Page 21 of Massacre
“You are scaring the natives, Massacre,” Valhalla said, coming to stand beside me.
Valhalla’s presence was a cool shadow—never prying, but impossible to shake. I kept my eyes on the prospect, watching the nervous flick of his wrist as he gripped the glass tighter, eager to become invisible. The silence between us stretched, taut and expectant.
Valhalla watched me with that unblinking stare of hers—part concern, part challenge—like she was daring me to crack. I could feel the question lodged between us, heavy as a loaded gun on the bar top, but I let the silence stretch, filling the space with my refusal to bleed.
I grabbed the bottle, the chill biting my palm, and took a long pull that scorched its way down my throat. It tasted of stalepromises and all the apologies I’d never make. Valhalla didn’t move, didn’t press, but her presence was a tether I couldn’t quite shake.
The room buzzed with the low hum of secrets and half-finished quarrels. Everyone pretended not to watch as Valhalla and I held our silent standoff. The air choked with something unspoken—a warning, maybe, or an invitation to fracture.
I set the bottle down; the glass clinked against wood as a memory flashed: another bar, another life, voices rising into shouts, blood pooling beneath my boots.
I blinked it away.
Valhalla leaned in, her voice cool but edged with steel. “You keep drinking like that, and someone’s going to think you’re looking for trouble.”
“Let them,” I said, my voice rough, jaw tight. “Trouble’s the only thing that ever knocks.”
She almost smiled, almost—the kind of smile that never reached her eyes. “Not all of us are as eager to answer.” Her gaze flicked to King, still standing like a sentinel across the room, arms crossed, watching us like a hawk sizing up a snake.
I traced the rim of the glass. “You ever get tired of pretending?”
Valhalla’s lips twitched, and for a second something vulnerable flickered in her eyes. “Pretending what?”
“That we’re anything but what they say.”
She didn’t answer, not really. Instead, she took the bottle from my hand, poured herself a careful measure, and raised the glass in silent salute. The ice cracked as it met the whiskey, sharp and sudden, echoing in the hush.
I watched her drink—steady, unflinching. Around us, the club’s heartbeat thudded on, laughter at one table, a muttered argument at another, the scrape of boots against worn floorboards. I felt the weight of Valhalla’s presence beside me,both anchor and shackle, as I wondered how many more nights I would spend trying to outrun the ghosts that clung to the shadows of my past.
King’s gaze never wavered, and I felt the heat of it—a weight pressing between my shoulder blades, daring me to turn, to look, to acknowledge what I refused to say aloud. The air between us prickled with all the things I’d left unsaid, lies I’d worn like armor for so long I’d forgotten what the truth even felt like.
Valhalla set her empty glass down, slow and deliberate. “You know,” she murmured, tracing a finger through a ring of condensation on the bar, “there are stories about you. None of them good.”
I let out a laugh, low and bitter. “No one cares about the truth. Only the legend.”
She shrugged, a careless lift of one shoulder, but her eyes were storm dark. “Legends get people killed, Massacre.”
Behind the bar, the old neon clock buzzed and flickered, casting our faces in ghostly blue. I caught my reflection in a smudged mirror: hollow-eyed, hair askew, haunted. Valhalla watched the same glass, but I doubted she saw herself at all.
Feet shuffled by the jukebox as a new song warbled to life, something mournful and old. For a moment, time seemed to slow—like the world held its breath, waiting for the next bad thing to happen.
And wouldn’t you know it? I didn’t have to wait long.
“This is bullshit, King!” a brother shouted, getting everyone’s attention. Turning, I saw the Casanova fucker who thought he had some nonexistent claim to my woman as he squared off with King. “She doesn’t want him here.”
“Leave it alone, Romeo.”
“The hell I will,” the brother stood his ground. “We’ve been her family for five fucking years, and you’re gonna let that asshole walk in here and take her?”
“Romeo, enough, brother,” Cash said, stepping up behind the lovesick puppy. “It’s complicated.”
Leaning back against the bar, I smirked.
“What’s the problem, pretty boy? Not man enough to talk to me yourself? Got to run to daddy?”
“FUCK YOU, Massacre,” Romeo yelled, turning to face me. “You know nothing about me.”
“I know only a pussy cries to his Prez. Is that what you are? A pussy?”
