Fic: LowLives part 9
LowLives
Word Count: 3609
NC-17, graphic masturbation (this is seriously like, SO MUCH PORN what) plus vigilante justice, more terrible fighting, and death. and then some weirdness with the mutants, but in a fluffy kind of way. idk what's going on. HOWEVER, i'm almost at 45k! WOOHOO. and 86 pages which is crayzeh.
-
I dream that night of a boy in Africa, his white skin tanned dark, and his smile bright and his laughter loud. He lives in a large house - but it's not a house, it's a school, and his mother is a teacher, beautiful and black, with hair that curls like a lions mane, and a heart that extends to all her children.
Then I dream of fire and guns, and the boy is a young man, running and shouting, gathering the younger students into the shed to protect them, and his mother's lying dead on the ground, and then he gets shot in the knee and falls with a scream of pain, and I wake up with a start, almost throwing Arthur onto the floor.
He sits up, gropes for the light pull, but gives up after rattling about for more than a minute, still half-asleep.
"What is it?"
I'm breathing hard, but I shake my head, even though he can't really see it. "It's nothing. I'll be right back." I slide out of bed and disappear into the bathroom, flicking the light switch only after the door is closed and the lock is flipped.
I brace both arms against the sink, and drop my head, closing my eyes against the light. I turn on the faucet, splashing water on my face, cold and shocking. It drips off my eyelashes when I blink, and runs between my lips. My image in the mirror is blurred out of recognition, but I don't reach for my glasses - I don't want to see myself right now.
I smooth the heels of my hands into my eye sockets until I see star bursts and shapes twirl and twine around each other on the inside of my lids, and then I kneel down and rummage in the cupboard under the sink for the bag of po that I hid there, and an index card.
Arthur still doesn't know that I've been doing po, and I'm doing my best to not let him find out.
I snort it. I won't let myself take it the proper way - I'm not so far gone as that, not yet at least, but it does its fucking job anyway.
I pull my t-shirt off over my head as my whole body expands and contracts with my pulse and the itch of clothing constricts over my skin. The rush leaves me flying, blood high in my cheeks, breath caught in my chest, and my cock pushing against my flannel sleeping pants obscenely, so I double check the lock on the door before smoothing my hand down my stomach and into my pants.
My fingers press into the soft skin on my lower abdomen, and I can feel everything, every whorl in my fingerprints, and the rough scratch of dry skin against the sensitive nerve endings. I'm shivering, panting, my legs shaking, before I even touch myself properly, and I lean back against the sink for support, spreading my legs to brace, just combing my fingers through the hair at the base of my dick.
When I finally push my hand down farther and wrap my fingers around my cock, hot and heavy it's like I'm lit on fire. I throw my head back and gasp for air, squeezing and pulling, tracing the veins on the underside and sliding my thumb over the head until my knees twitch and my stomach muscles cramp up, and my thighs try to spread farther, give myself more room. My knuckles are white where I'm clenching the sink.
I think about Blake.
About the way he touched me that first night, and the grip of his palms on my ass, spreading me open - so fucking hot and willing to take it.
I want to feel that again, but all I have is the heat of my own palm and the cold air of my bathroom.
I shift my grip, and it's not the same, but then I remember what he did to me - the way he held me, and I tighten, pushing my thumb hard up against the underside of the head, and I have to let go of the sink to shove my fist in my mouth, muffling my cry. fuck, it feels amazing - I'd never even tried being so rough with myself before, but oh my God. I slide down the side of the counter until I'm slumped half-sitting, sprawled over the cold tile floor, legs spread.
I pull my hand out of my pants for a moment, pushing two of my fingers into my mouth - too dry to get them properly slick, but just enough to ease the slide of them against my skin. I'm almost gasping with desperation when I shove it back, down past my sac, to rub against my hole, fingertips just barely catching on the skin, sending tremors up my spine and making my hips work against nothing. Pushing one in, in, and it burns because it's been a hell of a long time since I got fucked, but Jesus Christ it feels so good, so hot, even though I can't get the right angle to hit that bundle of nerves, I rock with my finger, breathing harshly with every movement.
