MS - Rav's newest story

[Ravynlee]

(Disclaimer, some mild gore, usual language and "explicit" themes ahead)

 

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With a carpet of dead leaves crunching delicately under her foot Mel skulked, hidden amid the shadows. In front of her the building sat swathed in darkness. He must have been asleep. Glimpsing at the time on her wristwatch she frowned. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock at night yet, she pondered. Something about this whole thing didn’t sit well in her churning stomach.

Huffing decisively she crouched lower, avoiding the bright slash of headlights as a car passed at her back and continued on ignorantly. Mel’s pulse was racing. It almost felt like old times as she scaled the low timber fence and dropped inside with a muffled hush. Overgrown brushes attempted to scratch at her clothing, to keep her from entering. Shrugging it off she smirked. The sound of a man snoring could be heard faintly coming from the other side of the closed window a few feet in front of her.

Bingo.

Though there was no moon out tonight she could see well enough amid the blue grey shadows to traverse her way through. Skirting an old trampoline frame and some rust-eaten barbeque, she tiptoed through the high grass and the congested weeds until she came to the back door. She waited, her senses keen and on high alert. A few houses further on up the street someone was having an argument with his other half. The screen door slammed on its buttress and rang out like a gunshot blast into the night. Dogs barked back in the distance. The yard around her remained perfectly still and silent like a monochromatic silhouette captured on some gritty canvas.

The lock was a little more of a challenge than she had anticipated but a few feet away a dust-coated window provided an easier vantage point to make her way inside. Delicately, and with slow and steady breaths, Mel slid the louvres out one by one until she made a big enough hole to slip her head and shoulders inside. The innards of the laundry were filthy but otherwise silent. Slapping the rucksack on her shoulders, Mel clawed the window ledge for a handle before with an effortless twist and drop she landed on her feet with a dull thud against a mountain of dirty clothes.

This was almost too easy.

Allowing a few moments for her eyes to adjust to this new level of darkness she stayed low and surveyed each step towards the door stealthily. This man, whomever he was, obviously prided himself on being a pig, she thought to herself with a grimace. Over dirty clothes and empty bottles and general laundry detritus she trod. Creaking open the door she peered outside.

The kitchen before her opened up like a nightmarish obstacle course amid the darkness. Mel’s chest sunk disappointedly.

He’s not getting away with it so easy, she told herself. Slowly she stood. With cat-like precision she was making her way in through the narrow hall and in to the heart of the kitchen, the dark wood and cluttered benches heavy in the darkness, distorted amid the gloom in her peripheral vision. Mel’s senses were firing with each step, her heart beating so fast she was growing giddy with the force of it. A few cleansing breaths got rid of that as she mentally berated herself to calm down and not let her thoughts get so far ahead of her.

Think back to your training; think back to what Master taught you. Breathe.

Amid the stench of stale food, of dishes coagulating in the overflowing sink, of stale beer wafting from every conceivable inch of air space in that tiny kitchen Mel oriented herself and assessed all her open vantage points. If she was going to do this she had to do it and do it fast before she was discovered or god forbid the fat fuck had already somehow woken up. Driven by compulsion rather than fear the young woman made her way through the apartment until she sat crouched before a closed door, feeling the sound of the snores reverberate through from the other side the strongest with the palm of her gloved hand.

That two-faced murdering bastard lay just inside there sleeping, Mel scowled. He lies in a nice warm comfortable bed while my mother lies rotting in some box in the ground, you motherfucker. Hope you’re sleeping soundly cause it’s the last time I’m going to let you.

Carefully peeling the rucksack from her back she slowly unzipped it and reached inside. She had anticipated this moment for so long, even lost nights lying awake just dreaming about it, playing out every possible scenario to the finest detail in her head, that she had struggled to decide just what to pack that would elicit the most pain and torture for this bitch with seemingly limitless potential. In the end she had settled on her kunai, the double-edged blade that had been her instrument of glory back in the days she had trained at the dojo. Master had called her style both dangerous and beautiful, two words not usually synonymous with her art at least in the same sentence, but praise was not something either given or taken lightly when it came to martial arts. She was a natural and she knew it, without bias or pride Mel knew the thrill of the kill in her blood like fire because the power with which she wielded she both knew and accepted. Everyone had the potential to kill but most refused to do so and those that did usually only took life when they reached a point where they could deny it no more and so the madness took them over. To Mel it was more primal, more instinctual than that. Death, to a ninja, was a matter of balance. You kill out of necessity nothing more. But that bastard lying there in that room hiding away in the darkness had thrown out that balance the night he got drunk and slipped in behind the wheel of his car, ploughing it head on into the car that Mel had been travelling in with her mother happy and smiling and contented beside her. Her mother had died but she hadn’t and the reasons why had always plagued her, burdened her, tortured her, up til now. It was like fate had stepped in when this Mike had shown up and offered her the chance to rebalance the scales of injustice and make things right again in a world that had become so shitty for the young college student.

Slipping the blade out she waited. The breaths she stole from that moment were driven for one purpose, she had to stop and push everything else out of her mind.

He wasn’t human; he was a beast, think of your mother, think of what he took from not just you but the world. You know this has to be done. Stand up now like a warrior and do it.

