Break Free & Be Broken (15 page)

"Where's Quinton?"

"He's at my club! Vivasio's! He's at Vivasio's!" The words fall out fast and sloppy, as if shit from the ass of a pig.

"Where's that?"

"It's downtown, just a couple miles from here!"

Sage walks up close and bends over Tink, putting his face mere inches from his, and smiles. "Good news, friend. I believe you. Every word.” Tink swallows. "I grant you a quick death!"

Sage lifts his arm to stab. I lunge forward, checking him from the side and almost knocking him over. I expect him to be angry, but all he does is grin. "You really don't want me to kill him, huh?"

"I've... I've just seen enough for one night."

"Well we certainly can't leave him here like this. He'll send men after us the minute we walk out the door... You know what? I've got an idea. How about this: if you knock him unconscious, I won't kill him."

"Why can't you do it?" I ask.

"Because I have a knife in my hand, which means my hand is currently employed to do only one thing. You want me to take care of it, fine, but I do it my way. You want it your way, then it is
you
who must do it."

I turn to face Tink as I consider Sage’s words. I pull him too his feet. God, he really is small. Maybe 5'6", 140lbs max... I should be able to knock him out easily... but his frailty is exactly why I don't want to hurt him. It would be inhuman.

"You'll let us leave, right? And you won't send anyone after us?" I ask Tink, practically begging. He nods furiously in the affirmative. "Well good, then it's settled." I say to no one in particular, as if simply putting the words into space will make them so. I turn back to Sage. "Let's tie him up, duct tape his mouth, and by the time anyone finds him, we'll be long gone." A solid plan, if I do say so myself.

Sage, for some reason, is looking more amused than ever. "I don't like it. How about this: remember the duffle bag we took? There's a quarter million dollars inside. If you knock him out, I'll give you a hundred thousand of it."

My mouth falls open: the physical manifestation of my incredulity. "Are you serious?"

Sage nods. I stare at him in disbelief. No way he's serious... but then again... he has been very generous up to this point... he already offered all the drugs I can handle
and
gave me four grand for basically nothing...

"No, but for real. $100,000? You're serious?" I ask again.

He nods, this time zesting it up with a big smile. "I promise man."

I give Tink a weak shrug as if to say, 'Sorry, but how can I refuse?' The shadow of resignation that settles over him tells me that he understands. I take one last look at Sage to gather my nerve. He gives me a wink and I turn back to Tink. His face pales, a timid whimper gurgles from his throat, and my fist crushes its way into his jaw.

He staggers back a full two steps but manages to stay upright by planting a hand against the wall. I slam my fist into the same spot a second time, only this time his jaw was hanging open, allowing me to push it out wide. A slack jaw is a weak jaw, and it dislodges with a wet pop. Tink flattens against the wall as his jaw flattens against his neck, but miraculously, he doesn't fall. I start to get angry. I didn't expect it to be so hard to put him out!

I grab a fistful of his crusty hair and jam his face against the wall, over and over till the sheet rock gives, then toss him to the ground. Still, the bastard refuses to rest. He lands on his ass and just sits there, gazing up at me with wide eyes and an even wider mouth. There's a decent amount of blood running from a gash under his right eye, but my job is to make him sleep-not bleed-so I get back to work.

I introduce my foot to his face with as much gusto as I can. I wasn't really trying to, but I hit his jaw again. It shatters completely. His head snaps back hard enough to crush vertebrae and he goes down, crying and pawing at his broken face: down, but not out.

I become furious at my inability to knock a man unconscious, especially one so fucking weak! I drop on top of him and start raining bombs. I latch my left hand onto his collar and attack exclusively with my dominant hand, wanting to get as much power per shot as possible. Thump! Thump! Thump! My fist lands with the consistency of a heartbeat and produces just as much blood. There's a deep revulsion growing inside me, but it's distant, and strangely, it only seems to add to my hellish rage. I hit him over and over and over, yet he clings to his senses with an admirable tenacity, all the while squealing and flailing. I start to panic.

Why the hell won't he go out?

Panic lends me the strength to hit him harder: harder than I ever thought I'd hit another human. His cheek bone grows soft then gives way under the onslaught of my repeated blows, releasing a steady stream of blood from the corner of his eye. He screams and makes a desperate attempt to curl up into a ball. As his head comes forward, my fist comes in and crashes against his forehead. A jolt of pain launches from my knuckle to my shoulder. Gah, SHIT!

Right hand down. Switching to elbow.

