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Archive for October, 2007

*Abduction: Awakening V

Posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

The irony that found me shaving, wasn’t lost upon me. It was my ritual - the ablutions I took more out of habit than anything else. My face was so often the last thing people saw, if nothing else, I considered it a courtesy. It was all business, and I didn’t do business with dirty hands. Hm. Bad choice of words.

I wet the blade and tapped it on the side of the sink. I shut the water off and carefully arranged each item in neat little rows, just as I had the day before. I needed a haircut. And, standing there, as I resisted the urge to take the hour long trip into the nearest town, I knew I was stalling.

I walked back into my bedroom, pulled on a shirt and fastened the cuffs, all while trying to digest whatever was keeping me from walking in there. I was saving her, even if she didn’t know it - couldn’t know it just yet. I wasn’t angry, which was a change from how I usually approached these things. Everyone else had deserved it. Everyone else took steps down the path that led them to meet me. Annerire was just stupid enough to fall for the wrong guy.

I’d known her for as long as I can remember, but never looked at her as any more than a pest. She followed Dante around like he had hung the moon and in spite of my brother’s intelligence, I doubted at 8 he could have done so. When I came back to save Dante what was left of his childhood, she wasn’t around. I never asked. I never questioned, because more often than not, the answer was something I wished I could unlearn. Some things were truly better left to the imagination - or to simply not thinking about.

Anne had simply moved away, I later learned, watching Dante pen a letter to her some time later. I’d raised my brother like any parent. I had worried about him. Put him on restriction when he came home late - that one time. I prayed every day that he would not become like me. Be consumed like I had been. God answered those prayers.

Rizzone had been reluctant to see me, the ‘bastard spawn’ of his sister. He never acknowledged the marriage that had once been, even when I came across the documents proving it was so. I was always Dean’s son - mixed blood, both sides bad. It was ignorance, and blind need that kept me coming to him. I didn’t know at the time why he bothered with me, someone who, so clearly, wasn’t ‘enough’ and came from another family’s gene pool. I think now, it was just so he could turn me into what I was. A killer. Someone he could cut loose if things went badly.

They never had. I’ve had my scraps with the Feds, sure, but nothing life long - and I’d never been to jail. He couldn’t say the same.

I tucked my shirt in, slid a belt through the loops in my pants, slipped my feet into a 900 dollar pair of custom loafers and I was done. I reminded myself, as I made the final adjustments to my suit, slid my arms into the lined material, that she had left me. She had left me. She had left me.

And slowly, the anger began to churn in my stomach. The killer had awakened.

Posted in Abduction: Awakening by Daemon | 1 Comment »

*Abduction: Awakening IV

Posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007

I opened my eyes, and before my vision had adjusted to take in the pale, creamy swirls of the ceiling above me - I had thought of her. I rubbed the heels of my palms over my eyes, and rolled over to look at my watch. It took me a second to register the date. Sunday, just after 6 in the morning.

I needed to bruise her today. The worst of it would come tomorrow, when Tony, a spy for my uncle, would come to see the progress made. With bruises, however, the worst of it took time to show. Today, she’d have to be marked.

I’d left her alone for a few days, resigned to watching her through the cameras I’d installed in the room about a week before her arrival. She was docile, but I suspected that was only because the person bringing in the food was not me — and armed. She wasn’t behaving as I’d anticipated, but then, she never had.

I rolled out of bed, and walked to the bathroom, glimpsing at the monitors. She had covered 4 and 9. The first only showed black, the second one had a fraction of some room detail in the corner. I flicked my gaze to the others, saw her still sleeping in the bed. It was enough to satisfy some part of me.

The light in the bathroom was harsh and hurt my eyes. I frowned, blinking rapidly as my pupils adjusted. Gray hair was the first thing I noticed. It seemed to be a more and more frequent occurrence in the last two years. The burden of the money wasn’t driving my stress, it was having no one else to share it with. Who would have thought I’d be ready to settle down just as it became impossible to do so? Karma wasn’t limited to Buddhists or Hindus then — damaged Catholics were also on the list.

I turned on the hot water in the shower and let it run until the mirror began to fog over. I stared at my reflection until I could no longer see myself, steeled myself for the hot punch of the needles and stepped in. A sound was strangled out of my throat as it assaulted me. I felt the steam slide into my throat and try to choke me.

I knew, somewhere in my mind, that place where my conscience resides, that no amount of hot water, no amount of soap or bleach, would ever be able to wash the blood off of my hands. The part of me that was okay with that, the part that justified my actions as being only a bi-product of their deeds, was killing the rest of me. I feared the day, soon coming, that I looked in the mirror and saw nothing.

Posted in Abduction: Awakening by Daemon | 3 Comments »