The door handle was cold when she touched it, twisting it delicately, silently, pushing it inwards in keeping with her steady outgoing breaths. The snores were louder in here, the smell of sweat and stale air and perfume smothered her like a heavy blanket. To her right the double hung windows were drawn, slices of the street outside shone through between gaps in the aluminium blinds. The bed creaked as the man groaned. He rolled amid the shadows. Crawling on all fours towards the bed Mel poised. Seconds ticked down both on the bedside clock and in her head decisively. She waited, playing it all out in her head again, needing to see it, to feel it, to know what to expect, anticipating what retaliation a man his weight and what she could judge from his recumbent state his height was likely to lead with in surprise.

Squeezing the blade in her fist Mel stood. The bedside lamp was beneath her fingers, the cool steel in the other inching out, tracing where she could see his face amid the shadows, snoring, snoring, blissfully asleep without the slightest care or regret in the world. Son-of-a-

In a blinding flash the light was on. It flooded the room with a dusty yellow brilliance. Mel frowned against it, her face set in stone, her breaths strong, menacing, loosing their power as she stood staring down at the face of the man slowly rousing to life in front of her.

“Hey, what the- who the fuck are-?”

“Shut-up!” she hissed.

[Ravynlee]

Her fingers gripped knuckle-white around the blade were suddenly quaking. Her stomach keened. Sickness coated her throat along with a palpable physical rage. Staring angrily at the man sunken into his pillow and whose eyes were as large as saucers at the tip of the blade, Mel felt the sting of overwhelming emotions come upon her in a heartbeat.

This man, this young man, staring back at her was too young to be the man that had murdered her mother. She suddenly knew she had been had. But the momentum that had driven her to this point carried on anew, she couldn’t stop herself from blurting the words out, spitting out her mother’s name with vilified tears as the man kept staring at her with that dumb terrified look on his face. She was angry, she was beyond angry. The fact he was almost blubbering now made her anger rise to fathomless proportions. Amid the ugly tangerine light of the bedside lamp Mel’s eyes darted. There, on the floor beneath her feet she saw photographs.

“Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me, I didn’t do anything, I swear, I didn’t do anything-”

Through wet slitted eyes Mel stared, studying them quickly. There were maybe three of them that she could see sticking out through the crumpled pages of some smutty pornographic magazine. Mel didn’t recognise the cover, the naked body of the pre-teen gracing the cover of it making her ears ring alarmingly as she stooped down to pluck up one of the polaroids with her rage snagged literally at the back of her throat.

There, like some sickening vision of hell itself, she saw the image of a small child, crying and naked, and curled up on a mattress with her dark eyes slitted and red and waterlogged with helplessness. Mel cringed. Was that one of her sisters? No, she didn’t recognise this child at all, despite what could very well have been some kind of physical Asiatic features. In this poor light and given to the wear and tear she saw scarring the corners it was hard to tell. But suddenly it didn’t matter who this child was, just the context in which she were trapped and paraded in the picture like some tiny piece of meat had Mel’s blood boiling. She couldn’t breathe. Gone were the thoughts of revenge for her mother, she was seething in general indignation. Every sound he made from the pathetic to the meekly defiant made her slip further and further down that dark precipice further away from self-control.

“I didn’t do anything, I didn’t do anything, you have to believe me, I swear-”

The last syllable found itself cut short literally on the end of Mel’s kunai as she drove it deep into his throat with a vicious grunt. Feeling the warmth of his blood oozing out to soak into her sleeve Mel gasped. It was a moment too late when she realised that the man was staring beyond her to the doorway where a child now stood, watching, her dark hair and dark eyes chillingly familiar as that of the child that had been in the picture she still held. Mel felt the wind escape her lungs as if it had been viciously kicked from her.

But she had thought-?

“Baby- run-” she heard the dying man gasp, his words gurgling on the blood that now spilt from the corners of his mouth in streams of bright cadmium red.

With a grunt Mel shoved the blade down harder, delivering the deathblow before he could even raise hands to defend himself for what little they could do anyway. The child in the doorway remained frozen, her black little eyes stared back hauntingly. Mel was trapped. In that infinite moment life ceased to be. She was a ghost suddenly seen by these tiny agonised eyes. Huffing in an attempt to dispel hot tears Mel wrenched the blade up, freeing it from the man’s throat with a wet sucking sound. The child gasped. Pinching the blade between the gathered folds of her black sleeve Mel slowly stood and swept the blood from it. When she looked back up the child remained frozen hugging the doorway. She watched Mel approach with her big black glassy eyes and didn’t make a sound.

 

 

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[Ravynlee]

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Pushing her way through the jostling crowd Mel ignored their stares and indignant protests until the guard at the front door stepped up to meet her. He was big and brawny but fear had long since abandoned her. Whether it was delayed shock or merely in trepidation, people were starting to react behind her as they noticed the blood that had mysteriously been smeared upon them as she passed.

“I want to see Mike!” she snapped up into the big man’s face.

Though he had arms like tree trunks and his face looked to be carved from matte ivory, Mel didn’t show the black guard even the slightest ounce of fear as she slammed against his chest with a determined grunt.

“He fucking lied to me now I want my answers! Now!”