My voice breaks from my throat in little whimpering groans, and I have to bite down on my knuckle to stifle the noises, and then I'm just biting, head back against the cabinet doors, and my neck twinges from the angle, but I just widen my knees, like I'm fitting them around Blake's broad, gorgeous hips, pulling them to my chest because I fucking love it when men can just fucking fold me in half, pin me down, hold me in place and fuck me.
And he would be so fucking good.
I press harder, gasping into my hand, twisting and curling around my arm, and pushing in deeper, and there, there it is, so good - so hot, lightning sparks up my spine and my legs burn with tension. I have to drop my hand, can't bite it anymore, because I need it around my dick, because I need to come. My fingers trail over the head of my cock, spreading the precome leaking out of the slit over the slippery length of it, my nails scratching every so lightly over the glans.
I come in shuddering pulses over my fingers, biting my lip bloody over a long groan, clenching down hard on my finger, pressed incessantly against my prostate.
My hands are shaking as I clean myself up, washing the stickiness from my fingers and smoothing the red from my cheeks.
Arthur's already asleep again by the time I emerge from the bathroom, and doesn't stir as I change into new pants and crawl back into bed, turning to lie on my side facing away from him.
It feels like hours before my burning eyes fall closed under their own weight, and I sleep, and I don't dream.
-
The next several days pass like a blur, until Vincent sends me on a job as a driver for Ike. Our destination is in the North Quarter - some bit honcho's been talking to the wrong people and needs to understand that this is not acceptable.
I sit in the car with the heat on as Ike walks up the front steps of an enormous, beautiful house. There's an expensive car parked in the garage, and another one just in the driveway.
Ike has a silencer screwed to the barrel of his gun, but I can still hear pops, like the backfire of a car but deadened, that coincide with little flashes of light through the curtains. The other houses are too far away to notice, even when Ike comes out dragging a roll of carpeting, already stained through in splotches.
We're not there to kill them.
We're there to make them disappear.
I pop the trunk and he throws the body in, then comes around the side of the car and knocks on my window with his knuckle.
He jerks his head at me when I look up, indicating that I should get out, so I wrap my coat tighter around myself and follow him back into the house where the rest of the family is waiting.
The body I haul up into my arms is limp and heavy, but not as heavy as an adult, and I have to hold my breath against the overwhelming stench of blood - like iron and copper, a million pennies that I can taste in the back of my throat.
We take the bodies to the waterfront, tip them into a dumpster, and set them on fire. The smell of gasoline overwhelms the smell of burning flesh, and I shield my nose as well as I can without Ike noticing. Once they're burnt to a crisp, we heave and shove and roll the entire dumpster into the water. It falls with an enormous splash, sits for a moment, bobbing, and then sinks, slowly, gurgling down to the bottom of the bay.
We drive back to the warehouse, and in that whole time Ike never speaks a word.
-
I hate myself.
I go to Arthur's apartment, out onto the balcony under the burning flares of the stars, clear and clean pinpricks in the black velvet of the sky, and I get high, forgetting Ike and that family long enough to breathe.
Arthur's notebook is wearing a spot into the back pocket of my jeans, and I pull it out, flipping through the pages, and wader back inside looking for a pen.
Carlo's address is still in there - I scribble through it as I walk back outside. I lean on the railing, looking out over the city, and move from page to page, yellow paper and blue lines, black ink, blue ink, red ink for corrections, one strange note with purple sparkly pen.
Jameson's address. Rigger's is in a surprisingly nice part of town.
Salinger, Clark, O'Rourke, Mivshek.
Spencer's address.
Spencer - who apparently spends his free time making people hurt, burn, cry out, for his own amusement.
There's a gun tucked into the back of my jeans. It sort of just lives there now, always on me, though I leave it here, in Arthur's flat before I go home, to my home, so no one there can find it. Arthur doesn't come back here much - I took him a bunch of his clothes, and he fits well enough into mine that he doesn't have any reason to come back.
