world around me goes silent as I shove his face down onto the burner.
His mouth hinges open, but if he screams, I don’t hear it. All I can hear is my father’s words; his fucking posturing while making every excuse as to why he could hardly look my way, let alone acknowledge my existence.
“Goddamnit, Lena!” he yells, glass shattering as she screams at the top of her lungs.
My arms wind tighter around my knees as I rock in the corner of my closet.
He won’t come in here. I know that. He never does.
I promised I wouldn’t leave my room again, not even for the bathroom this time.
It wasn’t even the trip to the bathroom that got me in trouble– it was because I remembered Mom finally broke down and let me get the superhero juice bottles, and I really wanted one.
It’d been quiet, it was late. But he was standing in the living room on his phone.
He wasn’t even facing me, and I was sure I’d make it to the fridge and back undetected.
But before I took a step, Mom shouted my name.
She ripped me by the arm, dragging me into my room and shoving me into the closet.
I heard the lock click while she muttered something about how this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
“I can’t keep this up, not any longer,” he shouts, his voice clear through the wall separating us.
“Yes, yes, we can,” Mom begs, her voice thin and fragile. “I’ll make sure he stays away, I-I promise...”
The sound of a slap echoes. “You were already supposed to do that, remember?”
“I’m sorry.” She starts to sob. “I’m sorry, I’ll do better.”
“Better?” he scoffs. “Better would have been if you’d taken the money I’d given you and used it for the abortion, not to put more coke up your nose.”
“I thought it’d do the job,” she sniffles. “Two birds, one stone?”
“Stupid bitch,” he scoffs before a crashing thud follows. “No you didn’t, you thought I’d leave Imogen for you.” She screams again, followed by another crashing noise. “But having some Fringe riffraff as the mother of my child, the heir to the empire I’ve built, was never an option.”
“B-baby…” she stammers. “You don’t mean that. What about all the–”
“All the what?” He laughs callously. “All the pointless bullshit I've bought you? Or how about this very fucking house, huh?”
“Stop, please,” she cries. “Baby, I’m–”
“You’re what? Too good to do the one thing you’re good for?”
“No, I… that’s not what I meant.”
There’s a scuffle, then I hear Mom cry out.
“Ow! That hurts!” she wails, her voice breaking into ragged gasps as he grunts and growls.
Tears stream down my face as I shift to my side, pulling my turtle stuffie over my head and trying to silence it all.
The unmistakable smell of Miller’s ego burning to ash floods my nostrils, anchoring me in the present as I jerk his head up.
His pink and red flesh festers and bubbles, stringing from the burner to where it slides off his skull like cheese from a pizza.
His eyes are glossy– one with tears, the other seared shut with a sheen of pus and grease.
“It's almost cute isn’t it?” I muse. “Your reckless disregard almost kept me from advancing with the Syndicate when you shot an Asset that night and didn’t wanna own up to it. And now here we are seven years later, and I'm at the top of my game, not just ending your career, but your life, too.”
He moans something incoherently, lips half fused together, hands feebly trying to push me away.
He lets out a guttural scream as my thumb presses into his good eye, the resistance giving way with satisfying pop like one of those boba pearls in the drinks Slade would beg his dad to stop for after Judo practice.
Blood garbles from the good corner of his mouth, and as much as I want to skin him and watch hypothermia take its course, there’s no way I’d get a clean enough cut to provide accurate results for my hypothesis.
So with a sigh, I take the jagged bottle neck and drag it over his throat, skin opening up with a wet rip.
Blood gushes from the opening, and like some sort of twisted kismet, it squirts out and coats my hand just like Jersey did earlier. And it’s a real close call of whose squirting I enjoyed more.
His body goes limp, and I let go, watching Miller’s corpse thud to the floor.
Pulling out my pack of cigarettes, I light one on the stove before twisting off the burner, dragging in an inhale as I look around at the mess I’ve got to clean up.
It’ll be a pain in the ass, but the sight of his body racking with the last few residual muscle convulsions before going still fills me with an intoxicating feeling of satisfaction that more than makes up for it.