The guard was manhandling her but after a few quick strikes she had him on his back nursing a broken kneecap and howling aggressively. Two more guards had come to investigate the ruckus as people began panicking like spooked cattle all around her. Mel broke out into fighting stance. She had seen too much, she had endured too much over the last few hours to stand here and take shit from anyone when she had come to see this bastard and the devil himself wasn’t about to stop her meeting at least one of her objectives tonight. She had barely disarmed one from his pistol and swept out the legs of another before a single word penetrated the night and stopped everyone in their tracks in that one anxious heartbeat.

“Hey!”

Blinking up Mel saw Mike standing a few feet away, off in the darkness of the car park like he had been expecting her arrival all along. He had two men with him, one was black, the other white, the three of them a mismatched triptych of ethnicities as Mel approached them with a heated stride. She spun and met the white man with a quick sharp elbow to the face. The man crumpled to the ground with a howl but was struggling back up again just as Mel heard the unmistakable sound of a sharp click beside her. She froze. The black man in the headband and baggy NBA top had the barrel of a gun pressed against her temple. Mel snorted in defeat. She watched the man get to his feet in front of her nursing his bloodied nose and smirked. He went to take a swing at her and she braced herself, reactively cringing but nothing followed. Frowning up she realised he had been stopped from following through by a single raised hand from his compatriot.

Mike shook his head at his counterpart patiently.

He smirked.

Against the darkness and clad in all black with his dark hair cropped short and the lower half of his face shaded by some lacklustre beard, Mike looked like a shadow come to life as he stood looking Mel over silently.

“You lied to me!” Mel snapped before she could stop herself.

Mike scoffed at her as if to say it was par for the course. The way the corner of his full lips pinched up on one side made him look eerily omnipotent as he strode around her, studying her, keeping his thoughts to himself until they locked eyes again.

“So did you do it?”

“Of course I did! You fuckin’ set me up! You sent me to the wrong-”

“Shh… not here.”

Nodding his head aside he gestured her to follow as he began to walk off. Whether it was the pistol still aimed at her now somewhere unseen or the murderous looks his bodyguards were giving her, Mel huffed out her rage and adrenalin to comply with her fists curled knuckle white and shaking at her sides.

They entered the club without further incidence through a heavy side door. Once inside the thump of the music pummelled at Mel’s spirit and body as she was escorted through the smoke and the noise, ignoring the topless dancers romping on a stage around poles and the men that sipped at expensive drinks leering back at them with a disgustedly turned head. Passing through another door they rode a set of steps and emerged at the top into another room that was big and open and offered a bird’s eye view of the club floor below through a wall length window situated at the far end of the room. The door was closed behind her and Mel felt a discreet blow to her back as she was shoved inside. Mike strode on ahead to fetch a drink for himself at the bar along the opposing wall. He offered her one but Mel shook her head. She was too busy glaring at the two men on either side of her, both of them giving her wide berths now but still looking at her like some wild animal trapped in a confined space yet to be tamed.

“So,” Mike said, as he sipped at his drink and leant on his desk casually. “Where do we start this?”

“Start?” Mel wondered bitterly.

The sleeves of her jacket were stiff now from the congealed blood and her eyes were still hot and raw from the tears she had recently shed and those not yet come to the surface. She glared at Mike and it took her all the will power she had left in reserve not to take a run at him and drive her fist through his face to wipe that insidious smirk he always wore, looking so full of himself she didn’t know whether he really thought he was invincible or was just highly amused with the world around him.

“You lied to me! You said that man killed my mother and he didn’t! He couldn’t have! The man that killed her was older than that, I know he was, I remembered him. I don’t know who it was you had me kill but I don’t fuckin’ like it! You used me you son of a bitch! Who the fuck do you think you-”

Mel was silenced by a searing back hand and pulled herself upright to glare into the eyes of the man she had wounded, seething at his demands she shut her mouth and show a little respect. The knowledge she was outnumbered, not by manpower but by fire power kept her rage in check. Mike called his friend’s name to both silence and reprimand him. He apologized but he didn’t really sound as if he meant it.

“Ryu! - I’m sorry, we can’t begin like this.”

He stood up to wander the room with an arm folded across his chest.

“For starters,” he began, “I never said he was the man responsible. I said I knew what happened to you, I knew that the man who hit your car and killed your mother got off on a technicality yes I did say that. But at no point did I tell you that that man was the one you were after. I said I had answers and I did. But you were the one who put two and two together and came up with five, not me.”

Mel scowled back hearing his words and feeling the cold hand of guilt come upon her like an icy tide. The smile he was giving her only made it worse, goading her like a parent chastising their misbehaving child in that universal ‘I-told-you-so’ tone of voice.

“You said someone I knew was in danger.”

“Okay, well that part was… well I had to get you there, didn’t I? Would you have cared so much if I said it was someone you didn’t know? Does anyone care? Besides, if you want to get technical… like… I never actually told you to kill anybody. I didn’t expressly say those words did I? Maybe I put the idea in your head but like that’s not my prints at the crime scene now is it, Melissa?”

The two guards that had relaxed somewhat onto seats around the room and to fetch ice from the mini-bar to nurse on their swollen nose respectively scoffed in amusement.

“So… what was it like?”

[Ravynlee]

Mel blinked up at Mike from a room’s breadth away and struggled to keep her eyes there. She had gone from wild beast to whipped dog in less than five minutes and hadn’t seen it coming, nor could she have prevented it. She scoffed as she stood there, rocking from the force of misspent adrenalin, struggling now as she was to process everything that this night had brought with it, feeling the ability to formulate the sheer force of her emotions into simplified words beyond her grasp at that moment.

