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“We aren’t going dancing?” I ask bashfully. I am confused, to say the least.
“Business first.” His voice is emotionless, and because the hall is so dark, I can’t see his face. He presses firmly against my back, leading me down the stairs.
“Everyone against the wall!” I hear someone below us shout. My body locks up when my heels hit the bottom step and I take in the scene before me.
People of all ages, colors, and ethnicities stand against the wall of a cold, dank, dark room.
Giving me a soft push, Zerro leads us out onto the cement floor. All eyes are on us, and all I want to do is run to the nearest exit.
“Welcome. I hear many of you have failed to come up with the money that you owe to my family.” The devil has come out to play. I know it and so do all the other people in the room. Their faces morph into undeniable fear in front of me.
“You see Toni, a beloved salesman of mine, was found stealing from me. STEALING!” he yells, his words echoing off the walls. I find myself backing up with every word that falls from his lips. Instead of hitting the wall, I fall against a warm chest.
Mack. His hands clamp onto my shoulders, holding me firmly in place.
“Do you know what I did to him?” The dim lighting makes it hard to see his face, but as he reaches for his gun, I catch a glimpse of it in the light. It is hard, dark, and cold. Evil, pure evil.
No one says a word. It is pin-drop quiet. I know this is just the wake before the storm. He will end all their lives, and for that, he has no soul.
“I killed him. You know why?” His gun is being swung in every direction, and had Mack not clamped onto me, I would have been running up the stairs by now.
“Because the money was mine. Mine. He was supposed to deal for me and give me the money he made. It seems as if some of you have decided to follow in his footsteps.”
Zerro’s footsteps can be heard crossing the concrete floor until he stops in front of a middle aged man. His hair is slick with grease like it hasn’t been washed in several weeks, and his eyes are red and jittery. He looks as if he is waiting for his next hit.
“Is that what you do, Zach?” Zerro questions, his words coming out like a verbal slap.
Zach doesn’t answer, though. He simply stares ahead waiting for his time to come, probably because he knows it has.
“No answer?” Zerro cocks his head to the side, mocking him. It is sick and twisted, and I worry that if I have to watch even one more second of this degrading shit, I will puke all over the floor.
Silence falls before the booming sound of a gun being fired fills the air. My ears ring fiercely as I become slightly disoriented. I watch between blurred eyes as he walks to another person, his gun pointed at point blank range.
A woman in the corner begins crying. Her body is shaking while she says a prayer in a language I don’t understand. I watch Zerro cross the floor and come to a stop directly in front of her. She draws back from him as much as she can since the wall is directly behind her. He is truly the devil in human form.
“You cower in fear, yet days ago you came begging to me, pleading that you needed help.” His voice is raising with every word that leaves his mouth. “Yet, here you are now, pleading and begging not to die. People like you will beg and plead for everything your whole life.”
I am not sure how much more I can take. If I can stand idly by watching him tear these people to shreds, what type of person does that make me?
“We have children…families,” the woman sobs. She could be a single mother or a college student. Her mother could be dying, and she could be doing everything in her power to stay afloat. That single thought forces so much anger into me that I am seeing red.
“Stop this insanity right now!” I scream at Zerro. My voice doesn’t shake, and I am not afraid to stand up to him. I don’t know how, but I am filled with an inner strength that spurs me to try and help these people.
He spins around so quickly, my head is reeling. Mack gives me a harsh shake, as if to say shut your mouth, you crazy bitch. But it isn’t me who is crazy. Zerro’s eyes zero in on me like I am prey. With precision, he crosses the room, his body gliding across the ground. I should be scared, I should be begging, pleading, crying, wanting nothing but mercy from him. I am not, though. I am standing tall, and I will look him straight in the eyes and tell him what a crazy fuck he is.
His fingers dig into my arm painfully as he drags me out into the center of the basement so all eyes are on us. I don’t even try to stop him since I know it will be useless. His scent surrounds me, making me forget where we are for a second.
All those things disappear the moment I feel the warmth against my skin. The barrel of his gun is pointed at the side of my head, and for one tiny second, I wonder if he will actually pull the trigger this time.
Pain registers in my mind as he grips me harder, twisting me around to face him. His eyes are black, and there is a bleak chance that I will not walk away from this.
“Does anyone want to explain to this girl what happens when someone defies me?” My heartbeat skyrockets, and is the only thing I can hear in my ears. Everything else seems far away as I stare into a pair of eyes that see nothing but death.