-
Spencer lives alone. I should have probably planned this more in advance, thought it through better, but fuck it, I probably wouldn't have got the guts to do it with more careful deliberation
I press the doorbell, the little button lit up orange on his front stoop. A light turns on, and Spencer answers it, looking at me with surprise, and some kind of disdain. I've got my hands shoved deep into my pockets, shoulders hunched under my jacket, and a hood pulled up over my head so the neighbours can't see my face. He doesn't live very close to his neighbours, but they're probably familiar with criminals, considering the area, and wouldn't be hard pressed to point fingers.
"What do you want? Did Vincent send you?"
"Can I come in?"
He glances up and down the block, and then jerks his head at me, telling me to get inside.
I sidle past him, brushing uncomfortably close to him, making him move back, but keeping sure not to actually touch him.
That's for later.
He leads me into his kitchen, which is standard looking for a bachelor with a criminal background. He doesn't offer me a drink, or a seat, but I sit at his kitchen table anyway and fold my arms on it, lacing my fingers together, not looking up at him.
"Well?" he asks, impatience threaded through his voice. He's leaning against his counter, one hip cocked and legs crossed.
"I know what you do, Charles. When you're alone with the mutants." I look up at him from under my eyelashes - he looks unnerved, but not alarmed. Not even remotely guilty. I don't think he even realises that I said his first name - he never goes by his first name.
"The fuck do you mean?"
"Does that mean you don't think they're human? Or is that just not an issue for you? Do you like it when they scream?"
He lurches forwards, and grabs my by the collar, hauling me up to his level. His thumbs brush against the skin of my neck. "You shut your mouth, boy," he hisses into my face, eyes narrow and angry.
I keep my face carefully blank, and bring my arms up so I can wrap my hands around his wrists, feeling the bones rub together. He's big - thick wrists - so my fingers don't meet, but I squeeze until I can almost touch, and he lets out a grunt.
"You were only fourteen, weren't you?" I ask him, staring straight into his eyes, brown and dull. "When you killed that little boy," I clarify, when he looks confused. Then he starts to look frightened. "What, neighbourhood pets not as much fun anymore? Wanted something bigger - something more exhilarating."
His grip slackens on my shirt collar, and I pull his hands from me, pressing them back against his chest until I have them trapped. His eyes are wide and his mouth opening and closing, like he's trying to speak, but can't manage to come up with anything to say.
"But he was only seven, didn't understand what was going on when you locked him in that shed and set it on fire. Oh, his screams were beautiful, weren't they? So young, so innocent - so scared. All because of you." I laugh. "And I was afraid that I might not be human. Silly me. You're not just a psychopath - you're a fucking monster."
He stares at me, gaping, for almost a minutes, before he seems to get control over himself.
"What the fuck are you?" he spits at me, eyes furious, looking me up and down like it might be a joke.
I laugh at him. "I'm one of them."
He wrenches himself out of my grip, and stumbles back into the counter only to throw himself at me again, fists swinging.
I'm not in best form, but I hold my own against him well enough, dodging and blocking his hits with my elbows. When I get an opening I pull him in to me, slamming my fist up into his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him, but he lands a backhand that sends me crashing into the kitchen table, hitting the corner with my hip and a shooting pain goes down my leg.
I fall, clumsily, clutching at the chair and toppling it with me, and he advances on me. My legs kick out, catching him in the ankle and making him stumble, and then I get both my feet wrapped around his shins, twisting with my hips and dropping him to the ground with a loud shout.
He recovers faster than I'm anticipating, and he's on top of me, punching again, and again. He comes close to dislocating my jaw with a bunch of really well aimed hits, and I have to stop trying to defend my face in order to get my fist up, driving into his sternum as hard as I can.
Something cracks, and he howls in pain, his whole body flinching back and I lift my hips, knees braced and roll us, until he's on his back on the floor, head colliding with the wood of his cabinet doors. I lever myself up, and wipe my chin, where a smear a blood from my torn lip is dripping down.
I turn away, giving him the chance to get up and get his feet back under him, and I pull the gun out from the back of my pants.