“Did you like it?” Mike prompted.

He was s******ing at her. He sipped at his drink, his teeth revealed in something of a snarl and a grin as he settled on the edge of his desk again briefly to watch her with his dark eyes dancing with glee.

“Felt good didn’t it? Felt… just. Like you were righteous, didn’t it? Powerful… You can feel like that all the time if you stay here with me.”

Mel scoffed, her eyes sinking to the floor. She wanted to cry as much as she wanted to cut her own throat, and his, for the feelings that bore down upon her now quaking shoulders.

“So what did you do with the girl?”

“What do you think I did, I fucking killed her!” Mel cried out at last, her eyes wet and slitted and seething-

-Just like the image of that little girl in the picture, the one who you held in your arms as she watched her father die at your hand and who sobbed wretchedly as the shock kicked in, that you silenced forever with your hands on her face and with a sudden twist and jerk you snapped her neck-

“Why?”

“Because I had to! Because she saw me! Because-”

“Because it was the right thing to do,” Mike intoned quietly. “Because we can’t leave behind any witnesses… Self-preservation. You did the right thing. If it makes you feel better he was touching her. Only, maybe not quite to the extent those pictures eluded. You’ve studied art, you know about perception. It’s a very dangerous thing in the wrong context, Mel. You probably did her a favour by putting her out of her misery, you know, poor little thing. Who’s to say what kind of life she would have grown up with if-”

“But I fucking murdered her! She was barely six, seven years old! You made me do it!”

Mike s******ed at her in his unflappable painfully contented way.

“Oh yeah?” he challenged with his toothy grin. “Prove it.”

He blinked aside at his men who despite the obvious trepidation and physical pain of a broken nose laughed along quietly. Defeated and cornered Mel could only hang her head in shame.

“Don’t beat yourself up too badly. You did good. Most people don’t even like get to the target before they wimp out and run back begging for forgiveness. But you… I knew you were special right from the beginning. You’re a natural, isn’t she Tak?”

The black man settled in a comfy sofa nodded back agreeably.

“Sure, man. Whatever you say.”

“This was a test?”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Mike confided. “I’m going to be honest with you Melissa, I need you. You’re someone I can rely on to get things done when others can’t, or won’t. You have a talent and I want to tap it, that’s all. That’s all this is… call it… like… a business arrangement if you will.”

“You want me to do hits for you?” Mel said rhetorically.

The notion that he wanted her to kill again compressed with the burden of her actions of mere hours ago, made her soul feel so heavy it either cemented to material form or completely forsook her altogether. She could scarcely move. Not twenty-four hours ago she was studying hard for her upcoming end of term finals with the biggest burden on her mind something akin to what she wanted for dinner that night, Ramen or imitation Ramen. The situation that confronted her was so surreal she was almost convinced she had to be dreaming it, but the stench and the feel of dried blood caked to her clothes and her flesh made her whole being quake with the mind-numbing magnitude of her actions this night. Her life was now irrevocably changed forever in ways that there was no going back from. Logically, some impulsive, primal part of her knew if she stayed here where she was in this mindset that that great gulf of guilt and grief she was wading in now would slowly rise up and drown her. The only logical option she had left was to go forward - or not at all.

Mike had drained his glass and had set it down, walking casually towards her. Reaching up he peeled the knapsack from her shoulder and tossed it aside to his friend still gingerly trying to shove shards of ice up his blood-caked nostrils. Ryu caught it with a clatter. Mike stared ahead evenly into the young woman’s eyes. He was staring not just at her but into her, reading her, reaching down into her very soul as if he could physically take it a little glimpse at a time. Beneath his heavy brow his stare was so intense Mel felt something inside of her shifting.

Better to be at the right hand of the devil than in his path, she thought to herself suddenly.

Then, as if by someone else’s volition she realised she was ever so slightly smiling back at him.

“I wouldn’t quite put it like that…” he said of her keen observation. “I’d say… like… more like justice. You’ll be the judge, jury and executioner in a manner of speaking. Don’t ask questions just… do what you do best. That’s all I ask,” Mike said, cocking his head to the side to tuck a loose bloodstained strand of hair behind her ear gently. “So can I count on you… or not?”

The sounds of his voice so intimately close it was practically caressing her face made her smile grow steadily. She nodded.

“Okay,” she agreed in a whisper. “What do you want me to do?”

 

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More soon

[Pheonix791989]

ballin ass story. sorry I havent gotten back to you earlier. but sweet I made a kill. haha. makes me happy. never killed anyone in RL but still a kick ass thing. I cant wait to read more mum so you better post more.

[crazy robster]

Oh sis if you don't get a proposal to write the script for a big Hollywood movie after this, then Hollywood producers are morons! Your discription of everything is just...magic! Awesome! And I loved the "sis you needa get a boyfriend" line, definitely sounds like somehting I'd say in real life!! Aww <3 <3 And poor Mel... she murdered someone who was innocent? Mike set her up big time huh? Awwww... It's awesome sis!! It all flows great keep it up! <3

[woodyloveslinkin]

*takes a breath*

 

You know what's good about this story? It gets me out of studying because I've been avoiding to study a majority of my subjects for the HSC (fuck it's coming Ma stop it!) and plus, it's a really interesting story. It's somewht different from all other stories, maybe because it doesn't have the conventional style of melodrama added onto it. It's somewhat, realism meets City Homicide (been watchin that to often my bad).

