These days, I was the new Max.
A killer.
A lethal weapon.
A psychopath.
A monster.
All because of a girl. All because of her. My fucking wife.
“Hypnotize” boomed in my ears from the nano, the bass rattling my skull.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Fuck off!” I groaned, mainly to myself, my hand trembling as I wiped it over my mask. I was high out of my fucking mind. Was I really hearing those taps, or was I creating them again?
Tap,tap, tap.
“What!” I screamed, pushing myself up off the floor.
The cargo van lurched violently, tires screeching against the asphalt as we raced toward my new target.
“Shut the fucking music off,” Kate whispered in my ear through the headpiece. Her voice was a venomous hiss, cold and threatening, controlling my every move.
“Fine.” I ripped the nano’s earbuds out of my ears, a shudder running through me as silence slammed into my skull with oppressive weight.
“On my count,” Kate hissed in my ear. The van jerked to a stop. “Door. Out. Execute.”
By the time the van door slid open, the high had settled into a vicious, buzzing calm. Rain slapped the pavement.
The masked men shoved the bat into my hand, pointed toward the alley, and closed me out.
My target hunched over, his hands and feet zip-tied, soaked in sweat, whimpering in terror. He was primed for me, a broken figure.
Fuck.
I wanted a cigarette. I wasn’t really a smoker, mainly because it wrecked my body for baseball. But now, I did things the old Max would have never dared.
Like, kill people.
I raised the bat and slammed it into his face.
My target spit out a mixture of blood and, I think, a tooth, but it was hard to tell behind my mask. My breath fogged the inside of the lenses. If I hadn’t been so goddamn drugged up, I probably would’ve made more of an effort to cover my tracks.
But I was a twenty-two-year-old killer now. Four kills under my belt. I did what I was told, no questions asked.
I was born and bred a warrior for the Alliance.
I was so deep in this world, I didn’t know how to claw myself out. I had tried a couple of times. They beat the shit out of me. They electrocuted me once. That was fun. I pissed myself.
Not my finest moment.
But they always threatened to kill her every time I tried to run.
Again. And again. And again.
So, I took it. The pain. I obeyed. I listened. I executed.
