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“Yeah, okay. Whatever you want, you crazy mother fucker.”
I let that one slide and reached for the handle, opening the container door. The dealer cursed, mumbling and complaining about shielding his eyes from the beaming sun.
Reaching the tail end of my car, I shoved him until he stumbled forward and fell face-first into the trunk.
* * *
Once we were inside his apartment, the dealer paced around the space. The smell of molded food and unwashed musky sheets invaded my nose as he walked past me again and again. I scanned the area. Everything was untidy or abandoned. There was a small pizza box on the table. I quickly peeked under the lid…whew rotting pizza.
“Grinder don’t wanna meet me.” The panic in his voice was palpable.
I figured this would be the outcome. This moron was a peon in the industry. He was going to get more people killed because of that stupidity, not knowing how to cover his tracks or branch out with the poison he sold.
He lived in a studio apartment in the slums. Nobody had bothered to look at his bruised, bleeding body when we’d arrived here. Some had kept their heads down, and others had scoffed in his direction like he’d been the loser in a fight.
He hadn’t realized just how badly he’d lost yet.
“Where’s your bathroom?” I said, startling him more.
He took me into a small bathroom that smelled even worse than the bedroom. The urine stains lingered around the toilet. Running my hand along the edge of the sink, I could feel the soap scum and dirt lining all the way to the small bathtub that took up half of the closet-sized room.
“Draw up a bath.” My tone was not to be challenged.
He hesitated, not understanding what was about to happen, but the flash of my serrated blade put him into motion. It took a few moments for the water to rise to the level I wanted, and then I maneuvered toward him.
His eyes were on me, and his energy felt wary as he pleaded.
“You ain’t gotta do this,” he said as he stepped into the bath, following the gesture of my hand. I reached for the baggie in the sink and then carefully poured the prepared contents onto a thin plastic sheet the size of a small square.
“You killed six people with your ignorance,” I said as my ritual began.
“Thomas Fig, Megan Toomey, Elizabeth Yung, Henry Neth, Richy Bias, and Adam Villa. They had names. They had a purpose. Their blood is on your hands. Your grave will now be theirs to covet.”
The blood from his cuts and gashes started to turn the water red. The water’s heat was draining his life quicker than I had wanted. Still, I slid my blade along his chest, his eyes watching me in horror. A terrified moan escaped his mouth as I coated his blood on my lips. He continued to track mine as I leaned down and pressed my kiss, my calling card, into his skin.
“You will now drink the poison you gave to them.”
He protested and started to back away, but I’d already grabbed his mouth, forcing his cheeks open. Shoving the full contents of his drugs down his throat brought me joy. He struggled against my hold but to no avail. His shattered hand and dislocated shoulder from earlier were working against him. But I didn’t care. I craved his pain as I leaned closer to watch his eyes turn red. His breathing became almost non-existent, and his mouth opened and closed like a fish.
He coughed, and the frothy foam oozing from his lips slapped my cheek, adding to my joy at his impending demise. The amount of bubbly saliva grew until it slowly spilled down his neck to his chest and into the tub.
Finally, his body seized. He convulsed as I said the names once more of the lives lost to his poison.
When he stopped flopping around, I admired my brand, surrounded by the man-made toxin.
A mark in blood, a mark in death.
His debt was paid, and another death was avenged.
Blood.
So much blood.
I was surrounded by pools of red, watching as they spilled into rivers.
Miles of crude red lapped at my feet, the color darkening to thick, oily tar. I could only watch while my body was pulled under.
I couldn’t breathe.