 

I'm lovng it for all the right reasons!

 

Love

sarah

[Greyfoxx]

*gasps and faints*

 

It's sad how i'm addicted to all these Family Stories aint it?

 

Anywho, keep it coming mum! I'm loving it!

[woodyloveslinkin]

You only now realise this?

Hey! Ma endorses voilence!

*shifty eyes*

*does to Fox what I did to her on AIM the other day* *gappa tapes her mouth and drags her across the room*

 

I love communism in the house (cos I love communism full stop!).

[andrea]

Damn, that all I have to say. Now I get to be the one to say I fill like I'm watching a movie, haha. I do have a question and I know this many be weird but are you going to use the name Rashell or Andrea for my character? Can't wait for the next update.

[Friðbjörn]

ahh this is like watching prison break or something...each time I run out of chapters to read I'm like grr can't wait for more

 

and yeah this is getting very interesting...

very gory and haunting that moment btw...and killing the girl?

guess that's why I'm a detective in this one, I could never do killings haha

[Ravynlee]

Aww Thanks Frib (feels weird not calling you Vi, I wanted a change ) awesome of you to say!

I envisioned you for the cop part cause you always seem to have a level head and lets face it, cops need that huh? Ideally. I know it's a mental leap but Mel aint a killer in real life either, Jojo aint pregnant and I'm not divorced (or a professional writer) so that's why its called fiction, haha.

But anyhoo, thanks for reviewing. I'm happy now

 

Andrea, what do you want to be called? Name it and be forever immortalized as that haha. I have no preference, what would you relate to easier? Let me know okay? And thanks for reviewing too. As for your character I'm getting to you, slowly I know but you'll serve more purpose if you are somewhat of a surprise. Wait and see what I mean

 

Mel, Fox, Sarah, Sis, heck everyone, stoked you all read and reviewed. Any suggestions feel free to share. Happy you're all liking it so far. Updating very very soon. Next hour maybe.

Hope you keep enjoying it. It's a nice ego boost as a writer ya know :o

[Ravynlee]

(Disclaimer - same as before. Drug references, language and... usual crap haha)

 

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“Please don’t… wake me til the morning after…”

Gingerly Fox fluttered open her eyelids to the sound of music warbling from the next room. She groaned. Her head was thumping and her mouth felt disgustingly dry and furry. The bright sunlight streaming in through a gap in the curtains hit her square in the face like a two-by-four.

She cursed loudly and slapped the mattress beside her. She rolled her head to curse again to find she was alone and the sheet beneath her hand cool to the touch. Asshole. Reefing a pillow over her head she let out a low dry raspy sound.

“Shut that fucking noise up!” she bellowed across the bedroom.

Her head felt like it was about to split in two. Hearing the sound of footsteps behind her Fox reluctantly craned over her shoulder to squint out at the source, finding a tall shape filling the doorway and staring back amid the brightness.

“Fox, there’s someone here to see you,” Andy told her.

Gesturing brusquely she was neither in the mood or physically capable of niceties at this hour of the morning, Fox reefed a pillow over her head and thumped it down, hoping to dull the noise if not suffocate herself into oblivion as an escape from it all. He disappeared but the relentless thumping did not. Before she could even formulate another string of verbal obscenities the sound of a man’s voice suddenly approaching over the din wrenched her head free from the pillow.

It was Joe Hahn and he was not happy.

“Wake her up,” he pleaded, his footfalls typically as quick and as erratic as a man walking across blistering hot coals. “I need to see her, man, I have to-”

“Joe?” Fox squinted through her hangover.

Pulling herself up with great difficulty the young red-head’s previous venom was fast dissipating with the panicked tone of this other man’s voice. It took her a few moments to reconcile the man freaking-out out there in her living room with the hyperactive fun-loving life of the party Joe Hahn she used to know. She quickly peeled herself from her bed as fast as she were physically able.

“Fox,” Joe greeted, a plea and an acknowledgement in the same contradictory tone of voice. “You’ve gotta help me. My friend, Toby, they got him-”

“Him? Who? Joe, just- calm the fuck down would you, really,” Fox muttered.

She fisted her red eye socket so hard she was seeing stars temporarily dancing before her eyes. She groaned. Panic was fast giving way to irritation again, the pounding of the music and that beating along out of sync in her head and temples only exacerbated the problem ten-fold. When she squinted back through the darkened dusty living room she frowned at Joe and Andy as the latter wandered the room like a man without a purpose in life and huffed out another low disgruntled sound.

“What’s the problem?” she asked, wishing she could have at least pretended to sound as if she really gave a shit about the answer. “Andy, would you please shut that shit-” she sighed. Looking at the stereo against the wall just behind her Fox’s chest sunk sullenly. The sound of the song playing triggered memories in her that she wasn’t altogether angry or disappointed to be revelling in at that particular moment. Blinking up at the pictures mounted in dusty black frames at the man wearing nerdish black frames and a drunken skewed smile, Fox’s eyes lowered reflectively towards the ground.

“My friend Toby and his little girl, they were found murdered in their house last night,” Joe told her.

