Page 2 of Body Tox

Brain matter and blood splattered across my face and body, coating me like a second skin. Turning, I gaped at the shotgun-sized hole that went right through what used to be Victor’s face.

Following the echo of the sound, there, at the door, stood the Debt Collector. He was shrouded in the street’s cover of darkness, the end of his old-fashioned shotgun still smoking.

“This was your first lesson in changing your...interestingways, Asher,” he said, his hat covering his face. He paused and used his handkerchief to wipe off the blood spray that reached him.

Victor’s head looked like someone popped a balloon with spaghetti sauce. Red dripped from the archaic old games, the ceiling, and the glass counter with abandoned trinkets.

Everywhere. Red. So. Much.Blood.

“Don’t give in to temptation. You have an addiction, boy…and until you get over that, you aren’t gonna be of use to me. Before you can do this job, I need you to prove you can overcome your drug of choice.”

I growled, my body shaking with the restraint to keep my fingers from my mouth. I wanted to lick the fucking floor.

“You are unhinged Asher. You are a monster, and if you want to look normal in the eyes of society and hide the beast inside you, then I suggest you walk away.”

“Why would you do that?” I said, frustrated with the obvious exasperation in my tone.

The Debt Collector chuckled and lit a match on the tip of his pipe, flicking it behind me.

“Choose, my boy.” He smirked as the flames began to spread. “You choose your addiction now, and you burn in the trap you created for yourself. Or you leave it here and never again succumb to it. You rise above it and become what I need.”

I growled, the heat of the flames biting at my ankles. I wanted so badly to lick the floor clean, and I didn’t want the delicious blood to go up in flames. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to give up my addiction.

My addiction was me.

I was my addiction.

I couldn’t just give it up.

Blood…or life?

AFew Years Later

My crossbow was holding steady as my mark moved closer to the car—only a few more steps, and I’d have a clear shot.

The sounds of darkness surrounded me, and the conversation about the cult and Arms of Blood kept going on and on…and on. Fucking assholes if you ask me. They didn’t get to have such an inviting name because they were anything but inviting. These freaks liked to have innocent people terrified of some ‘smighty’ god and give their lives up for an eternal paradise.

Little did their sheeple know that the Arms of Blood’s eternal paradise was sacrificing themselves on an altar in front of these freaks who…drank their blood.

A few years ago, I probably would have mauled every chanting ‘fruit loop’ just to get a single taste of the blood spilled, but now I was a self-controlled assassin. My main targets lately were these cult members.

Guess they pissed off enough of the higher-ups when they started snatching their esteemed kids out of their front yards. I wasn’t against saving kids. Lord knows I wasn’t a fucking hero, but maybe the lives I had to take were somehow counteracted by the lives I saved.

A damned soul being a savior was comical, but that was life.

The life of an assassin wasn’t rainbows or unicorns shitting out colored candies. It was bloody, brutal, and a lot of death.

I loved all of it.

Life being a predictable bitch made it easy to navigate, except for the Alaskan weather. The cool air was nipping at my damn balls. Again. But I started my countdown.

“One…” I said, leaning forward.

The cult member stilled, sniffing the air like a fucking whacked-out dog. I covertly sniffed my armpit.

Did I smell?

Meh, who the fuck cared.

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