Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
The moon’s reflection glimmers in the dark water of shallow puddles along the suburban streets of Wilmington. Neatly trimmed shrubs outline tidy square lots with short-cropped lawns and tidy, square houses all painted the same color. Beige. It’s all so fucking beige.
Lawns glisten in the aftermath of an autumn rain.
I roll my window down, seeking the calming scent of damp foliage.
The air that floats into my car is stale and cool.
Here, even the earthy petrichor is subdued.
Just as they fall, leaves are raked, neatly packed into paper bags, and hauled away.
The beige zombies are so offended by nature that they remove it, hiding it from view.
As unbidden images of my own childhood flood my mind, my fingers clench against the steering wheel until my knuckles burn.
I recall the quiet calmness of wealthy neighborhoods and polite block parties.
It was too late before I realized that behind the closed doors, beige lives often turn black and blue.
Though I suppose in my father’s case, he turned our lives red.
I slam my hands against the steering wheel, wishing I could crush the images of him out of my head.
When a man buys property in the beige jungle, do his balls just wither and fall off?
Do they look out around him at the nude-toned nothingness, shrink up into his body, and shrivel up?
Or does he need to take a few tennis lessons first?
I switch off my headlights just as my car crawls past the tidy, yellow box at the corner of Maple Road.
Dim, amber light falls from the first floor windows, obscured by orange, floral curtains.
It paints the edges of the orderly shrubs and nondescript front steps in a faded, amber light.
In the quiet dark, the only sound is the mechanical hum of my tires gliding over the pavement.
No birds sing. No squirrels skitter. No bats squeak.
Even the bugs seem to have abandoned the treeless, beige landscape.
A town like this has its benefits to a man like me.
There are no streetlights, no one out late on the streets, and almost no security.
I relish in the ease of a job like this as I shift my car into park on the street behind the house.
I should think about taking more quick and dirty jobs like this.
I could get in, get it done, and be home before Ava slides into her bed.
Soon enough, it’ll be my bed she crawls into every night.
When my sweet little bird accepts that she belongs to me, when she chirps happily from her golden cage, I’ll find a new place for us.
I scoff as my eyes pan around the Homeowners Association’s wet dream of identical homes.
It won’t be a place like this. It’ll be a quiet place just for us.
I’ll build her a swing on our porch so I can watch her eyes sparkle as she sips her morning coffee and looks out at the forest. As I picture her wrapped up in her bathrobe, her hair catching in the wind, the tension begins to bleed out of my muscles.
A sense of calm washes over me. My mouth pulls into a smile as I pick the lock on the kitchen door.
The door clicks open and I step into a dark kitchen.
Pausing just inside the room, I scan my surroundings.
No movement catches my eye, and the only sound is the mumbling of a nearby TV.
Light from the living room spills across the tile floor, leaving me a few feet of lingering darkness before I meet my target.
Stifling a chuckle, I step forward and pull the serrated hunting knife from its holster at my side.
The poor fucker is so woefully unprepared for my arrival, it’s laughable.
You’d think someone who’s on the run from the worst kind of people would have planned it a little better.
Surely as someone formerly within her organization would know the resources Bianca has at her fingertips. But that’s not my problem.
“Mikey,” I announce joyfully, “I’m here to send you to meet your maker. Are you ready for…”
As my boot meets the carpeted floor of the living room, the words turn to ash on my tongue. The knife in my hand suddenly has all the showmanship of a limp dick.
Nestled into the couch, snug as a bug in a fucking rug, is Micheal, the thief.
His mouth opens into a surprised ‘O’, releasing a piece of popcorn that drops down into the bowl resting on this pot belly.
He lets out a shriek and tosses the bowl to the floor.
Fluffy bits of popcorn shuffle and skitter along the floor.
A few pieces tumble under the brown, leather couch, which I now realize is sagging…
under the weight of the four huge bodyguards sitting around my target.