He looked wired and on edge, two things not unusual for the well-known portly Korean to be associated with, but his dark beady eyes perhaps bespoke more to the story than his mannerisms ever could.

“It was Mike, I know it was. He said we were square then he goes and fucking does this! Why! They never hurt anyone, man, Fox, she was barely seven years old!”

Pursing her lips, Fox struggled to process the great influx of information at once and frowned back impetuously. What the fuck had this to do with her? Why was he bringing this to her doorstep? And where the fuck was Andy going when she expressly asked him to-

“The cops found them this morning. They’d been stabbed in the neck, Julie, his daughter, they said her neck was broken. Who the hell would do that to a little girl? She was just a fucking little girl!”

“Alright, calm down,” Fox muttered and skulked off to fetch herself a coffee, or anything else that would elevate this gargantuan headache, raising a hand to shield her from the bright light and wincing as it stung her red raw eyes.

“So what do you want me to do about it?” she wondered, rummaging around in the fridge to withdraw a bottle of Vodka from the shelf and crack it.

“Mike’s pissed at you, not at me,” she reminded.

Sipping at the bottle she grimaced at the bighting aftertaste with a goading smirk growing upon her face.

“I know.”

“I’m not the one that defected from his camp, am I? That was you, and now you want me to do what about this all exactly?”

Joe looked helpless. It was so unnerving that Fox felt her smile slip away much gracelessly than she had intended. Rubbing at her face as much in irritation as anything else she wandered back out to the living room and sat down at the sofa, gesturing that Joe do the same. A few moments later the two of them sat alone amid the darkness and the mess of that dingy little apartment. Andy thankfully had made himself useful by staying out of Fox’s way at least for a few blissful moments.

“So what do you want?”

“Help,” Joe said at last. Looking forlorn and worn down with the burden of his grief and guilt Joe struggled his eyes up from the floor to implore hers sullenly. “If Chester was here he’d know what to do.”

“Yeah, well he’s not,” Fox murmured.

Relaxing back against the corner of the sofa Fox took a long thirsty swallow from her bottle before she let out a belch and found her eyes had instantly locked on to that picture in the frame sitting on it’s shelf above the stereo. Sinking her teeth into her lip she stifled a sound of disappointment. It was hard thinking of him locked away in that cold little cell when he should have been out here, she thought to herself dismally, sitting right here beside her, smoking and drinking and finding humour in the most ridiculous of sources. Reflecting on the sound of his laughter Fox drew in a deep breath and washed it all down with another hearty swig of her Vodka.

“Can you at least go see him? Talk to him for me. I would but… I mean I have to… the ones that got Tobes might still come after me… gotta lay low, you know.”

“Jesus Joe, you need to lay off the junk a while. You’re actually starting to sound more paranoid than most crack-heads I know, and believe me, I know a lot of them.”

Fox s******ed and sat forward, searching the cluttered coffee table for a cigarette. She grimaced when she couldn’t find any, happy at least for the moment that Chester wasn’t out to ride her ass about picking up another one of his filthy habits.

Someone has to, she rued dismally. Since you’re not here.

[Ravynlee]

Glaring at the picture in the frame she drained the last of her bottle. Her eyes were watery venomous slits again when they stared ahead at the Korean still perched on the edge of the adjacent cushion like a man teetering on the edge of delirium or dismal acceptance. She was almost tempted to push him up and off towards the door for bringing his woes and hang-dog expression to her of all people out of everyone in this hell of a city, but something inside if her resonated with his pain. She keenly knew what loss of that magnitude was like. She’d felt it that day those weak-assed cops had burst in guns blazing and had stripped her lover from her arms, tossing him in behind bars like some wild animal to be sent to the slaughter. It was almost hard to believe a year had passed since that night but to Fox at least time had done little if anything to heal the wounds left with Chester’s sudden departure. If anything they had only intensified them. Her thirst for revenge replaced the blood in her veins but she sat here still, stewing on it, cursing man and the heavens alike for the atrocities done to her and those she loved most. The time would come eventually when Chester would be set free and that day was the only one that saw her crawl out of bed anymore.

Liberate tutame ex inferis

Save yourself from Hell.

If only.

“Alright,” she conceded. “But I don’t know what he’s gonna be able to do from in there. I’ll see. But you need to lay low. If you’re smart you’ll get out of town fast. At least until Chas can… I dunno… sort something out.”

Rubbing her brow wearily Fox glared at her friend wishing she could make her words sound less abrasive and more hopeful than they essentially were. Whether relieved by the act of confessing to her or whether he actually believed her visiting Chester behind bars could actually do him any good, Joe thanked her and smiled in a way that was reminiscent of far happier times.

Feeling the tidal wave of memories and the sinking loss that always followed Fox huffed out a vicious breath as she watched Joe leave. Rolling her eyes aside to the vacant wall by the front door Fox’s lethal stare fixated upon a newspaper clipping tacked to it. Bust of a lifetime! The Times declared in big bold lettering. Drug baron Bennington’s epic fall from grace. How two NYPD Rookies cracked one of the biggest drug cartels this side of the border.

Fox scowled as if she had swallowed a bitter pill, her eyes boring into the black and white image of the two pigs whose faces were forever seared into her memory from that night when they burst in weapons drawn and screaming and dragged her beloved Chester away like a sacrificial lamb to the slaughter in handcuffs… Officer Phoenix Farrell and Officer Robert Bourdon. Whoop-de-fuckin-do.