When I hear the sound of his boots scuffling over the floor I pull the slide back, aim carefully, and shoot his knee out.
He falls with a choked scream of pain, going down, and he's not getting back up from that, though he tries, keeps trying to push himself back up. His leg is a bloody mess, the leg of his pants torn and mixing in with the tatters of his skin.
I step closely, and rest my foot ever so lightly on the thigh of his wounded leg, not enough to put real pressure on it, but enough to give him an idea of the very real threat of more pain. He stops dead, muscles frozen. He's shaking, looking up at me and trembling as I put the muzzle of the gun right against his forehead.
"I know all about you, Charles. I know everything you've ever done - that dog your neighbour had - oh that sweet couple, they were so sad when it disappeared. Josh was the little boy's name. Amanda was your first girlfriend - no, I know you never hit here, but that doesn't really count does it, when you spent those six months poisoning her mind. She killed herself in tenth grade, all because of you. And no one knew it." I thumb the hammer down, and Spencer whimpers, his eyes falling closed. "Except me. I'm surprised that you're so scared - for someone who loves death so much, you didn't strike me as the type to be afraid of dying."
-
I leave before the neighbours get there - though I don't know if they would even show up, place like this.
I stop at a gas station bathroom, slipping inside like any random drunk from off the streets, to wash the blood off my hands, scrub the splatters from my shoes. I buy a few things - stuff that catches my eye - before I get on the bus.
I almost fall asleep, in the warmth and the rumble of the seats, staring at my own reflection in the window, watching the lights flash past. When my stop comes I have to blink back to myself to pull the cord, the bus squealing to a stop with a lurch and a shudder.
The warehouse is abandoned and dark this time of night, but I've got no problem turning on all the lights I can find, my steps echoing through the empty room. I pick the lock on the basement door - tricky, and a little awkward, I'm not great, and I leave scratches on the metal when the pins slip, but I work it open eventually and unhook the lock, and walk down the basement steps.
It's quiet, just the hum of the light bulb setting a low level of white noise in the background. I walk through the rows of cots to Dan, rest my hip on the bed next to his knees, and unhook him.
He wakes up the same as he did the first time, with a jolt and a loud swear. He punches me in the face as soon as he notices me, and then swears again when I topple backwards off the cot.
"Ow, fuck you."
"Shit, sorry, man. What was - Arthur, right?"
I sigh. "Yeah."
He looks skinny and awkward out of his fighting stance, curling his knees up to his chest and folding his arms over them.
"What - are you doing more tests? Where's that other guy?" he asks, looking around the room.
"No, no I'm not here for them - not today. I wanted to. Actually, yeah, can I see the flamy thing, again?"
He laughs, and it suits him, raises his hands and a slow flicker builds up over his fingers, igniting into flames and heat with a soft whiff. It crawls across his skin, not searing or burning it like a candle wick, but suspended right over the surface of his flesh, existing out of nothing but his own internal spark.
I'm still staring at the way the flames dance when I tell him, "Get out of here."
The fire cuts out immediately in surprise, and Dan sits up straighter. "What? I can go?"
I bite my lip and nod.
"What about the others, can't they go too - I'm not just gonna leave them here, fuck that!"
"They're not strong enough - you didn't see them all, I did. They can't handle it - some of them aren't ever gonna make it back, but I need more time with the rest. I'm gonna do my best, I fucking swear it, but I can't just sit here and watch you all waste away, so you need to get the fuck out - go find your sister."
He looks torn, but I pull up the plastic bag from the gas station and hand it to him. "Here. 'S a few extra layers, and a pair of sneakers - they might be too big, I dunno, I guessed - but they'll get you far enough. And take this," I say, giving him all the cash in my wallet.
He takes the bag, but tries to refuse the money, and I laugh it off to his surprise. "fuck, with the shit Vincent's been paying me, I might as well just give it away. No, seriously. It's ridiculous."
When he's gone, fucked off to God knows where, I sit on the stairs in silence with the rest of the junkies, alone.