“Fuck,” the word flops out of me, sounding like defeat and deflation, just before a hard body collides with me, sending us both crashing to the floor.
The coarse fabric of his jacket scratches against my chin, swiftly followed by his shoulder cracking against my jaw.
Pain zings up my face and explodes like a firework behind my temple.
I tuck my knees up against my stomach and push.
The goon above me grunts as they collide with his gut.
His face scrunches up in pain, but his eyes glint with determination.
With just enough space between us to make things interesting, I make my move.
I reach one arm behind my back for the knife while sending the other careening into his face.
I hear the wet crack of his nose shattering as my fist makes impact.
The broken shards slide and squelch beneath his skin like a horrific Jell-O salad.
He leans back, grabbing his face, and lets out a howl of pain.
I whip the knife out from behind me and jam it into his neck.
He gurgles and sputters when I pull it out.
I try to lean away from the stream of blood that dribbles from his mouth, but it soaks through my shirt, painting me red and sticky.
My eyes catch movement from behind Thing One’s ear.
Thing Two is headed directly toward me in a blur of brown hair and dark clothing.
He belts out a grunting war cry as he barrels toward me.
My muscles twitch, desperate to take action.
Hold, I whisper inside myself, he’s not close enough yet.
When his shins are within arm’s reach, I shove my legs outward with all my strength, catapulting Thing One’s corpse into his arms. They topple to the floor with an audible thud.
I press my hands into the carpet and shove myself up to stand.
As I shake out the residual ache in my jaw, I take in the scene around me.
Thing Two is momentarily trapped under the body of his buddy.
My target crouches behind another guard.
He’s smaller and younger than the first. His toned arms are widespread, shielding the thief beneath him.
His stance tells me that he won’t leave his guardee’s side unless absolutely necessary. I’ll take him on last.
Across the room, the shadow of an enormous man blocks out the light from the television on the wall.
The word goon describes him perfectly. Considerable muscles bulge from his arms and legs, threatening to bust through his uniform-like tactical clothing.
Even with my substantial height, the gargantuan being has at least four inches and a hundred pounds on me.
Even his jaw appears muscled; the hard lines of his face seem to protest as his mouth spreads into a grin.
I know that look, the glint in his eyes.
He’d enjoy killing me. Unfortunately for him, I feel the same.
I widen my stance, anchoring myself in place.
If the toothy smile he flashes me is anything to go by, he must think I’m readying myself to a fight.
My own lips pull into a smirk as I loosen my grip on the handle of my knife.
My arm whips forward, sending the blade sailing through the air.
His eyes go wide as it sinks into the skin just below his Adam’s apple.
His mouth opens and closes like a fish gasping for air, just before he crashes to his knees in a sputtering, leaking mess.
Thing Two groans behind me as he unceremoniously shoves his counterpart’s corpse off of him.
It rolls, bumping the edge of a gaudy, golden-edged coffee table.
The movement jostles the sculpture atop it, the visage of the virgin Mary who stares at the increasingly morbid scene around her with sad, half-lidded eyes.
I grab the heavy bust, knowing that without my knife, she’s my best weapon.
Pray for us sinners and all that, right?
Thing Two lumbers toward me, his footfalls crashing angrily beneath him.
He shoves a bloody hand through his mousey, brown hair, pulling it away from his sweat-drenched face before lunging for me.
With the virgin in my hand, I shove the other against his chest to stop his movement.
He claws at me, his hands scrambling for purchase against my blood-soaked jacket.
Sudden, white-hot pain explodes in my nerve endings as his knee smashes into my thigh.
My leg buckles and I stumble back a step, giving him just enough room to send his fist into my cheek.
My vision blurs as the throbbing ache spreads through my face, and I roar in pain.
My fingers tighten around the heavy statue in my hand as I hoist it over my head.
The crack echoes through the room when it slams into the guard’s skull.
The weight of it sends him careening into the floor.
I smash the virgin against his head until the sound of cracking bone morphs into a wet squelching.