Raising two fingers and her thumb Fox made the universal symbol for a gun from her hand and pointed it at the picture with her eyes slitted and evil.

“Pow,” she muttered towards the tall cop’s smiling face. Then she s******ed until the sound gave birth to a maniacal laugh.

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

Chester Bennington was not a happy man anymore.

After almost twelve months in a maximum security prison the almost six foot soft spoken native of Arizona had not only been robbed of his high-rolling lifestyle, his name, his friends, and his freedom, he had also lost his ability to smile as he was led to his seat and sunk down into it silently. Fox reached up to touch the glass that separated them with a wince. The tattooed man that sat staring off into his lap distantly looked like a diluted version of the man she had visited barely two weeks ago. Picking up the receiver to make initial contact she waited on a razor’s edge until with a jangle of cuffs he reluctantly reached up to do the same.

“Hey baby, how are you? What… what happened to your face?”

Chester smirked around the gash in his lower lip and still refused to properly face her.

“Nothing,” he lied. “Just… accident.”

Fox struggled hard not to scowl. In her peripheral vision the guards that wandered the room’s interior with their haughty expressions made her flesh crawl contemptuously. She hated them and everything they stood for but forced to keep her exceedingly fiery stare to a minimum lest they cut her visit short and take another secretive swing at their prisoner behind closed doors - not like they wouldn’t do it anyway after she was gone. Fuckers. Dipping her eyes and her tear-filled stare the young redhead struggled to compose herself. The visual shock of seeing Chester again was as painful as the reality that for now he was there and she was out here and there was nothing at all within the scope of the law or otherwise she could do to possibly change that. Yet.

“I miss you,” she muttered in a forcibly apathetic tone of voice.

On the other side of the glass Chester managed a small smirk back in response. His squared face looked funny now without the adornment of his piercings, looking painfully normal - at least from the neck up - in ways that the once nerdish nobody turned flamboyant high-roller shouldn’t have been subjected to. But perhaps the biggest shock of all was the look in his eyes when she finally met them, looking as haunted and as frightened as the boy he had once been, suffering to come to terms with the abuse and molestation that had shaped his spirit in part in to the man that was sitting before her now. The tragedy and helpless of it all almost broke Fox’s tough steel-bound heart.

“No you don’t,” he smirked back at her. The words he spoke were an attempt to remain optimistic when everything else about him screamed the exact opposite.

[Ravynlee]

“So… how’s things on the outside?”

“Bright. Ugly. Gone to shit without you.”

Chester nodded guiltily.

“What about the gang?”

“Gone. There’s a few of us left but most of the other fucks ran for the hills the night those two ass-fuckers came in and took you.”

Chester nodded again. He was looking at the guards slowly pacing the room behind him, keeping his voice low and his gaze discreet, looking suddenly eager to share something with her. Hunching closer to the glass with his hand against it he motioned her forward. Fox returned the gesture in kind. She was staring at the ring tattoos inked into his long bony fingers with a miserable longing.

“I’ve got a new lawyer Foxxy. They’re making an appeal as we speak. They’re gonna get me out of here, man, they promised. They will… They have to.”

Though he didn’t sound desperate the wild look in his eyes attested otherwise. Fox smiled impulsively but didn’t actually feel happy, or convinced. After a year of appeals and denials and screw-ups by every other department that had handled his case, Fox didn’t have the heart to tell him that she’d long since lost the hope and patience that Chester still clung to. The smile she gave him didn’t sit well on her face and by the look Chester gave her, or didn’t as he bowed his head from her, he knew it too.

“This is killing me, seeing you like this.”

“You think I wanna fuckin' be here?”

“I know, I know-”

“No you don’t know! You don’t have any fucking idea what they’re-” Chester stopped and licked his split lip cautiously. He was watching a guard again out of the corner of his eye but Fox couldn’t read the expression on his gaunt drawn face. Silence took over, enforcedly, as they sat there divided by the sheet of thick bullet proof glass unable to console one another physically mentally or emotionally, even true honest words had long since failed them. When they spoke again now it was an act of necessity, pretending life went on as normal so that the reality didn’t crush them both like paper concertinas beneath the world’s weight.

“Joe came to see me yesterday,” she said, knowing that the sound of his old friend’s name would perk Chester up, if only briefly. It did.

“How is that fat bitch doing lately?” Chester grinned, or tried to, against the protest of his wounded mouth. “He hasn’t been to see me. Wait til I get out man, I’m gonna be like having a few words to say to that man.”

“Well you’re gonna have to find him first to do it. Word on the street is Mike’s after him. Apparently he hit Joe’s friend or cousin or some shit, I dunno, I wasn’t really listening. But he seems to think our old friend wanted to send some sort of message to him, like he’s next or something. I told Joe to split. Last I heard he was up on the first Greyhound out of the city sometime last night.”

“Our old friend, huh?” Chester pondered with a grave frown. “What’s Mike want with him, doesn’t have enough friends of his own?”

Lowering their voices to little beyond hushed whispers Fox and Chester confided with discreet urgency.

“Its crazy out there, babe. Mike’s cutting everyone. I’ve heard he’s been taking out dealers left right and centre and rather than keep the profit he’s tipping off the feds for their cut of the action! Everyone’s afraid of him, they dunno who he’ll come after next. And the feds aren’t gonna bust him when he’s got half the city in his pocket. It’s not like it used to be babe, it’s like some fucking war zone or-”

“Hey! Break it up you two!”