-
previous / next
Word Count: 3609
NC-17, graphic masturbation (this is seriously like, SO MUCH PORN what) plus vigilante justice, more terrible fighting, and death. and then some weirdness with the mutants, but in a fluffy kind of way. idk what's going on. HOWEVER, i'm almost at 45k! WOOHOO. and 86 pages which is crayzeh.
-
I dream that night of a boy in Africa, his white skin tanned dark, and his smile bright and his laughter loud. He lives in a large house - but it's not a house, it's a school, and his mother is a teacher, beautiful and black, with hair that curls like a lions mane, and a heart that extends to all her children.
Then I dream of fire and guns, and the boy is a young man, running and shouting, gathering the younger students into the shed to protect them, and his mother's lying dead on the ground, and then he gets shot in the knee and falls with a scream of pain, and I wake up with a start, almost throwing Arthur onto the floor.
He sits up, gropes for the light pull, but gives up after rattling about for more than a minute, still half-asleep.
"What is it?"
I'm breathing hard, but I shake my head, even though he can't really see it. "It's nothing. I'll be right back." I slide out of bed and disappear into the bathroom, flicking the light switch only after the door is closed and the lock is flipped.
I brace both arms against the sink, and drop my head, closing my eyes against the light. I turn on the faucet, splashing water on my face, cold and shocking. It drips off my eyelashes when I blink, and runs between my lips. My image in the mirror is blurred out of recognition, but I don't reach for my glasses - I don't want to see myself right now.
I smooth the heels of my hands into my eye sockets until I see star bursts and shapes twirl and twine around each other on the inside of my lids, and then I kneel down and rummage in the cupboard under the sink for the bag of po that I hid there, and an index card.
Arthur still doesn't know that I've been doing po, and I'm doing my best to not let him find out.
I snort it. I won't let myself take it the proper way - I'm not so far gone as that, not yet at least, but it does its fucking job anyway.
I pull my t-shirt off over my head as my whole body expands and contracts with my pulse and the itch of clothing constricts over my skin. The rush leaves me flying, blood high in my cheeks, breath caught in my chest, and my cock pushing against my flannel sleeping pants obscenely, so I double check the lock on the door before smoothing my hand down my stomach and into my pants.
My fingers press into the soft skin on my lower abdomen, and I can feel everything, every whorl in my fingerprints, and the rough scratch of dry skin against the sensitive nerve endings. I'm shivering, panting, my legs shaking, before I even touch myself properly, and I lean back against the sink for support, spreading my legs to brace, just combing my fingers through the hair at the base of my dick.
When I finally push my hand down farther and wrap my fingers around my cock, hot and heavy it's like I'm lit on fire. I throw my head back and gasp for air, squeezing and pulling, tracing the veins on the underside and sliding my thumb over the head until my knees twitch and my stomach muscles cramp up, and my thighs try to spread farther, give myself more room. My knuckles are white where I'm clenching the sink.
I think about Blake.
About the way he touched me that first night, and the grip of his palms on my ass, spreading me open - so fucking hot and willing to take it.
I want to feel that again, but all I have is the heat of my own palm and the cold air of my bathroom.
I shift my grip, and it's not the same, but then I remember what he did to me - the way he held me, and I tighten, pushing my thumb hard up against the underside of the head, and I have to let go of the sink to shove my fist in my mouth, muffling my cry. fuck, it feels amazing - I'd never even tried being so rough with myself before, but oh my God. I slide down the side of the counter until I'm slumped half-sitting, sprawled over the cold tile floor, legs spread.
I pull my hand out of my pants for a moment, pushing two of my fingers into my mouth - too dry to get them properly slick, but just enough to ease the slide of them against my skin. I'm almost gasping with desperation when I shove it back, down past my sac, to rub against my hole, fingertips just barely catching on the skin, sending tremors up my spine and making my hips work against nothing. Pushing one in, in, and it burns because it's been a hell of a long time since I got fucked, but Jesus Christ it feels so good, so hot, even though I can't get the right angle to hit that bundle of nerves, I rock with my finger, breathing harshly with every movement.
