Page 102 of Martyr
A familiar place.
I rock back on my heels and look up at him, choking on air. I draw in a ragged inhale, then another. “You want me to suck your cock? You didn’t have to go through so much trouble?—”
He strikes again, this time his fist on my mouth. Blood spills across my tongue. I spit it out and cackle. The metallic taste is sharp. It’s all I can smell.
Idiot.
For once, he is disheveled. There’s blood on his knuckles—mine—and his hair has fallen out of its gelled obedience. His chest heaves, the effort of teaching me this very importantlessonweighing on him. The physical exertion of inflicting pain should not be taken for granted.
I laugh and shove myself to my feet, hollow chest and bones be damned.
I stagger, and he allows it. He lets me put my hand on the bar, slide my palm along the smooth wood, and catch a pint glass. Ithas the barest amount of liquid in the bottom, and I overturn it. The pale-yellow ale splatters across the floor.
“You forget yourself, old man.” I smile, then widen it. Wider. Lips and cheeks stretching, straining, until he can see every tooth. My cheek screams at me. I slam the glass against the edge of the bar, and it fractures. Another hit, and the pieces tumble to the floor to join the beer.
He is not wary—he’s mad. “Do not destroy my things, Gabriel. We’ve talked about this. Your lashing out has come to an end.”
“Perhaps.”
He comes at me again, and I don’t stop him. I want to be at the brink of death. To see my shallow grave. Just because.
He hits and kicks, striking until I’m hunched on the floor, curled in to protect myself. My fingers grasp on the concrete, sorting through the mess, shifting the pieces of glass that bite my skin.
He comes around to my front, his polished black loafers gleaming. He lifts his foot and kicks at my stomach.
I grab his ankle. My body jerks. He tries to free himself, but I’ve always prided myself on my grip. One hand to secure it, my fingers digging into his skin just above his loafer, the other hand with the broken shard of glass. Before he can dislodge me, I cut the back of his ankle as deeply as I can. Through muscle and tendon.
Release.
Roll.
He howls, but I’m out of his blast radius.
Speaking of that…
I force myself to my feet and round the bar. Behind me, Ouranos crashes into the stools. He yells, his anger directed at me, but I ignore it. He stays even with me, dragging his leg. Hecan’t put weight on it anymore. Perhaps he could, actually, but it would hurt.
“Does that hurt more than finding out your brother was killed by being shot in the face?”
He spits curses and threats, but there’s the width of the bar between us.
He’s easy to block out. I pause at the bucket of ice, then take two quick steps to the left. I duck down and retrieve the flip phone I had dropped the last time I was here. It was gently toed under the bar, out of sight…
When I stand, Ouranos is swinging for me again.
I bob out of the way and tsk at him, and his expression flashes. Fury. He thought he had me. He’shadme this whole time, and now I avoid?
I move farther down, catching the glint of a utensil, and nearly crow at the huge fucking knife waiting for me. It whispers a sweet hello when it meets my palm. The next time Ouranos comes at me, I take his hand.
He screams.
And, truth be told, I need a few whacks to get the blade all the way through. It’s a big knife, but it’s not a miracle worker. Who knows the last time this thing was sharpened? I grip his fingers, trapping his arm on the bar, and I chop. Finally, it comes free and he falls backward. He lands on his ass in the middle of Madness.
Funny, that’s right where I’ve been all along.
He sputters, but he seems to be losing steam. Maybe it’s the blood pouring out of his wrist. He’ll bleed out in minutes if he doesn’t contain it, but I’m not a paramedic. What am I supposed to do, give him orders?
There was my blood and glass, but now there’s a lot of his blood. It’s all over. It soaks his shirt and pants, pools on thehardwood under him. He finally presses the stump against his stomach, but he’s really pale.
