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“Right. Yeah. Of course. On it!” I salute him, almost dislodging my beloved partners in crime from my shoulders in the process. “Oops. Sorry, boys.”
Ignoring their chitters of protest, I turn towards Alan again. He is the easiest for me to read out of the four men here, and I need the clarity. “Can you concentrate on the details of the scene, please? Every little thing you can think of. Then I’ll go see what I can find.” He grunts in acquiescence and I step towards him and grab his hand.
His thoughts, at first, are of me. Fear for my well-being and worry that criminals like this always seem to escalate and eventually lash out at the object of their obsession.
“Focus, Tinkle-Butt.” A weak flair of amusement surfaces at my nickname before the scene solidifies in his mind.
The brief glimpse of the scene I had a moment ago is nothing compared to seeing the scene now. Which, I know, is nothing compared to being able to trulyseeit. Nonetheless, I get enough feedback to appreciate the absolute gruesome state of the scene.
It comes in flashes.
The woman who attacked me is naked, not a stitch of clothing on her form, but that’s not even the worst part. She’s spread eagle in mid air, hung from wires between the two brick buildings beside us. A thick plastic piping of some sort is fastened to her face, no doubt–based off of the protruding bulge in her neck–going straight down her throat. Then the end of it is attached to a large keg that rests on a fire escape above her.
Bruises cover her form, each one strategically placed to match every single mark that she rained down on me the other night. Her knee, the right one, is bent the wrong way, obviously broken. The same knee as mine. And her eyes–or the area in which the eyes used to reside–is now a sunken, bloody mess. A pair of aviators, the broken ones I never recovered after the fight, are precariously perched over the butchered area.
But the part that will truly haunt my nightmares is the letters carved into her stomach.
“Wicked…” I don’t even realize I’ve said it out loud until Alan responds.
“Izzy, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” His mental vibrations switch, no longer broadcasting the scene to me, instead showing me that little flicker of fatherly love and affection he has for me. He never had kids of his own–his wife didn’t want them–yet his thoughts continue to give away that I’m the closest thing to his pipe dream that he’s ever going to get.
“¡Mierda! ¡Si ella lo hace!” Ah, there’s the asshole. I was wondering when his gullet would start spouting bullshit.
“English,puta, english!” I snap my fingers in his direction, eliciting a heavy sigh from Alan.
“I said bullshit. Yes, she does!” He snarls, his heavy accent making it almost impossible to understand. It gets thicker when he’s angry, like he’s not quite taking the time to pronounce the sounds properly.
“Do you have something to say?” I do my best to glare at him. Hell, call it a habit, but even knowing my eyes are covered in scars and sunglasses, it’s impossible not to try.
“Si.This is your fault, Wicked. You need to do everything in your power to clean this mess up. You don’t get to run and hide from this.”
“Excuse me?” Now I’m fucking pissed. First of all, I wasn’t going to back down from facing reality. I have every intention of serving out justice to whoever would do something like this. And second of all, I didn’t fucking ask for this. I was simply minding my own blind ass business when the bitch attacked me, and I definitely didn’t know I had some weirdo stalker hanging out and watching my…every move.
“If you didn’t go getting into trouble every chance you got, you wouldn’t attract the wrong kind of attention and this wouldn’t have happened!” I hear the words, but they just float in and out, my mind now stuck on one thing.
“They were following me. They were there when it happened! How long has this guy been watching my every move and I didn’t even know? This means they’ve been watching me for a while, doesn’t it?” Each word that leaves my mouth grows more frantic and higher in pitch until I’m virtually squeaking, just like Gizmo and Snitch are prone to do.
Nic’s silence speaks about a billion fucking words.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck! Alan, it’s time we rethought that whole me having a gun thing. I think I need one now. No one can get to me then. Bang, bang, bang!You fucking thought, bitch!” I mime shooting someone and shrugging my arms out to the sides like I’m a tough ass bitch before blowing on the end of my finger gun.
“Wha…no! Wicked, I am not letting you have a gun! You almost cut off your own thumb with a kitchen knife like last month. No way in hell.”
“But-”
“No.”
“I’ll-”
“No!”
“Al-”
“No!”
“Ahh, I see. Not in front of the peasants, got it.” I click at him after whispering conspiratorially. “We’ll come back to this later. Wink, wink.”
“Enough, Wicked,” he huffs in exasperation.
