Page 3 of Like Grim Death: Part One
“The evil is in your child, and you are foolish if you believe otherwise.”
You only know you are holding your breath when the ache begins in your chest, your lungs yearning for air.
In that moment, when you inhale, the version of you on screen moves so fast you are not sure you really even saw it happen in individual parts.
You are gripping the hammer in both hands like a baseball bat, and you swing, arms extended, the hammer’s face catching the prisoner right on the temple.
Blood sprays against the inside of the bag, arcing at an angle, dripping crimson over their temple as the prisoner’s head is knocked backward, his mouth twisted in a strangled sort of scream.
You swing again.
And again.
And again.
Blood spatters through the bag against the wall. It looks strangely blue in the filter of the film.
And just as you start to swing once more, your body blocking most of the prisoner now, someone steps into the camera, placing a hand on the small of your back.
You still.
The hammer hangs by your side again, and you step to the left.
The plastic bag is wrecked, andmeatis beneath it. That is all there is to see. Ground beef, eye sockets, blood.
The person touching you gently reaches around you and pulls the hammer from your hand. As if you are dreaming, you walk backward, out of frame.
Blood and matter are clotted on the silver of the hammer’s head.
And slowly, the figure, wearing the black hood from their hoodie, twists around to look at the camera.
You see pale skin.
And light, silver eyes.
A smile curves the man’s lips.
“The evil is in the heart ofyourfamily too.”
Then everything ends.
“The Malikov marriage was unsanctioned,and Ella is not meant for Maverick.” My dad holds my gaze, his hands gripping the sleek banister of my childhood home. It’s not a stairwell. Instead, there’s a circular hole on the third floor, cut into the black marble beneath my feet. Expertly. Intentionally. Red carpet lines the gap, and down below? It’s a trick of the light. You can see nothing. Darkness. I don’t know the mechanics of the trick. All I know is when I dip my chin and stare into the abyss, obsidian peers back at me. I’m not even sure what’s down there, save for flecks of my dried blood if they haven’t turned to dust over the years.
Absentmindedly, I cup the back of my neck, my fingers brushing the lowest scar on my head, just underneath my hairline. A raised ridge even my backwards hat won’t cover.
No memories come to mind with the feel of it. Nothing painful or traumatic.
I have no recollection of the days each scar belongs to.
“Why don’t you tellthemthat?” I keep staring into nothing as I speak to my father. I drop my hand and shove both into the pockets of my gray sweats. Dad called me here this morning, just under two months before Halloween.
I know what he’s hoping for on the thirty-first of October. Rain Malikov will be nearly three months old, and as another generation begins to grow, Adam Medici is trying to pull the weeds of our twisted brotherhood.
Silence stretches between Dad and I. Across the diameter of the circle, he stares at me. I don’t meet his gaze. I’ve spent most of my life avoiding it and I have no plans to stop doing so now.
Still, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Just below the scar I touched.
“I’m tellingyou.”
