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“Really?” I would have thought he’d be far more objective, maybe a bit more protective. It bothered me that I wanted him to be.
“Why not? It gives me a chance to rescue the damsel in distress when she pleads for her life.”
I scoffed. Damsel? Not me, not ever. Distressing, on the other hand? I distressed with every breath that rattled through my chest and pushed against ribs that had turned to stone. Damsel, though? No. I always had my shit handled.
The only thing he’d find when he returned were the corpses I’d claimed as my own.
“Keep talking shit, Malik” I quipped.
He laughed beneath his breaths and veered towards the entrance of the shop. I watched him saunter across the remainder of the parking lot, flipping him off when he taunted me one last time with a, “Try not to get your ass kicked to bad before I get back, babygirl.”
He disappeared inside and, like a switch flipping in my brain, I quickly mapped out how to deal with the three men in the garage. It was a simple process.
I was going to kill them one by one and leave them to rot wherever they landed, cleaving their souls from their fragile human bodies.
I would do it without emotional attachment, remorse, or guilt.
There was nothing to it. Death hovered at my back like a shadow, dripped from my shoulders, and flowed through my veins. There were times when I fought it because I didn’t understand who I was yet.
Then there were times like these when I accepted its calming embrace, trusting some deeper part of me that knew exactly what she was doing.
I reached down and stealthily removed my karambit scythe from its sheath. There was no point in wasting the Glock’s ammunition and drawing attention when it wasn’t necessary. Death never needed to be dramatic, only efficient.
The first to go was the grease-monkey just inside the garage’s entry.
He was still shoveling a sandwich into his gob.
I engaged the curved blade, admiring its metallic rainbow colors beautifully glinting in the sunlight. From the corner of my eye, I saw a black blur fly overhead, and I smiled.
As a soft caw rang out, my scythe met with man’s flesh. The blad
e slid easily across his neck, making a clean split. He choked on the bite of sandwich he’d just swallowed, a loud croaking sound coming from his flailing mouth as greasy fingers reached for the throat now gushing red.
I shoved him out of my way, causing his legs to slam into a large toolbox and buckle. Before the man working beneath a rusted piece of crap had a chance to slide from beneath it, I easily dislodged the prehistoric jack, bringing the hunk of metal down on top of him.
I wasn’t going to intervene with his departure any more than that. He would die from suffocation or his lungs would be pierced by broken ribs, and then he’d drown in his own blood.
There was a crash from inside I paid scarce attention to, solely focusing on my third charge, who was now well aware I was there.
With one of his companions still twitching on the ground and the other now screaming beneath the crushing weight of a tire, he had to know things weren’t looking great for him.
I could tell he was going to run before I had time to get around the car between us. His eyes were wide, sweat drenched his dingy plaid shirt, and his chest heaved. Wisely, he didn’t try to beg or plead; he simply bolted like I knew he would.
I didn’t bother giving chase.
As it turned out, I never needed to.
The man hit the threshold of the garage and was met with a knife to his gut. A pained sound came from his throat as Maliki twisted his stiletto in further before roughly jerking it back out, giving the man a firm shove to the chest.
He stumbled backward, clutching his rapidly reddening midsection, and I finished him off with a quick slit of the throat.
With an accomplished smile, I swooped down and wiped my karambit clean on the man’s shirt. “What was it you were saying about damsels?”
“Did I not just save your ass?” He gestured to the man in front of me. “And to be fair, I never once said you were a damsel.”
“You are so full of shit,” I muttered.
“Do you honestly think I would have sent you in somewhere you could get hurt?”
