Why didn’t they just put me on the bed?
I look down at my hands and my heart stops. I’m hooked up to something—an IV? There’s a needle taped to the top of my left hand, poked into a vein.
Jesus Christ.
Actually, now would be a really great time for some divine intervention, I think, eyes darting to the ceiling. Anyone listening? Hello?
No guardian angel appears and I guess I’m on my own. Against Pietro and drugs and my own mother. In my old house. Guarded, with an alarm and a security system.
Helplessness swallows me whole. I long for the days when Paul was out doing God knows what and I had a safe bed to curl up in. I long for that shred of security, now that I have none.
And I long for Liam to come crashing through the ceiling like an actual fucking superhero and whisk me away.
I close my eyes, not to maintain a pretense of sleep, but to keep in the tears.
I won’t cry.
I won’t cry.
I’m so tired.
But I have to fight.
Again.
Liam
I don’t have to hate someone to kill them. I don’t need to be able to justify it. I don’t operate on the same level most people seem to when it comes to the act of taking a life. It’s a thing that has to be done in some cases, just like any other thing. You can’t stop eating because you don’t want to do dishes. I kill the people who cross someone with enough money to hire out their dirty work.
My next kill will be pro bono. Whichever goon comes between me and Annabelle.
But doing the job for Raj? Oh, I’m going to relish the fuck out of that.
I haven’t experienced a lot of strong, moving emotions in my time, but the level of hatred I’m reaching with regards to Annabelle’s family….
r /> Well, I’d do the job even if Raj decided not to pay me at this point.
For a minute, a brief fucking minute somewhere along this line, I considered bowing out, out of respect for Annabelle. Even if she didn’t like them, even if she had fucked up relationships with them and they wronged her in heinous ways that I, personally, would never forgive, in some part of her soul, they were still her family.
Not anymore.
Now they’re just parasites who need exterminating.
That I will do out of respect for Annabelle.
I just have to figure out how the fuck to get her out of their clutches before then. I’m waiting for the opportunity. It’s going to come. It has to. They can’t keep her locked up in that goddamn fortress forever.
They’ll let her out eventually, with a guard of some sort.
They’ll take her somewhere. I’ll follow. Kill the guard. Take Annabelle. She’ll never go back there, and I don’t care if it compromises Raj’s whole operation at this point. Those who need killing will get theirs, even if I have to storm the goddamn castle myself.
But first, Annabelle.
It’s hard not to kill Paul as I watch him move that other bitch into Annabelle’s house. I understand now, that burning hatred that compels people to hire me. He goes on with his life in a blissful fucking blur, as if Annabelle never even existed, while she’s….
I don’t even know.
I can’t get inside Pietro’s house, inside his gates, without detection.