Page 31 of Deadly Little Sparrow

I plaster a friendly smile onto my lips and force myself not to tense or recoil as he drags his eyes over me slowly and licks his lips like I’m a piece of fucking cake instead of a human being. He’s a lot shorter and skinnier than Velcro was, his clothes hanging loosely on his frame. His arms are covered in crude, faded tattoos that look like they were done in prison, or at the very least by someone who’s been to prison and learned their technique there.

“You’re even sexier than your pictures,” he says, taking a step towards me with his hand outstretched. His fingernails are long and just as yellow as his teeth, and this time I can’t stop myself from flinching. I duck away from his touch, and cover the movement with a lilt of shy laughter.

“Sorry, I’m a little nervous.” I’m not sure if I sell the lie with my breathy tone or if he just doesn’t give a fuck. My eyes land on the pipe on the coffee table and a couple of lines of white powder, and a third option occurs to me—that he’s high as balls and might not have even noticed my twitchiness.

“’S’okay. I got the cure for your jitters,” he says with a lecherous smile. Alright, so it was the first one. Maybe I’ll take up a career in acting when this is all over. “You party?” Riff Raff asks, leading me over to the couch.

“Oh, um… it depends,” I answer with another overly sweet tendril of laughter. “What is it?”

“Crystal,” he says, picking up the straw that’s on the table, stuffing it up one nostril, and snorting one of the lines. “Whoo,” he shouts. “This shit is un-fucking-believable. It’ll send you to another goddamn galaxy.”

He holds the straw out to me and I shake my head, scrambling up off the couch. “Maybe just a drink?” I ask, and he stares at me blankly for several seconds like he really is on another fucking planet, before getting to his feet and stumbling into his kitchen.

Once I’m alone, I take a deep breath to steady myself and start a small lap around his living room while I come up with a plan. I’ve already got him here, alone, and I doubt any of his neighbors will blink at any loud noises coming from his place. Or if they’ll even hear anything over the racket of this music.

A couple of photos lying loosely on his dining table catch my attention. They’re strewn among the empty liquor bottles and crumpled aluminum foil that litter the table. I notice that Velcro is in the first photo, so I nudge the trash away from the others to get a better look. My stomach twists and my blood starts to boil again as the faces of my last two targets gaze up at me with drunken smirks from some of the other pictures.

“Here.” Riff Raff’s voice behind me startles me.

“Sorry,” I say again, taking the glass he offers me. It looks like soda, but one sniff lets me know that it’s more rum than soda, and fuck knows what else he might have slipped in there. I fake a sip, keeping my lips tight so none of the liquid touches my tongue. When I lower the cup, I tilt my head towards the photos again. “Friends of yours?”

“Yeah. Best fucking dudes alive,” he says, and I just barely resist the urge to gag or rage at his painfully skewed idea of what makes a quality person. “That’s Velcro,” he points to the man I happily bled out in the alley already. “And that’s Big Bass and Shit Stain.”

My mouth falls open. One of them is actually called Shit Stain. Seriously, what are the fucking odds? Don’t get me wrong, it suits the man in question, but the nicknames these idiots came up with are crimes all their own.

I fake another sip of my drink to cover my amused shock, and Riff Raff leans in to put his hands on my shoulders. This time, I manage to hold myself still as he drags his nose along the side of my throat, his rank, hot breath making my skin crawl. My fingers flex around the glass in my hand and everything inside of me stills like a snake coiling, preparing to strike when the moment is right.

“What’s your name?” Riff Raff murmurs, dragging his dry tongue along my earlobe, making bile rise in the back of my throat.

“Benny LeBlanc,” I answer with a chill in my tone that even Xaviaro would be impressed with.

Riff Raff pulls back and I look over my shoulder. Satisfaction swells inside of me at the ashen look on his face, his eyes wide with surprise and confusion. I don’t look all that much like my brother, but the family resemblance is strong enough to convince a man who’s stoned out of his head that I’m the ghost of his sins, here to drag him to hell with me. He’s not far off, honestly.

I drop the glass, unbothered by the way it shatters at my feet, the sticky drink inside splashing over my shoes and jeans. I reach under my shirt and unsheathe the dagger in a swift motion, but Riff Raff is more ready for the move than I expected.

I lunge, but he throws an arm in front of my blade, blocking the swipe and not even reacting to the way the blade slices through the skin of his forearm like butter. Crimson blood flows from the wound as he flies at me in return, catching me off guard with some fucking crackhead kung fu move that lands me on my back before I have the chance to even blink.

Fuck.

I tighten my grip on my knife and slash at him again, catching his cheek this time. But he doesn’t even blink as blood streams down his cheek. He clambers on top of me and wraps his hands around my neck.

Double fuck.

My heart pounds and my insides turn cold and electric, sending shockwaves of wild adrenaline through my veins. Thoughts of revenge fade, replaced by the wild animal instinct to survive. No fucking way is this how I die, with this piece of shit’s hands around my throat in a filthy apartment with goddamn “Angel of Death” by Slayer rattling the walls. That’s just too on the nose and I refuse to stand for it.

I flail my legs riotously, catching him between the legs more than once, but fuck knows how much meth he has pumping through his veins that even a repeated knee to the balls doesn’t make him flinch. His grip around my neck tightens and my vision starts to swim, a veil of darkness creeping in around the edges. My lungs burn as I plunge my dagger into his shoulder blade.

Riff Raff grunts but doesn’t loosen his hold, and now my knife is stuck in his arm where I can’t seem to reach it again. Shit, goddamn. It’s only because I’m pretty sure I’ll be dead in the next five minutes that I’m willing to admit, even to myself, that Xaviaro might have been right. I should have let him help.

Killed by my own useless pride… and a hundred-and-twenty-pound meth head. Ain’t that a fucking bitch.

Even knowing there’s not much left I can do, I don’t stop fighting. I dig my nails into his skin as hard as I can, tearing away chunks as I thrash and kick. The music fades out, the rush of blood in my ears the only thing I can hear. My oxygen deprived brain offers me the lovely auditory hallucination of the wood of Riff Raff’s door splintering and a deep, rabid growl that could only be Xaviaro.

All at once, Riff Raff goes still on top of me, his hands around my neck loosening. I don’t even have time to register the splatter of his hot blood over my face before he slumps to the side, completely limp.

I drag in a gasping breath, kicking his dead weight off me and scrambling away. A pool of blood blossoms under his head as I gulp air into my lungs. Unable to tear my eyes away from the dead body of my would-be murderer, it’s a distinct pair of Italian loafers that I notice first.

Xaviaro.

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