I cork back my bo and let it fall. It opens another hole on Tink’s already shredded face. Disgust overtakes me. "God damnit! Go to sleep!" His entire face is a mixture of indents, rips, and swelling. The air reeks of blood. I'm no longer thinking about the money; I just want him out! His pain is so evident, his cries so terrible...

I can't stand it!

Now lost to my frenzy, I squeeze my hands around his head, pull it up as far as his neck will allow, and slam it down. Blood splashes out of the carpet as his head squishes against the floor. For the first time, he's dazed, but the soft feel of his skull in my hands was too disturbing for me to do that again. Instead, I push his face to the side, giving me a clear shot at his temple. I raise my elbow up high, twisting my whole upper body with it to give myself maximum leverage.

This has to be it. This has to be the final shot.

I take a deep breath, put all my focus into my arm, and unwind. Tink flinches out of my grasp at the last second, causing the blow to land on the upper ridge of his eye socket rather than the temple. It collapses, trapping his eyeball inside. A sickening wail translates his pain into sound. His face wiggles and contorts in my vision, and I realize it's because my eyes are full of tears.

This is so fucked up.

I look down at myself. I am literally dripping in blood. My hands are gloved in it. "Fucking do something!" I scream at the stranger. "Help me! HELP HIM!" He stands still as a statue, not moving: not helping. I jump to my feet and rush to Tink's desk, no idea what I'm even doing anymore. I notice that the computer monitor is the old school type-big and bulky-and I commit to smash his head with it. At this point, I just need him quiet and out of pain. I don't care if he dies.

I grab the monitor from the desk and lift it high above my head. Tink's lying on his side, weeping with a face that is no longer human. The image sears into my brain.

I won't forget this.

The need to puke takes a hold of me. I stiffen with anticipation.

Chapter the Ninth

BANG
!

The sudden blast gives me a wicked start, causing me to drop the monitor-I nearly smash my damn foot. A hole appears in the middle of Tink's head, accompanied by a bright puff of red. I stand in shock as quiet retakes the room, staring at the jumble of blood and meat before me.

"Ah. So there you are." Sage declares. I turn to see who it is he’s talking to.

Ye gods...

Standing in the doorway, smoking gun in hand, is
the
most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She has a face I’ve always known, just never beheld: that shapeless form of perfection from my fantasies, finally brought to life. She's fairly tall, with soft brown hair that carelessly hangs down her sumptuous neck, landing just above her firm, shapely breasts. And she's lean. Gorgeously, beautifully lean. I can't see every detail of her muscular frame beneath her clothes, but from her posture and what I can see, the rest is easy enough to imagine.

I long to see what is hidden... and I'm not talking about her private areas. If I could just get an unhindered view of her shoulder, or maybe her calf, or her back!- it would do more to arouse me than a thousand nude models of the regular sort. In fact, even fully clothed, she already has that effect.

The nobility of her bearing is staggering. She looks strong and dignified, intelligent and pure... She’s the pristine embodiment of everything a woman should be, and I am hopelessly, impossibly in love.

Sage is glaring at her fiercely. If he hit me with such a look, I'd probably granulate into dirt, but the girl looks entirely unimpressed; bored even.

“How’d you get in?” He asks.

The girl pulls out a knife and effortlessly spins it between her fingers, smiling from ear to ear. "I used the front door like anyone else." Her silken words divert my awareness to the splotches of blood covering her clothes.

Sage smiles briefly then returns to his glower. "Well why the hell didn't you answer my calls? As you can see, I found a way to get to Tink.”

"You did and I'm sorry, but your call was late. My opportunity arose and I took it-just as we agreed I would-and because of that, I learned Quinton’s location."

"Yeah, well, so did I. Tink knew. You didn't have to go through with it."

The girl approaches Sage. When she reaches him, she lightly pats his cheek, then rests her hand on his shoulder.

"I can ensure you my informant paid heavily for what he received. I could have been here a lot sooner but I knew you'd want me to make him suffer." She gives him a squeeze and releases him, both of them now smiling.

Jesus... I'm surrounded by psychos.

I look down at my hand: my bruised, swollen, blood soaked hand. I'm not just surrounded by psycho's... I’m one of them. "Fuck." I don't mean to say it aloud. The sight of my hand signaled to my brain how bad it hurts. The whole lower half of my arm, from my elbow to my knuckles, is throbbing with a murderous ache. "Fuck..." I mumble again.

