Page 75 of Retrograde

Attila straightens from the blow, still hacking and wheezing. I see it in his face that he already knows it’s over.

Within minutes, that face is unrecognisable. Swollen, oozing, destroyed. His nose breaks over and over under my fist until there’s barely any left, the bone protruding. His ribs crack with the impact of my boots. Thick strands of his blond hair stay between my fingers. Piss soaks the sand after a merciless kick to the kidneys. Blood mists the ground. Pleas and promises spill out of him until he loses his coherence and retorts to whimpering, the sound pathetic and inhuman.

It’s not for the years of our friendship that I don’t kill him. It’s for knowing that living the way I’ll leave him will be worse for him than death. But to give a clear fucking message to anyone stupid enough to follow in his footsteps, I come as close as I can get while still keeping him breathing. I dangle him in front of death’s voracious face, showing him as the fool that he is. The fool who thought he could take what is the Necromancer’s and live to tell the tale.

He will be telling no tales ever again.

He’s lying on the ground like the pathetic vermin he revealed himself to be, bodily fluids leaking out of him: spit, blood, and piss.

“Please ...” he croaks, the sound slurred in his destroyed mouth.

He’s drifting in and out of consciousness, limp and unresisting as I grab his hand in mine, lifting his arm up.

“These hands touched what’s mine, intending harm,” I boom, my chest heaving and sweat dripping off me, a sick thrill buzzing in my veins.

A nasty crunch sounds as I break his little finger. Then his ring finger. Then the middle one. He writhes on the ground, pleading, as I make my way through his whole hand before twisting it into an odd angle, breaking his wrist.

He howls, his eyes rolling back.

My heel crushes the bones in his palm, and he heaves, retching.

I push his elbow into the dirt, holding his arm up by the odd shape that used to be his wrist. I bring my boot down. The bone rips his skin, blood spurts, and he passes out.

I keep slapping his face until his eyes flutter. I bring him back to consciousness.

I repeat the same procedure on the other side. The onlookers groan and hiss throughout the spectacle. Fuck them. No one is forcing them to watch. It’s their choice to stand here, their eyes glued to me. Mesmerised by my violence, every single one of them.

Attila’s too deep in his pain to resist me, drugged by it, hypnotised by it, rendered completely defenceless.

I pry his lips apart and shove my fist between his broken teeth, their jagged edges cutting my skin.

“This mouth defied my direct fucking order by threatening what’s mine,” I growl harshly and a desperate sound bubbles up his throat. “And for that it will never speak again.”

I grip his tongue, smooth and slippery. I draw my blade and watch his eyes widen in impotent terror. Murmurs run through the crowd around us.

Depraved delight erupts in my chest, the anticipation almost too exciting to bear.

I bring my knife down and slice his tongue clean off with one surgical flick of my wrist. Blood spurts and gurgles in his mouth. I throw the tongue to the ground and turn him to the side before he drowns.

I don’t wait around to watch the dusty ground near his face turn crimson. I wipe the knife on his shirt, fasten it back to my belt and walk away.

“Alex,” I call out to a round-faced man who flinches when I address him. “You’re now my second-in-command.”

Poor choice. Alex is soft, timid and old, and he’s terrified of me. He’ll be of no actual use as a second-in-command. But after Attila, I need a breather—I need someone who won’t question me, who won’t push back. I need a fucking break. I need a compliant puppet, not an actual second-in-command. It’s temporary.

I instruct him to get Attila patched up before throwing him in the cage. He responds with an actual fucking “yes, sir”. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I head towards Riley, wading through the stunned silence like through icy water, men stumbling to get out of my way.

Corrado steps in front of her when I reach them, shaking visibly. He opens his mouth, but it takes a good minute before any sound comes out. “I’m not letting you near her,” he squeaks.

I howl like a maniac, throwing my head back.

“No, Corrado, please!” With a terrified edge in her voice, Riley struggles to step around her buddy, but he reaches back, preventing her. “Aron.” She addresses me instead. “Aron, don’t hurt him. I’ll come with you, you know I will.”

Good fucking girl. MY good girl.

She gets it. All I need sometimes for the turmoil inside of me to settle is a little bit of fucking obedience. And the same as I know instinctively when to give her pain and when pleasure, when peril and when safety, she knows when to defy me and when to do as she’s told. It’s like she was made for me, our jagged edges fitting seamlessly together.