The immediate noise that erupts makes me jump in surprise, eyes wide as the sight of bullets rain down hard into Franco’s body. They come from everywhere, from all sides, knocking him back and forth. Blood splatters out of him, his own surprised eyes still trying to glare under the attack. No way out for men like him now, though. No forgiveness.
I stare, transfixed at the sight of it all. More blood. So much blood. Mother’s blood. Malachi’s blood. My own fucking blood. I can feel Tommy’s hands on me, feel his breath on my neck as he sliced. And they’re still sending more shots into him. It’s silent for me, though. Just memories and visions that are barely in the now.
And then it’s done
I retch at the clear sight in real silence, overwhelmed by the eventual dead body with blood pooling around it. There’s no feeling. No sense of victory. No ability to hold my head high and know that was the right thing to do. There’s just an empty space in me that seems hollow and black and the need to be sick. Shaking, grip still clutched around the pills. Eyes focused on the last dead Greene.
I’m pushed suddenly by my neck, my whole body moved until I’m close enough to touch the body. I don’t want to do that, and I fight the pressure on me, desperate to get away from something I’ve spent years wanting. “No-”
The harsh grip on me increases. “Yes, Alice.” He gets hold of my hand, smears it in the blood on the floor and makes me put that hand on Franco's still warm corpse. He pushes me to run it over Franco’s face, over his neck, over his still open eyes. “Close them. Finish this yourself.” I stall, staring at those eyes, remembering them from years back. I can almost see my own reflection in them, see Alice Contreas and her family in the pupils.
“I don’t want them closed,” I mutter. I want them open and seeing that image while he rots. Closing him means closure for him not me, and fuck closure for him. “Leave them seeing me.”
The hand on my neck softens and pulls me upright, his other arm supporting my still shaking body. He seems indifferent when I eventually glance at him rather than all this around us, callous to the events that have happened. I’m not surprised. That’s him, or part of him. But those eyes of his, those dark pooling depths, they blink softly – for me, I think, because that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Me. This grime and this villainous world with its dirt and grit and its criminality has been decimated - for me. He took himself to war with the dregs of humanity, for me.
I don’t know how to tell him how much that means to me.
Or even if I should because, as he said, I’ll pay for this with my skin.
Love or not, he’ll make me pay.
And that’s my penance now.
Either way, I’ll never run again. Not from him. Not from Greene. Not from anyone.
I am done running.
Tucking myself into his side, we both stand quietly in a corner, as this team of men around us begin moving. They grab tables and chairs, anything made of wood, and start throwing them over the body. Liquid next, paraffin or diesel or gasoline I guess. I don’t know, but it’s all like clockwork. Precise. Perfect. Nothing like years ago when we ran streets and just had fun burning things for the hell of it. This is a mission to them, something they’ve been trained to do and get paid to do.
The whole thing goes up like an inferno, smoke and flames licking the air to burn his body away. I suppose they’ll clean the ashes up, too, making sure every single trace of him gets swept away so no one will ever know we were here. I could have a ring made, or necklace, so I could wear the man who ruined my life for me. There’s some screwed up satisfaction in that thought. Sick.
I’m turned away by the back of my neck before I get the chance to think any more about it, and led towards the exit of the warehouse to leave. This is done as far as he’s concerned. Finished.
I guess it is for me too.
Chapter 19
Malachi
The journey back was quiet, purposely so on my part. We drove to the plane, boarded it, showered, took off, and flew through the clouds with little to say to each other. I doubt she knew what to say, or how to say it, and I didn’t feel like talking because I had discussions revolving in my head that weren’t entirely sane to me.
She hasn’t moved from my side, though. She stayed opposite me on take-off, then fell asleep in the chair, refusing the cabin’s bed that she could have used. Perhaps that’s her version of every single minute she’s offered. Interesting bargain we’ve struck.
Every single minute. Eternally.
I smile a little, watching her sleep in one of my white shirts, as we get ready to land. Peaceful now. Quiet. Both her and me. That’s something she gives me whether she knows it or not. Silence normally involves thoughts of my grandfather, of confusion, and of the harm I do in this world. This silence is only filled with her. Her skin. Her colours. Her life before me. Her flare for the original and out of context.
Her guile.
The thoughts have me drifting my gaze over her exposed legs, tracing those colours and tattoos up her thighs under the stark white of my shirt. All mine now. My property. Mine to do with as I see fit. Perhaps I’ll rack her up in a dungeon for a week until she understands what she asked this heart of mine to do for her. Break her. Partly anyway. Certainly cut her some more. Blood. Pretty blood. That’s what she is to me – my life source. Her blood. Mine. As one. And with any luck she’ll keep refusing to mould to anything the world I live in would suggest she should. She’ll rally against it, make me question it more than I already do because she is that part of me I can’t be, that countenance that I probably should have been if I wasn’t born who I am.
“You’re staring,” she mumbles.
“Yes.”
A light chuckle rumbles through her, her eyes still closed. “I guess you’ve got the right to now.”
“I doubt I’ll ever have the right to, but as I own you now I’ll stare as much as I like.”
