Page 72 of Stabby Little

23

OLLIE

Welp.

I can't believe that worked.

"So they let you sit there the entire time?" Sparrow asks.

I kick my feet up on the coffee table and take a sip of soda. I'm testing out a sparkly lemon beverage that reminds me of the one I drank at the wedding. It's not bad, but it has way too much sugar. I can practically feel the high fructose corn syrup eroding my teeth.

The lemon drink at the wedding was better. Too bad my date was batshit insane—which meant I had to leave before I stole any to take home.

"Yes." Reclining on the sofa, I spread my legs like a heathen. "My disguise worked perfectly."

"I can't believe it." Finn shakes his head in disbelief. "Your height and voice are the exact same. No amount of fake hair or prosthetics changes that."

"I don't know what you want me to say." I take another sip of my drink. "They bought my disguise hook, line, and sinker. Not one guard asked to see my ID."

"Was it worth it?" Sparrow picks up his half-eaten ham and cheese sandwich. "Did you see the Diavolo brothers up close?"

Sparrow can bet his white ass I did.

I couldn't believe my plan worked. I documented the Diavolo brothers in all their insidious glory. In the warehouse, I only saw them in the darkness, and half the time they wore ski masks.

"I made a detailed pencil sketch of each of them." Sketching by memory is a skill I picked up in my cage. Before the guards forbade me from using a pen and pencil, I drew to escape the hellhole I lived in. "They haven't changed a bit."

"Does Anton still have that ugly mole on his face?" Finn crosses his arms over his chest. "I'll be disappointed if he's had it removed. That's the only way I could identify him. We made fun of it behind his back."

"Don't forget the mole on his dick," Sparrow drawls. "He had one right above his shaft."

"I'm not sure about the one under his pants." I unpack my notebook from my backpack and set it on the sofa cushion. "But I spotted the mole on his cheek. It's in the same place it's always been."

Sparrow and Finn look at my sketches. They flip through the pages, grimacing as they see my perfect rendering of our abusers.

"Was the food at the wedding fresh?" Sparrow tilts his head up. "Or did it sit out in the sun?"

"Why?"

"I want to know if there's any chance these assholes got food poisoning. I hope they can't leave their houses all fucking week."

"It'd serve them right." Finn picks up a pencil and doodles a drop of blood on Michael's face. "I mean, preferably they'd die a painful death due to undercooked chicken, but a bad case of the shits isn't terrible, either."

"The food was good." There's no reason to lie. "The Diavolos have a better chance of dying on account of Anton's daughter. Crystal seems like the type to kill them in their sleep because she wants to fuck them."

Sparrow clutches his stomach. "Come on. I'm trying to eat a ham sandwich."

"That looks so good." Finn peaks at Sparrow's sandwich. "I haven't eaten Wonder Bread in years."

"My Mom made these sandwiches all the time when I was in middle school." I think Sparrow's bragging. "She packed them in a brown paper bag with a container of cheese puffs."

"Did she give you dessert?"

"Of course. If I did my homework, she baked brownies. If I mowed the front lawn, she packed me Chips Ahoy. If I didn't bitch at her when she spent too much time doing her hair in the bathroom, she gave me money to grab doughnuts from the bakery down the street. She was the best mom ever."

"I'm jealous." Finn rubs his belly. "My parents paid for school lunches. I had to eat hotdogs that tasted like cardboard."

"I liked school lunches," I drawl. I'm a big fan of playing devil's advocate. "My father made my lunches, but I swiped free pizza from my friends when they didn't finish theirs."