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“No.”
He pauses.
“Is there going to be another body at that addresstonight?”
I roll my eyes. “He’s not going to be dead if that makes you feel better.”
He clicks his tongue against his teeth in dismay.
“Seems like a missed opportunity.”
“I’ll owe you one for the address.”
“Text me the name.”
I do and hear his phone ding with the notification of my text. I must be on speakerphone as he looks up the name in the school’s system. I hear him type and click a few buttons, taking a swig from the bottle of bourbon in my hand as I wait.
Eventually, he speaks. “33 Route de Chanivaz.”
“Thank you.”
He says nothing and I’m about to hang up when he cuts in. “I fucked up that night at the library. Badly. I’m lucky Bellamy ever forgave me. I keep expecting her to change her mind,” he admits, surprising me. He’s not the chatty type and this confession feels heavy. “You made sure nothing happened to her. That’s worth more than a couple of bodies so you don’t owe me anything.” He brings the phone back up to his ear and grumbles, “But consider my debt settled now. We’re even. I don’t like owing people anything.”
He hangs up without waiting for a response, leaving me with nothing but my reflection and the dark look it throws back at me.
???
He’s not prepared for me when I show up at his house.
It’s the middle of the night. I press his buzzer repeatedly, aggressively. I hear it ring through the door, its shrill echo terrifying in the dark of night.
I jam it over and over again until he has no choice but to answer and he does, the stupid fucking wanker.
A light flickers on in the hallway before the door opens. Valeriy Kravtsov stands there wearing flannel bottoms, a red t-shirt, and a ridiculously ratty robe.
He’s still rubbing the sleep from his eye when I swing the bat up from high heaven and bring it straight down onto the middle of his thigh with a sick, violentthwack.
The whites of his eyes explode and he squeals like a stuck pig, his screams echoing in the empty street as he falls to the floor in a heap of limbs. I loom over him as he rolls around, desperately clutching his left leg.
I lift the bat again and bring it hurtling back down on the same spot, a gleeful smile stretching my lips when I hear his femur shatter. I think I even break a couple of his fingers along with it.
I straighten, casually vaulting the bat backwards so it comes to rest on my right shoulder. I take a swig straight from the bottle of bourbon I’m still carrying with me, the burn of the brown liquor against the back of my throat a welcome distraction.
He’s still screaming.
How useless.
No one lives out here, no one will come for him.
No, the only thing he’s managed to accomplish with his shrill wailing is giving me a migraine.
“Shut the fuck up,” I snap, my voice terrifyingly cold.
He shrieks again and tries to crawl away from me. I step on his hand, keeping him from escaping, and crouch down next to him. I hear his fingers crunch under my weight and he squeals once more.
“Not so tough when you’re not abusing teenage girls, are you?”
Fear widens his eyes further until the whites shine comically against the black of midnight. He’s shaking, whether from the pain or the terror, I don’t give a fuck.
