I wanted blood.
Coming out of the shadows like water seeping from stone, I made myself known and advanced toward him.
“Wh—what are you doing?” The doorman faltered a bit when he saw me. Maybe it was the crazy grin on my face.
I shrugged. “Going for a walk.”
“Well fuck off.” He puffed up his chest and raised his chin. “You can’t be here.” I studied the man, taking slow, careful strides in a circle around his body. Though he had thick muscles and wore his weapon strapped obnoxiously beneath the front of his waistband and jocks, his cheeks were still full and there were no lines marring his face. The boy couldn’t have been more than nineteen.
“Why?” I responded. “It’s a free country.” Now I was just fucking with him.
“It’s not free here.” He was taller than me, but unsure on his feet. He had uneven whiskers on his face and a beanie about to fall off his head. I started to wonder if this was his first night out. Maybe Alice had promised him money and women if he worked for her. Maybe he believed her. Maybe he thought he’d never meet someone like me.
Too bad.
Before the guy could react I threw a right hook, hitting him square in the jaw. He fell like a tree. That’s the worst thing about throwing a knockout: when someone passes out, all their body weight lands on you. I could’ve let him fall, but his body hitting the cement might’ve attracted unwanted attention. So, I was stuck dragging a hundred and ninety around the corner—a hundred and ninety plus whatever gravity decided to throw in.
After I’d thrown the poor rookie among the refuse, I returned to the heavy wooden door. It would be a bitch to knock down, but I was never one to shy away from a challenge.
You know that moment in movies and books when someone says, “It’s too quiet?” Yeah, well, it was too fucking quiet. I blasted the goddamn door down expecting bullets and bodies, but instead received a graveyard at midnight. Not even the sound of a footstep was heard.
That is, until I heard her.
Lenny.
I heard her scream. The sound ricocheted in my ribcage, bouncing around until I felt sick to my stomach. It sounded like it was coming over some kind of speakers. It was incessant and consistent, never ending, and mind bending. It was like her scream was inside my own head.
They were fucking with me. I knew they were. It was the easiest game in the book. They were trying to rile me up and get me to break form, get me to show my hand early.
Well it worked.
I sprinted down the hallway, not paying mind to corners or open doors. There was only one thought on my mind: Lenny.
I skipped the elevator and ran up the stairs. Her screaming grew louder. It was like a headache I couldn’t shake.
I hadn’t fought much since the war. It was the reason I’d gone into recon instead of becoming a mercenary. I didn’t like to kill. The sounds of the dying weren’t my lullabies.
If I had to kill, though, I would. If I had to use the skills that were forced upon me, I would.
And that night, I did.
The first wave was easy to take out. They didn’t stop to ask if I was in the wrong location. I didn’t stop to question if they wanted to leave first. Unfortunately I lived in a world where we communicated with fists and bullets.
Just like in war, they used the green boys as cannon fodder. It was almost unfair the way it was done. Two boys rushed to where I stood, guns shaking in their hands as they shot bullets at me. I put one in each of their hearts and another in their heads. They fell to the ground without complaint.
I stepped over their bodies and followed the sounds of Lennox’s screams. I climbed the staircase, following the wails like a Siren’s call. The staircase curved and I plastered myself against the wall when I heard footsteps coming.
I threw an elbow, hitting the first guy in the nose. Blood spurted and he yelped. The next guy tripped over the one with the broken nose. They tumbled down the staircase and landed in a heap on the floor, unmoving. A third man came. I shot him in the knee and he screamed in pain, following his forebears as he tumbled to the ground.
Still Lenny screamed, the sound like a screwdriver to my skull. I knew then, as the sound burrowed farther inside me, that I would do anything to get to her. It didn’t matter how many men or women I had to bloody. It didn’t matter the body count. It didn’t matter the blood bath.
The dangerous and perhaps unsound unde
rstanding reckoning at my core was that it didn’t matter how many innocents got in my way. My goal was Lennox safe and at home, and nothing else mattered.
When I reached the top, my legs nearly froze. Alice was at the end of the hallway holding Lenny as a shield against her body. Lenny’s eyes were glassed over. She was listless. Blood crusted beneath her eye and stained the clothes she wore. She’d been beaten. She’d been bloodied. My nightmare had come to pass and the brunt of it had fallen on her.
I thought I’d stymied the part of me that had broken upon seeing the sheets. I thought I’d gotten my shit together. Seeing her like that, though, I nearly collapsed. I summoned every ounce of training I had as if it were my own Hail Mary. I had to keep it together. Despite the fact that I felt as if I were coming unglued, a jigsaw puzzle quickly tumbling away, I had to stay pieced.