the guy rasps. “I don’t want to hurt you, yeah? But I’m going to need all your tapes. Your laptop, too.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I blurt out.
I’m so angry. This bastard is hurting George.
Et in morte fidelitas.
I’ll make him regret pointing a gun at my friend.
The guy turns to me, his hand still wrapped around George’s throat. All I can see are hollow eyes that bug out from his head as his gaze sweeps over my body.
All I can think about is making him stop. My fingers close around the handle of the cake knife.
My eyes fix on the gun, on his finger twitching on the trigger. His grip wavers. George slides down the wall.
“Y-y-y-you?” he stutters as he takes me in. He sounds surprised. No, not surprised. Terrified. “It can’t be. This doesn’t make any sense—”
I lunge forward, flicking my wrist and letting the knife fly. The guy catches the movement and swings the gun at me, but he’s right about one thing – he doesn’t want to shoot anyone. If he did, he wouldn’t have hesitated, and I’d have a lovely hole in my chest.
Instead, he gets acquainted with the business end of a blade.
George screams as the knife embeds itself into his neck. His mouth flies open, and blood spurts out. George leaps away as his finger slides off the trigger and he drops the gun. Blood sprays in a graceful arc across the kitchen.
He slumps to the floor.
He twitches a few times, and blood from his severed artery splatters the brightly-colored cushions and duck-egg blue cupboards. After a few moments, he stops twitching.
He’s still.
He can’t hurt her anymore.
My ears ring with noise that comes from nowhere, from a scream only I can hear.
George sinks to her knees, her hands clasped over her mouth. She makes a sound that’s not a cry or scream – kind of like a strangled panda bear or, I don’t know, a terrified lizard.
Blood pounds in my ears as the scent hits my nostrils – the unmistakable tang of fresh blood in the air, in a home where that smell is all wrong. It doesn’t fit. The scent triggers something inside me – a dream that might be too vivid to be a dream. A memory of my mother slumped in a chair, her own blood decorating the walls, splattered across my face in my reflection in the window. The memory that usually makes me want to shit myself in fear but now, with adrenaline coursing through my body and my friend’s heart still beating, makes me strong.
I stand over the guy, lifting a limp arm and peeling off his glove to check his pulse. Yup. He’s officially immortality-challenged. I try to tug the balaclava off his face, but the knife holds it in place so I tear the wool until I can get a good look at him.
He’s a kid, not much older than me. I don’t recognize him, but I’ve been out of the criminal world for so long that’s not a surprise. I roll up his sleeve and check for a tattoo on his wrist. Sure enough, I find a small design of an eagle – the aquila, the symbol of the Dio family.
He’s a hired gun, then. A mercenary in training, working for Nero or… or Brutus. Antony’s right. This isn’t over.
I slide the gun from the deceased’s hand and check the magazine. It’s fully loaded. I tuck it into my waistband as I bend down to check on George. Her face is getting whiter by the minute as she takes in the guy’s arterial blood splattered in pretty patterns across her kitchen.
“Did he hurt you?” She stares at me blankly, not comprehending. I ask again, “George, you need to answer me. Do you need medical attention?”
Slowly, she lowers her head to stare down at her body. I know the feeling she’s experiencing all too well – that sense that something has so completely fucked you over that you’ve been thrown out of your body. It’s now an entity apart from you, watching the world pass by in super slow-motion. She shakes her head. No, she’s not hurt. Not on the outside, at least.
The guy gives a little jerk, sending a fresh outpouring of blood across the tiles. George shrieks. I cover her mouth with my hand.
“I have to go outside for a second. Don’t move. Don’t touch the corpse or go anywhere. I promise you that you’re safe now. I’m not going to