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I didn’t even realize I’d cut him until he inhaled violently through his teeth.
Grey gripped his biceps. Dark fluid dripped down to his forearm, rising to the surface even as he worked to stop the bleeding.
Oopsie.
It would need stitches, but he’d be fine. Not my fucking problem.
“We’re square,” I said, the words hollow as I strode past him.
He caught me by the arm, and I jerked to a stop, giving him a look that I hope conveyed how fucking glad I would be if he gave me another reason to cut him.
“Don’t come back,” he hissed. “Next time, I won’t save your ass.”
I tore my arm from his grip, a snort of derisive laughter steaming in the air between us. “Next time I won’t hold back.”
Frank came apart beautifully.
His seams loosened bit by bit until his eyes grew wide and distant with hysteria. Until his sounds were nothing but whispers falling from quivering lips. Until his insides became his outsides.
With every piece of him that fell away, a piece of myself was returned. Until I was whole. And he lay broken at my feet.
His dirty soul in exchange for a moment of peace for mine.
Corvus coughed, and I remembered he was still there, standing at my back, like he always was.
I turned off the blow torch, stepping back to properly admire my masterpiece, tilting my head to get a better angle.
Bits of incinerated Frank floated in the sweltering heat of the old woodshed, sticking to my sweat slicked arms and bare chest. “I think it’s my best work,” I muttered with a smirk, looking to Corvus for confirmation.
He had his mouth covered with his ski mask, brows pinched from the smell. Corvus didn’t like the smell of cooked asshole, but I’d grown accustomed to it.
Corv cleared his throat and dropped the mask. “You think the Met might be interested? We’re low on cash. Could use the payout.”
I snorted. “Dip him in epoxy and...maybe.”
Corvus shook his head. “Nah, the fucker doesn’t deserve to be admired.”
“To the lake, then?”
“I was thinking the woodchipper, then bury the rest.”
“Even better.”
Corvus pushed out the door, and I hollered after him, not quite finished in here. “Can you pick me up another acetylene tank? I’m almost out.”
I tossed the near empty one to the side and let myself fall onto the short stool in the corner of the shed, where I could watch the little Frank flakes dance in the moonlight on their way out into the dark. I fished out a cigarette and lit it lazily, twisted the pre-rolled mix between my blood and ash coated fingers before taking a drag.
Fuck.
I tipped my head back to rest against the rough wood wall and inhaled deeply through my nose, relishing the feel ofnothingness.The stillness of my body. The quiet in my head.
Fuckingpeace.
Just like the first time.
Grey followed me that night, when I snuck out of Barrett’s Home for Boys. I knew he was there, tailing me in the shadows, but I didn’t tell him to go back. I think part of me wanted him to watch. So he’d be scared away. As he fucking should’ve been.
But he didn’t come out. Not when I stole an empty jug from the back of a department store. Or when I siphoned gasoline out of a car.
