With my injured wrist cradled against my chest, I reach into my coat pocket and remove a thin piano wire fixed between two short wooden dowels.
Gavin’s focus is so transfixed on freeing my cock, he doesn’t track the movement.
In a fluid motion, I sweep behind him, loop the wire around his throat, and pull.
His eyes bulge, realizing too late the cold finality in mine.
He jerks and claws at the garrote, mouth gaping as the wire bites deep.
I anchor one dowel against the counter with my forearm and pull with my good hand, using leverage instead of strength.
His heels scrape the floor in a desperate, violent dance.
“Shhhh.”I rest my brow against his as life drains from his eyes.
His body convulses and fights for an eternity before finally falling limp.I hold for ten seconds more.
Silence.
I release the tension, pocket the wire, and carefully lower his body to the floor.No blood.No mess.No fingerprints.Just clean, silent revenge.
Standing over his lifeless form, I feel nothing.
Without another glance, I slip out the back door and disappear into the night.I already took care of the cameras.
I was never here.
Dove waits for me in Alaska, and once again, it’s my responsibility to keep her under lock and key.
I lose time again.
It happens a lot.Hunched over my sketchpad with graphite smudges up to my wrist, I get in the zone.
Sometimes it happens in other ways.When I’m thinking about Hoss.When bad memories cloud my vision until my brain breaks.Those are more like blackouts.But I didn’t think about Denver today.Or the doctor.Or the scars I keep hidden.
Today is a good day.
So far.
Music thrums low on the speakers.Grunge, old punk, and some Glass Animals thrown in to keep it weird.Just the way I like it.Outside, rain patters lazily against the windows, and I glance up.
Shit.It’s already noon.
My phone flashes.One unread message.Not from Dove.Just Kody checking in to make sure I ate something that isn’t vodka.
I grab my jacket and head to the deli down the street.The deli guy knows me by now.Probably thinks I’m a freak for never ordering the same thing twice.
Today, it’s a Reuben for Declan, turkey pesto for Dove, and roast beef for me.
Back at the shop, I drop Declan’s at his station, where he works on a geometric sleeve for a tourist with a sunburn.I bounce before he can give me a dissertation on deli meat.
Hood up and head down, I cut through alleys and side streets, letting the drizzle soak through the edges of my sleeves.Dove’s shop isn’t far, just a few minutes from the tattoo parlor if I walk like I have somewhere to be, even if she makes it clear I don’t.
In the bay with the roll-up door open, she bends over the guts of an engine.Grease smears her forearms, and that somehow makes her look even hotter than this morning.
I stand there, sandwich in hand, watching her for a long, hungry minute.Waiting for her to look up.
She doesn’t.