The blood is making me sick, so I wipe it off on my shirt. It's clean for only a second before becoming slick with the gruesome red again. I can't comprehend it. I try to wipe it a second time. The same thing happens. I bring my hand to my face for closer inspection. Most the skin on my middle knuckle got shorn off, likely from a rogue shot to Tink's teeth...

Oh god. That means my blood was mixing with his.

I look over at the tattered corpse of my enemy. Ugh... a strong torrent of blood rushes to my head, darkening the edges of my vision. This is too much Halloween for winter. I wobble like a top. "Fuck." I plop to the floor. I'm only vaguely aware of Sage rushing up beside me, but the second the girl approaches my senses flip back to full alert.

"You okay, man?" Sage asks.

I look to him, then up to the girl. Her brow is slightly wrinkled in concern. God, she's beautiful.

"I'm fine." I lie, attempting to rise to my feet to prove it. Sage lays a hand on my shoulder, forcing me to stay down. The girl pushes him gently aside and crouches down in front of me, filling the whole of my vision with her radiant image.

"Just take it easy, all right? There's no shame in experiencing some shock after what you just did. It isn't easy hurting someone like that. The fact you’re experiencing this just means you have a good heart." She says, giving me a warm smile.

"It isn't that, well, kind of it is, but not because of that." My words trip over themselves to get out, so eager are they to enter the ears of this angel. I don't want her to think I'm soft or weak. "It's my fucking knuckle."

"Is it hurt?" She asks, genuinely worried.

"No. Well, yeah, but it isn't that. I was hitting his bloody face with it." She looks confused. I'm not making sense. "Our fluids mixed." I blurt, holding up my skinned knuckle to explain what I can't seem to with words.

Sage sticks out his tongue. "Bleh! That's gross man. I can only imagine the shit old Tink had in his blood. You better wash that."

His words turn my head into a nausea filled balloon. My eyes fall onto my injured hand. For whatever reason, staring at it is the only thing keeping me tethered to reality. A deep purple is spreading up my fingers, fattening them into plump little sausages as it goes.

"Oh hey, I know what will cheer you up!" Sage shouts, jumping to his feet. He hustles over to Tink's desk and starts going through the drawers. "Oh man, it's your lucky day! Looks like there's two bricks of heroin and a brick of meth, and that's just what's down here! Do you have a preference? Or do you want it all?"

I stare up at Sage, problems of the moment forgotten. The whole reason I came here was to get drugs. That is the reason I endured all this, and now they are mine! A smile finds me at the thought of getting high. Things are about to turn around.

"You do that shit?" The girl asks, snapping me right back to my old problems and more. It's abundantly clear by her tone that drug use is not something she approves of. Shame crashes down around me.

"I... me? No, I uh, I used to, but not... not anymore. Now... I just sell it, but you know what?" I turn my focus onto Sage. "I don't need it, not now that I've got that hundred grand you promised."

Sage starts laughing-not the pleasant laugh I've grown accustomed to-but the mocking laugh of a bully. A clump forms in the pit of my stomach. "What's funny."

"Why would that money be yours? You didn't knock him out."

“WHAT? DIDN'T KNOCK HIM OUT!? Are you kidding me? I did everything under the fucking sun to knock him out and he just wouldn't go! So yeah, I guess you're right that I didn't
technically
knock him out, but I was about to when she shot him!" I immediately regret the accusational tone I used when referring to the act of grace the girl did for me. It was a good thing then and it’s a good thing now, but still... "I wouldn’t have done that if it wasn’t for the money! If you're really gunna prevent me from having it on a stupid technicality..." Tears spring to my eyes, accompanied by the appropriate amount of shame. I whip my head toward the wall, hoping no one saw. "Fuck you."

The girl starts questioning Sage about what we’re talking about. When he tells her, she rips into him, but I'm not really listening. I'm counting my breaths, trying to get my head right in a situation where I want to impress a girl by being strong while simultaneously wanting to curl up in the corner and puke till there’s nothing left. I just dehumanized myself and committed an act of unspeakable violence, all for a price. In a way, that makes me a whore: a dirty, despicable whore. "How the hell did he not go out anyway?" I ask, more to the heavens than anyone else. I hear a chuckle behind me.

"Didn't you see all the meth he was snorting? I wouldn't have offered you a hundred g's to knock someone out if it was as simple as tagging them on the jaw. Hyped up as he was, it would have been a true accomplishment to knock him out-something I would have gladly paid to see."

