Page 11 of Karma

“There are two men. One is wearing a suit, and the other is missing his jacket. But Sam, the homeless guy is still alive.”

“There’s nothing we can do for him, Alli.”

“We can’t leave him.”

“We have to. Come on.”

“No!”

“You cannot help that man. Stop being stubborn. Come on!” He stands, grips my hand, and tries to haul me away, but I won’t be moved.

Anger brews inside me and replaces my absolute fear. I pull the pistol from my waistband and cradle it in my lap.

“Don’t even fucking think about it,” Sam warns.

Oh, I’m thinking about it.

“You know what?” he says. “Get yourself killed, then. I don’t care.”

He takes off down the road.

Thanks, dude.

I grab my phone and dial 911, but a robotic voice tells me the line is out of service. How? It’s fucking 911.

If no help is coming, I need to put the man out of his misery. It’s the least I can do. I can’t listen to the sound of him dying for a moment longer.

I step into the road and fight the urge to aim my pistol at the poor man on the ground, whose eye hangs out of one half of his head. His hand still moves on his lap, and my heart breaks.

“Hands up, asshole,” I say to the man in front of me. A black wolf mask covers his face. My eyes scan around me, trying to find the guy with the bat, but I don’t see him.

“What do you want?” the man says, raising his hands in the air. An ice pick balances between his fingers.

“What you goddamn pussies wouldn’t do,” I say as I step sideways, keeping my pistol on him. I draw the knife from my hip and sink the blade into the side of the homeless man’s neck. When I yank the blade away, a red jet squirts onto the cobblestone path.

“Unless you want to draw attention of all of us, I don’t think you’ll fire that weapon,” the masked man says.

“If that didn’t show you that I can kill a man, I don’t know what will,” I say. “How many of you are there?”

As he cocks his head, I can almost see his smirk behind the mask.

Footsteps encroach from the left, and the man with the bat appears from the shadows. A gold bird mask covers his features. As soon as he sees what he’s walked in on, he lowers the bat to his side.

“Don’t fucking move or I’ll rearrange your face with a bullet,” I say as I aim my gun at him.

“Shoot her, Knox!” the gold mask says. An uncomfortable laugh follows his words. He steps closer to the black-masked man and points the bat at me. “Kill that bitch!”

Only then do I notice the pistol in wolf mask’s—Knox’s—waistband.

Why do I have the worst luck? The girl with the gun is the same girl from the parking lot. If I didn’t have my mask on, she’d see the recognition all over my face.

Where was this spunk when her piece-of-shit boyfriend knocked her to the ground earlier? Maybe she ended up getting rid of him and doing a bit of reckless killing on her own. Regardless, I won’t shoot this woman if I can avoid it. She’s been through enough as it is, though she doesn’t look nearly as helpless now as she did this morning. She looks terrifying. Like she should be dressed up and on our side.

I go for my pistol, but she moves the barrel from Adam to me. It’s fucking hot. But it’s also a little scary. Fire licks withinher dark irises, as if killing us will solve some age-old curse upon her.

This is not how this night is supposed to go. They aren’t supposed to have the upper hand. Ever. They’re sheep for slaughter. But not this girl. She appears to be a wolf in sheepskin.

“Let’s talk about this,” I say, raising my hands.

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