My voice breaks from my throat in little whimpering groans, and I have to bite down on my knuckle to stifle the noises, and then I'm just biting, head back against the cabinet doors, and my neck twinges from the angle, but I just widen my knees, like I'm fitting them around Blake's broad, gorgeous hips, pulling them to my chest because I fucking love it when men can just fucking fold me in half, pin me down, hold me in place and fuck me.
And he would be so fucking good.
I press harder, gasping into my hand, twisting and curling around my arm, and pushing in deeper, and there, there it is, so good - so hot, lightning sparks up my spine and my legs burn with tension. I have to drop my hand, can't bite it anymore, because I need it around my dick, because I need to come. My fingers trail over the head of my cock, spreading the precome leaking out of the slit over the slippery length of it, my nails scratching every so lightly over the glans.
I come in shuddering pulses over my fingers, biting my lip bloody over a long groan, clenching down hard on my finger, pressed incessantly against my prostate.
My hands are shaking as I clean myself up, washing the stickiness from my fingers and smoothing the red from my cheeks.
Arthur's already asleep again by the time I emerge from the bathroom, and doesn't stir as I change into new pants and crawl back into bed, turning to lie on my side facing away from him.
It feels like hours before my burning eyes fall closed under their own weight, and I sleep, and I don't dream.
-
The next several days pass like a blur, until Vincent sends me on a job as a driver for Ike. Our destination is in the North Quarter - some bit honcho's been talking to the wrong people and needs to understand that this is not acceptable.
I sit in the car with the heat on as Ike walks up the front steps of an enormous, beautiful house. There's an expensive car parked in the garage, and another one just in the driveway.
Ike has a silencer screwed to the barrel of his gun, but I can still hear pops, like the backfire of a car but deadened, that coincide with little flashes of light through the curtains. The other houses are too far away to notice, even when Ike comes out dragging a roll of carpeting, already stained through in splotches.
We're not there to kill them.
We're there to make them disappear.
I pop the trunk and he throws the body in, then comes around the side of the car and knocks on my window with his knuckle.
He jerks his head at me when I look up, indicating that I should get out, so I wrap my coat tighter around myself and follow him back into the house where the rest of the family is waiting.
The body I haul up into my arms is limp and heavy, but not as heavy as an adult, and I have to hold my breath against the overwhelming stench of blood - like iron and copper, a million pennies that I can taste in the back of my throat.
We take the bodies to the waterfront, tip them into a dumpster, and set them on fire. The smell of gasoline overwhelms the smell of burning flesh, and I shield my nose as well as I can without Ike noticing. Once they're burnt to a crisp, we heave and shove and roll the entire dumpster into the water. It falls with an enormous splash, sits for a moment, bobbing, and then sinks, slowly, gurgling down to the bottom of the bay.
We drive back to the warehouse, and in that whole time Ike never speaks a word.
-
I hate myself.
I go to Arthur's apartment, out onto the balcony under the burning flares of the stars, clear and clean pinpricks in the black velvet of the sky, and I get high, forgetting Ike and that family long enough to breathe.
Arthur's notebook is wearing a spot into the back pocket of my jeans, and I pull it out, flipping through the pages, and wader back inside looking for a pen.
Carlo's address is still in there - I scribble through it as I walk back outside. I lean on the railing, looking out over the city, and move from page to page, yellow paper and blue lines, black ink, blue ink, red ink for corrections, one strange note with purple sparkly pen.
Jameson's address. Rigger's is in a surprisingly nice part of town.
Salinger, Clark, O'Rourke, Mivshek.
Spencer's address.
Spencer - who apparently spends his free time making people hurt, burn, cry out, for his own amusement.
There's a gun tucked into the back of my jeans. It sort of just lives there now, always on me, though I leave it here, in Arthur's flat before I go home, to my home, so no one there can find it. Arthur doesn't come back here much - I took him a bunch of his clothes, and he fits well enough into mine that he doesn't have any reason to come back.