I turn back to the wall. A trick. A fucking trick. I beat a man nearly to death and committed myself to killing him for nothing. Not really even for the promise of money. It was an illusion. The money was never, ever, going to be mine. I did it for nothing. Sage said a price and my brain was wiped clean of all other thoughts. It was
that
easy to buy me.

I'm a disgrace.

"You're a bastard, Sage." The girl says. I'm too busy fighting off a third wave of shock to really listen. My hands fucked. My brains fucked. Fuck! If I end up with aids or some shit, all for nothing... all to become a killer... for that's what I am now. A killer.

I know I didn't actually kill him, but in my head, I did. I was fully, one hundred percent committed to smashing his head like a soggy grape and ending his life. I wanted him to be dead. It wasn't self-defense. It wasn't the defense of another. I wanted him dead just so he would shut up and I wouldn't have to hear him cry the cry
I
created.

"Hey, what's your name?" I jump. The girl snuck up and is again crouched beside me.

"Chales." I mutter.

"Chales? What a great name." The compliment buries itself deep in my brain. I'm too wounded to appreciate it fully now, but later, I'm sure I'll remember it as the gem of this night. "I'm going to go get you some water and stuff to clean your hand. Just sit tight and relax, okay? You're going to be fine."

With that, she gets up to leave the room. I study every step, every sway of her immaculate body as she walks to the door. She passes through, and when the door closes behind her, I let myself fall back. I stare at the ceiling, trying to think of nothing: wishing that I was nothing. Sage invades my field of vision-the last thing in the world I wanted to see right now. He sits down uncomfortably close to my head, so I sit back up.

"You sure you don't want any drugs, man? I can sneak them to you somehow."

I wave off the question. "I don't want them anymore."

Sage pats me on the back. "That's probably for the best."

I give no reaction-not to be rude-my mind’s just in a different place.

"I can tell you something that might make you feel better." He adds.

I stare at him, silent and cold faced as stone. Unless he tells me that girl has a crush on me, I don't see how that’s possible.

"Remember earlier tonight, when you said killing an ‘evil’ person is justified? Tink was a real nasty son of a bitch. Think of any heinous crime you want and he's probably done it. Drug dealing was just a side thing he had his fingers in. His main business was human trafficking. The world is a better place without him, and he deserved to suffer before he left."

"What?" I don't really buy it. I just barely received the harsh lesson that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, and am not eager to feel the sting of that lesson twice.

"I promise man. The deal I robbed-the one you took credit for-was a deal to sell some girls. The oldest one looked sixteen, and if they would have made it to where they were intended, they would have been subjected to a life of addiction and abuse, much of which had already been inflicted by Tink's own hand. He was a sick fuck, I assure you. And honestly, I would give you the money if I didn't need it, but unfortunately I do, so I have to be a stickler to the rules."

Huh... and just like that, all the regret I was feeling disappears, and I go from being sick over what I'd done to wishing I had done more. Had I of known what Sage just told me, I would have inflicted that grievous assault on Tink for free. In fact, I probably would have paid to do the honors, and I like to think I would have done a helluva lot worse. Suddenly the beating I gave him doesn't seem like it was enough.

I take a moment to appraise Tink's lurid corpse, hoping to see confirmation that I did enough. Let’s see: tongue hanging loose over fragmented teeth and a gummy jaw, rolling hills of swelling, sharp mountains of protruding bone, various lakes and rivers of blood...

I have to look away, but that's a good thing. If the image is hard to look at, it probably means I did enough. The only unfortunate part is that no matter how benevolent the act, our bloods still kissed, and that is most revolting indeed. But eh. The girl will be back soon to clean me, and most likely everything will be fine.

No sooner do I have the thought then she comes marching in through the door. I give her a bright grin upon her arrival. She returns it in kind. I'm elated to see she’s warming up to me.

"You seem to be doing better." She says as she kneels down beside me and takes my hand. A literal tingle of pleasure travels from my palm to my spine at her touch. I've never felt anything like it.

"I informed him what kind of man Tink was and he blossomed like a tulip in the sun." Sage says.

The girl laughs, this time sending a tingle from my beating ear drum to my beating heart. All I can do is smile and stare as she gets to work cleaning my wound. A strand of her thick hair slips from behind her ear as she bends to the task, and it takes every available faculty I have not to reach out, take it in my hand, and kiss it: kiss her. I've never had such a strong desire to do anything-let alone kiss some hair-but I can't help it. Kissing her anywhere, anywhere at all, would be such a heavenly experience I would transport there immediately. Of course she would have to transport there with me, for there is no way it would be heaven without her.