A Promise of Torment (A Violent Agenda)

“Let’s get you out of here,” Dante says.

I don’t struggle. I let D lead me outside into the blackness of the night where a car is waiting. I squint at the brightness of the headlights as they flash in my face as I walk numbly to the car. It’s Dante’s Mustang. For once, I’m glad to see the shitty brown color. It’s like a forgotten memory from a long time ago coming back to reassure me. Dante ushers me inside, reaches across to take his keys out the ignition. Then he’s gone, leaving me in the dark.

I didn’t kill him.

The light didn’t leave his eyes.

Blue eyes filled with love as I thrust the blade in, haunt me. I wait in the cab of the car while sirens wail in the distance and think of nothing but his eyes. I look down at my hands. They’re bloody, although some of it has dried already and caked under the nails. I feel empty. I glance out of the window at the empty lamp lit streets. Empty. Like me. There’s no Devil inside me right now. I don’t know where it went but it left a hole in my heart and a gnawing in the pit of my stomach.

I didn’t kill him.

Did I?

Fuck.I kick the dash. Fuck this shit. Fuck this SHIT! I ram the front of the dash with my foot a few times until the driver side door swings open.

“V! Find your fucking zen and hold onto it, will you?” snaps Dante.

“You find your fucking zen!” I shout at him. “Where were you?!” Where was he when I needed him? He fucking left me.

Look at what I did. This is what I was afraid of.

Dante slams the door in my face, leaving me to dig my nails into the worn leather and squeeze my eyes shut.

Why the fuck did Dino come back? Why was he talking about fucking dice?

After a minute, the driver side door swings open, and Dante gets in the car. He starts it and drives off. I can’t help but look out of the window to see…To see fucking what? Dino’s body being carried out of the church? They’re going to burn it. Burn the fucking church down to the ground. Leave nothing for them to find.

Smoke curls into the sky as I knew it would.

“Are they burning the evidence?” I ask my old mentor. My throat feels like I’ve swallowed a vat of acid. My heart is pounding like I’ve run a thousand miles.

“He’s still alive,” Dante says after a few seconds of silence. “But only just. Lorcan and Finn are taking him to St Guys.”

They’re taking him to the hospital. Dino is alive for now. I breathe out, long and hard, letting all the pain flow with it. But then it rushes back in when I fill my lungs up and squats in my throat. What the fuck is wrong with me?

I drop back against the seat, my good hand gripping the leather and my fucked one in my lap. All the anger has gone again, just as quickly as it came.

“You’re losing control,” Dante says, after a mile or so of tranquility.

I shake my head. “No. I’ve been feeling more in control these last few weeks. This is just what I am,” I snort.

“Are you?” Dante asks. “Or is that the excuse you’re telling yourself?”

“Fuck you,” I say, staring straight ahead. “Where were you?”

Dante tosses a file onto my lap. It’s the file I found in my father’s house. “I was busy confirming what you told me. And you know why? Because not every fucking thing revolves around you.”

I pick up the file, leaving bloody red handprints all over it. The sight of Dino’s blood makes me drop the file on the floor.

“Take me to St Guys,” I say.

“You are not going anywhere near that boy until you’ve cleaned yourself up. Do you want to go to prison?”

I close my eyes. “Maybe I should.”

Dante snorts a laugh. “Always about you. You’re not even thinking about the rest of us.”

“Sounds like we have a lot in common,” I say. The adrenaline is leaving my system. I’m exhausted.

I’m also dead fucking cold inside.

Just like what you did to Dino?