-
Spencer lives alone. I should have probably planned this more in advance, thought it through better, but fuck it, I probably wouldn't have got the guts to do it with more careful deliberation
I press the doorbell, the little button lit up orange on his front stoop. A light turns on, and Spencer answers it, looking at me with surprise, and some kind of disdain. I've got my hands shoved deep into my pockets, shoulders hunched under my jacket, and a hood pulled up over my head so the neighbours can't see my face. He doesn't live very close to his neighbours, but they're probably familiar with criminals, considering the area, and wouldn't be hard pressed to point fingers.
"What do you want? Did Vincent send you?"
"Can I come in?"
He glances up and down the block, and then jerks his head at me, telling me to get inside.
I sidle past him, brushing uncomfortably close to him, making him move back, but keeping sure not to actually touch him.
That's for later.
He leads me into his kitchen, which is standard looking for a bachelor with a criminal background. He doesn't offer me a drink, or a seat, but I sit at his kitchen table anyway and fold my arms on it, lacing my fingers together, not looking up at him.
"Well?" he asks, impatience threaded through his voice. He's leaning against his counter, one hip cocked and legs crossed.
"I know what you do, Charles. When you're alone with the mutants." I look up at him from under my eyelashes - he looks unnerved, but not alarmed. Not even remotely guilty. I don't think he even realises that I said his first name - he never goes by his first name.
"The fuck do you mean?"
"Does that mean you don't think they're human? Or is that just not an issue for you? Do you like it when they scream?"
He lurches forwards, and grabs my by the collar, hauling me up to his level. His thumbs brush against the skin of my neck. "You shut your mouth, boy," he hisses into my face, eyes narrow and angry.
I keep my face carefully blank, and bring my arms up so I can wrap my hands around his wrists, feeling the bones rub together. He's big - thick wrists - so my fingers don't meet, but I squeeze until I can almost touch, and he lets out a grunt.
"You were only fourteen, weren't you?" I ask him, staring straight into his eyes, brown and dull. "When you killed that little boy," I clarify, when he looks confused. Then he starts to look frightened. "What, neighbourhood pets not as much fun anymore? Wanted something bigger - something more exhilarating."
His grip slackens on my shirt collar, and I pull his hands from me, pressing them back against his chest until I have them trapped. His eyes are wide and his mouth opening and closing, like he's trying to speak, but can't manage to come up with anything to say.
"But he was only seven, didn't understand what was going on when you locked him in that shed and set it on fire. Oh, his screams were beautiful, weren't they? So young, so innocent - so scared. All because of you." I laugh. "And I was afraid that I might not be human. Silly me. You're not just a psychopath - you're a fucking monster."
He stares at me, gaping, for almost a minutes, before he seems to get control over himself.
"What the fuck are you?" he spits at me, eyes furious, looking me up and down like it might be a joke.
I laugh at him. "I'm one of them."
He wrenches himself out of my grip, and stumbles back into the counter only to throw himself at me again, fists swinging.
I'm not in best form, but I hold my own against him well enough, dodging and blocking his hits with my elbows. When I get an opening I pull him in to me, slamming my fist up into his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him, but he lands a backhand that sends me crashing into the kitchen table, hitting the corner with my hip and a shooting pain goes down my leg.
I fall, clumsily, clutching at the chair and toppling it with me, and he advances on me. My legs kick out, catching him in the ankle and making him stumble, and then I get both my feet wrapped around his shins, twisting with my hips and dropping him to the ground with a loud shout.
He recovers faster than I'm anticipating, and he's on top of me, punching again, and again. He comes close to dislocating my jaw with a bunch of really well aimed hits, and I have to stop trying to defend my face in order to get my fist up, driving into his sternum as hard as I can.
Something cracks, and he howls in pain, his whole body flinching back and I lift my hips, knees braced and roll us, until he's on his back on the floor, head colliding with the wood of his cabinet doors. I lever myself up, and wipe my chin, where a smear a blood from my torn lip is dripping down.
I turn away, giving him the chance to get up and get his feet back under him, and I pull the gun out from the back of my pants.
