"No, thanks. Something tells me I don't want whatever that couch is harboring." I shouldn't push his buttons, but this asshole was already on my shit list, even before I arrived to find out just what kind of fuckhead he is.
He plops onto a seat with a strained laugh, the insult landing. "No need to get nasty, officer. We haven't broken any laws. You want me to keep the music down, I'll keep the music down." He shrugs nonchalantly.
My eyes drift across the apparent proof of the laws they've broken before my unimpressed gaze meets his again.
"Recreational marijuana is legal in the state of Nevada," his condescension fills my chest with hate.
"Cocaine is not, I'm afraid," I remind him, though we both know he's already aware of that fact.
He sighs heavily, pulling the small, pitiful gun from his pants and propping it on his knee, pointing it straight at me.
"Ya know," he starts, "I couldn't help but notice you don't have a body cam on."
"Routine, boring noise complaints don't usually require them," I grit my teeth, hoping it comes across as fear and not fury.
"How unfortunate for you, then." He doesn't stand, doesn't so much as move, other than the narrowing of his eyes and tilt of his head. "Here's how it's gonna go, Gretzky. You're going to walk out of here. You're going to pretend you saw nothing. You're going to run along back to yoursuperiors, and tell them all is well."
I fight against the instinct to let my teeth grow long and sharp, prepare to rip this motherfuckers throat out, "And if I don't?"
He scratches his head with the side of the gun, an even stupider move than I thought him capable of, "Then either I, or your bosses, will put a fucking bullet through that handsome skull. And I really don't feel like cleaning blood off the carpet tonight."
I take a single step closer, ready to tear this fucking asshole to shreds when the pistol fires. To his credit, Silas didn't hesitate to pull the trigger at the immediate threat. It barely stings as it soars through my abdomen, tearing through the flesh and escaping through the tissue in my lower back.
I have only a split second to decide what to do next.
Make what I am clear and risk exposure if anyone in this house survives.
Go down and pretend to be injured, which will only work until one of them gets close enough to see the black, decidedly wrong color of my blood, again risking exposure.
Start the fucking fire and hope they flee, presumably leaving me to burn alive in his house.
If seeing Silas shoot someone startles any of the others, they're too frightened to show it, remaining deathly still in the milliseconds it takes me to fall to the floor in pretend agony and drop three bottles of liquor through the Aether and into the fireplace, creating a small explosion that spews flames onto the rug just outside of it.
Shouts of expletives surround me, frantic and discordant, while they scramble, trying to douse the flames with whatever they have on hand, to no avail. As the fire grows, Silas stands and empties two more bullets into my torso, ensuring my demise and his escape before darting out of the house into the cold.
Fucking finally.Surrounded by the growing stench of smoke and weed, I get slightly lightheaded with all the fucking reefer basically hotboxing me in this room.
The flames start to really lick my skin, the officer uniform melting off my flesh.
"Fuck this," I mutter to myself, turning into my true form. Taking a bundle of the still-burning cloth in my hand, I storm down the hall, throwing it into the closest bedroom I can find. Further down the hall, another door yawns open, the light on and inviting me inside.
Silas's office is an entirely different reflection of his character than the scene of debauchery outside.
Meticulously organized, everything cold steel and completely devoid of life. Cabinets and cabinets full of names, paperwork, thumb drives, and god knows what else.
In a perfect world, I would have time to comb through every single thing in this office.
