“Wow. I knew this would happen, didn’t I?”
And guess what?
Fisher will be cleaning house when word gets out about Rey’s boys being dead. He’ll say I overstepped, stirred shit when he told me to cool it. Maybe he’ll even send the cops after me, because that bastard’s the kind who’d sell his own mother in the darkest hour. I told him I’d be gone anyway. What’s the use of being decent anymore?
I grab a cigarette from the counter, light it, and lean my back against Rhea’s fridge.
Am I a walking contamination or something? Does everything I touch just start dying?
I take another drag and let it burn deep. My ribs ache with every inhale.
If there’s any justice in this sick world, the universe should ban me from feeling anything that soft again. It should tattoo a warning label across my forehead for no one to approach me. Like I’m a leper.
I laugh again, rougher this time, until my throat scrapes. “Maybe I should make friends with a ghost next,” I say to the empty air. “At least then the fucker would be already dead. Can’t fuck that up, right? Can’t send death upon them.”
There’s no one left to judge me here, but I sure sound pathetic.
Still, wouldn’t it be nice?
Being friends with a ghost?
Like in those old cartoons for kids.
They’d float around and haunt my sorry ass, maybe whisper me to sleep when my brain starts chewing itself.
Yeah. It’s nice to imagine.
I take one last drag and stub the cigarette on the counter. My hands are shaking. I don’t even know why.
I didn’t love Rhea. I know I didn’t.
And still, she died anyway.
What would happen if I actually fell in love?
The thought alone makes my gut twist. I picture it: me holding someone, wanting to keep them safe, really safe, but the curse comes for them anyway.
It’s laughable.
Pathetic.
I’mpathetic.
I open the fridge, grab the half-empty bottle of whiskey, and drink straight from it.
“I’m not the quitting type,” I mutter. “So no, I’m not putting a bullet in my brain tonight.”
I set the bottle down harder than I mean to.
But I can’t stay.
Not here.
I take one last look around her apartment. A shabby little place. Better than anything I ever lived in, and yet it still feels like shit.
I flick off the light.
Step into the hallway.
