Page 61 of Demise

She looks at it, and I can tell her mind is going back to that day. She killed someone, and we haven’t even talked about it.

Has she spoken with anybody about it? I remember the first time I killed someone. I was just a kid.

The room is smoky and low-lit. The smell of kine bud and cheap women filters through the air. In my peripheral, I see a chair lifted. I raise my arm, protecting my face as the wood smashes down on my forearm. I wince and charge at the man, slamming him backward onto a table filled with beer and full ashtrays. He reaches for his gun, but I beat him to it, shooting him in the face.

My eyes widen at my quickness and I hastily wipe at the guts painted on my face and then look at my bloodstained fingers.

“It’s done,” Mickey says, coming out of a room I didn’t even notice. The rest of the men and women have exited the building and it’s just Johnny, Carson, Nugget and their guys, and me. Breathing heavy, I look at Mickey, who out of nowhere starts smiling. “We fucking did it,” he says.

Carson holds up his gun and shoots it in the air, and that’s when I realize maybe I’m dark, maybe I love this a little more than I should, but I’m not as fucking crazy as some of these men.

“You almost shit your pants,” Nugget says to me, laughing.

“What the fuck did you just say?” I ask, stepping toward him. “I just shot a man in the face and you’re coming at me with that shit?”

Johnny holds his arm out, putting it against my chest as Nugget smiles, showing me his ugly fucking tooth.

“I should knock your fucking teeth out.”

“Come on, little boy,” he says, holding his hands up and moving his fingers.

“Chill the fuck out, Nugget,” Mickey says. “Moretti will slit your throat if you mess with Danny, and you know it.”

“Yeah, ’cause Danny is his little bitch.”

I shove Johnny’s arm out of the way, charging at Nugget. His smile widens when I grab his collar, pushing him against the wall as I put my gun to the side of his temple, digging into his skull with my finger on the trigger.

“Go ahead,” he says, lifting his chin.

“Danny,” Johnny says from behind me. “You can’t do that, man.”

“Let him go,” Mickey says.

I bare my teeth at this smiling piece of shit.

“One day,” I say with a smile of my own. I grow closer to his ear. “You’re going to be alone. You’ll have no one to save you, and that’s when I’ll come, for I am the devil in human flesh. I’m in your nightmares, in everything bad that you do. The underworld is without a prince because I am here.” I quick-kiss him on the cheek and push off. He wipes his face, looking disgusted and honestly a little scared. I smile, my eyes as dark as the walls of Hell.

I don’t know…maybe I am just as crazy.

The memory warms my blood. I’d promised Nugget I was going to end him, and Trig is the one who did it. I exhale slowly as Bexley places tape over my new bandage. “You never said anything about you shooting Miles.”

Her eyes jump to mine. “What’s there to say?”

“You killed a man, Bexley. That can change a person.”

“Well, it didn’t change me. He deserved it, right?”

I nod, but don’t say anything.

She looks away from me as she pulls one more piece of tape off, cutting it with her teeth before placing it on the bandage.

“All done,” she says.

I grab her hand and kiss her palm. “I’d like to show you something,” I say.

She smiles apprehensively. “What?”

“My world.”

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