When I hear the sound of his boots scuffling over the floor I pull the slide back, aim carefully, and shoot his knee out.
He falls with a choked scream of pain, going down, and he's not getting back up from that, though he tries, keeps trying to push himself back up. His leg is a bloody mess, the leg of his pants torn and mixing in with the tatters of his skin.
I step closely, and rest my foot ever so lightly on the thigh of his wounded leg, not enough to put real pressure on it, but enough to give him an idea of the very real threat of more pain. He stops dead, muscles frozen. He's shaking, looking up at me and trembling as I put the muzzle of the gun right against his forehead.
"I know all about you, Charles. I know everything you've ever done - that dog your neighbour had - oh that sweet couple, they were so sad when it disappeared. Josh was the little boy's name. Amanda was your first girlfriend - no, I know you never hit here, but that doesn't really count does it, when you spent those six months poisoning her mind. She killed herself in tenth grade, all because of you. And no one knew it." I thumb the hammer down, and Spencer whimpers, his eyes falling closed. "Except me. I'm surprised that you're so scared - for someone who loves death so much, you didn't strike me as the type to be afraid of dying."
-
I leave before the neighbours get there - though I don't know if they would even show up, place like this.
I stop at a gas station bathroom, slipping inside like any random drunk from off the streets, to wash the blood off my hands, scrub the splatters from my shoes. I buy a few things - stuff that catches my eye - before I get on the bus.
I almost fall asleep, in the warmth and the rumble of the seats, staring at my own reflection in the window, watching the lights flash past. When my stop comes I have to blink back to myself to pull the cord, the bus squealing to a stop with a lurch and a shudder.
The warehouse is abandoned and dark this time of night, but I've got no problem turning on all the lights I can find, my steps echoing through the empty room. I pick the lock on the basement door - tricky, and a little awkward, I'm not great, and I leave scratches on the metal when the pins slip, but I work it open eventually and unhook the lock, and walk down the basement steps.
It's quiet, just the hum of the light bulb setting a low level of white noise in the background. I walk through the rows of cots to Dan, rest my hip on the bed next to his knees, and unhook him.
He wakes up the same as he did the first time, with a jolt and a loud swear. He punches me in the face as soon as he notices me, and then swears again when I topple backwards off the cot.
"Ow, fuck you."
"Shit, sorry, man. What was - Arthur, right?"
I sigh. "Yeah."
He looks skinny and awkward out of his fighting stance, curling his knees up to his chest and folding his arms over them.
"What - are you doing more tests? Where's that other guy?" he asks, looking around the room.
"No, no I'm not here for them - not today. I wanted to. Actually, yeah, can I see the flamy thing, again?"
He laughs, and it suits him, raises his hands and a slow flicker builds up over his fingers, igniting into flames and heat with a soft whiff. It crawls across his skin, not searing or burning it like a candle wick, but suspended right over the surface of his flesh, existing out of nothing but his own internal spark.
I'm still staring at the way the flames dance when I tell him, "Get out of here."
The fire cuts out immediately in surprise, and Dan sits up straighter. "What? I can go?"
I bite my lip and nod.
"What about the others, can't they go too - I'm not just gonna leave them here, fuck that!"
"They're not strong enough - you didn't see them all, I did. They can't handle it - some of them aren't ever gonna make it back, but I need more time with the rest. I'm gonna do my best, I fucking swear it, but I can't just sit here and watch you all waste away, so you need to get the fuck out - go find your sister."
He looks torn, but I pull up the plastic bag from the gas station and hand it to him. "Here. 'S a few extra layers, and a pair of sneakers - they might be too big, I dunno, I guessed - but they'll get you far enough. And take this," I say, giving him all the cash in my wallet.
He takes the bag, but tries to refuse the money, and I laugh it off to his surprise. "fuck, with the shit Vincent's been paying me, I might as well just give it away. No, seriously. It's ridiculous."
When he's gone, fucked off to God knows where, I sit on the stairs in silence with the rest of the junkies, alone.
-
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