Page 27 of Killer Bones

The floor.

The floor is down there, with my feet.

He’s still watching me, just…my gasps and the great thumping of my heart roar in and occupy my head. The belt on my neck keeps me from succumbing and slumping.

My back and hands are pressed to the cold wall.

I peer at him, a little angry, a lot exhausted and trembling.

Drool hangs from my mouth. “Oh. You. That…was fucking…”

“A little disturbed? Poor Izzy. Be glad I didn’t have that broomstick.” His voice drips with sarcasm. “Now, list what you can do for me. More.”

“What?” My brain is full of nothing—scattered, disarrayed nothings.

“Now!”

Frantic, rattled beyond imagining, I splutter out whatever I can.

“I can write stories about you. I… Ummm.” Logical thought is returning. This is what he truly wants to hear? He kills people, for money, I assume. Or did I hear him imply he liked killing? “Use my influence to lead people where you want them. I can find out stuff, addresses.”

His eyes bore in. What the hell does he want? If it’s only to bite off pieces of me and watch me bleed, I’m going to lose.

I straighten and discover my legs still function. “Don’t you get lonely? I can play chess, Fallout, Guild Wars with you.”

He laughs. “If I play, it’s singleplayer RPGs.”

“Me too.” I pinch my lips. We have a point of intersection. He’s human. I dig some more. “I’ll look at the stars with you at night. Let me be your pin cushion. Your victim.”

He waggles his head. He has those already.

“I’ll…I’ll watch you do your thing.” At the last second, I lowered my voice. He doesn’t want too much said out loud. I eye him from under my brow. “I’ll find people who really deserve their fate.” That. That rings a bell, a deep-down purely awful bell. Who hasn’t dreamed of killing enemies, pulling them to bits?

I have. I suck in a breath that drags the air through the shredded flesh and piteous screams of everyone I hate. “I’d love to do that. Really.”

There. I said it. Hello Darkness, here I come.

I’ll do anything to live. Anything. And I will even enjoy some of that anything. How droll.

“I thought you wanted to save the world, Miss Izzy?”

With the floor my haven, I think it through, the angles, turning over my blackened soul like it’s a pig on a spit. I raise my head. “I still do, and this way I can clean it up faster, speed things along.”

At that he grunts and makes a dubious face.

I spit out the last of my crazy, mad list.

“I’d lie in bed and cuddle with you after you’ve done things you regret.”

“I never regret. More. Is that it?”

“Then I’ll help you become fucking president.”

“Being president is not on my agenda.”

He steps in, plucks out the needles, and starts to release the belt from the wall, then he just…doesn’t. He takes one, two steps backward, swallows. His gaze sweeps up me, stopping here, there, maybe cataloguing my injuries.

What is he about to do?