The clatter of the guard striking his baton against the glass made them both jump and jerk back defensively. It took all of Fox’s reserve to remain in her seat with her fists curled beneath the table and the other like a steel talon around the receiver. Her eyes narrowed with murder but Chester could only nod back dubiously. With a sinking heart Fox couldn’t help but fear if he was already condemned to a beating from someone in this place once she walked out and had already albeit miserably accepted his fate. He was so skinny at the best of times there wasn’t much of a fight he could put up, especially if the assailants happened to outnumber him two to one - or worse. Fox was practically shaking from the force of her adrenalin as she glared at the retreating head of the guard and almost didn’t hear Chester rap a knuckle lightly on the glass to get her attentions back.

“Foxxy. Don’t,” he warned. It was as simple and as sincere an order as he could give her. “Save it, man. There’s bigger fish in the sea to catch first, okay?”

“Okay,” she complied. Sniffling at her predicament and practically feeling the time left to them ticking by in rapid speed. “When you get out.”

“That’s my girl,” he said. It was, for a brief fleeting glimpse, a vision of the old cocky self-contained man she had always known and so endeared. “Everyone always gets what they deserve in the end, man. When I get out everything’s gonna change man, just you wait and see.”

 

---

 

More soon

[crazy robster]

So Mel actually killed that man AND the little girl? OH MY...that was harsh... And I was wondering where the rest of the LP members were...well, here's Joe! And Foxxy! I couldn't actually imagine anyone better to be with Chester! Good job sis, keep it up while the iron is hot, it seems your creativity is working miracles these days ^^

[Ravynlee]

Thanks sis ^^ I dunno if I'd use the word miracle but its certainly been a constructive few days hasn't it? Thanks again (hugs)

[Pheonix791989]

ballin!! you gotta put more up damn it!! do it do it!! hahaha. *pokes u wif a stick.* pwease? oh and yeah you def gotta put more of me n shwag, just imagine all the hilarity and comedic breaks you could have haha.

[Greyfoxx]

*giggles and spazzes around like a happy school girl* YAYYAYAYAYYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY

 

*drools* chesssterrrrr

 

anywho

 

back to me

 

I LOVE IT!!!!!

 

GREAT WORK MUM!

 

More more more!!!

 

*spazzes*

 

So Mel actually killed that man AND the little girl? OH MY...that was harsh... And I was wondering where the rest of the LP members were...well, here's Joe! And Foxxy! I couldn't actually imagine anyone better to be with Chester! Good job sis, keep it up while the iron is hot, it seems your creativity is working miracles these days ^^

Hhahaha, I couldn't imagine anyone better to be with him either!!!

[woodyloveslinkin]

Mel, Fox, Sarah, Sis, heck everyone, stoked you all read and reviewed. Any suggestions feel free to share. Happy you're all liking it so far. Updating very very soon. Next hour maybe.

Hope you keep enjoying it. It's a nice ego boost as a writer ya know :o

 

 

Hmm...I was thinking about this last night...I wanna be a history teacher teaching kids about communism/marxism/leninism/maoism (<<much preferred Maoism). Or failing that either a real life communist dictator that follows peasant communism or a cult leader.

[Ravynlee]

ballin!! you gotta put more up damn it!! do it do it!! hahaha. *pokes u wif a stick.* pwease? oh and yeah you def gotta put more of me n shwag, just imagine all the hilarity and comedic breaks you could have haha.

give me examples, all I know of the man is his name! besides, dunno whether or not you noticed but its not particularly that kind of story... maybe, but we'll see what develops. Might send you nuts after a while in this company you're keeping in the story Yay for misunderstood Mikey.

 

And yuh Foxxy, you be Chas's gurl in this one. His life support to the real world outside. Aww. I was going for evil bitch like you said but I had to legitimize your so-called evilness. Even bad people have good moments, see? haha @ your spazzin. Cute. Thats the actions of a woman in lurve... probably. haha

 

Woody; maybe not. We'll see.

 

As for the rest, more coming. Gimmie a tic and thanks for reading/reviewing. Much appreciated as always!

[Ravynlee]

Okay more gore and the usual depravity ahead. Joe Hahn fans look away now. You were warned.

 

---

 

Knocking on the door she waited.

“Yeah, wait up a sec,” a voice called back.

Leaning closer to the door Mel frowned. She could hear Mike’s voice on the other side of it as if he were having a conversation with someone but as seconds passed and she didn’t hear a second voice Mel’s brow began to furrow deeply.

“Yeah, it’s clear, come on in.”

Twisting the handle Mel lightly stepped inside. After quickly surveying the room she realized Mike was obviously alone inside his modest office. Sitting behind his big black desk he let out a heavy burdened sigh. Rubbing his eyes, at his brow as if the overhead lights were killing him, he stole a terse glance aside at the black cell phone sitting stately upon a pile of manila folders. It was obvious now he had been up here making calls all morning and it was quickly apparent the conversation of this last one had gotten to him. It was the first time she realized perhaps he was wearing what looked to be a wedding band, twisting it considerately between his fingers before he jerked it off and tossed it in a drawer begrudgingly. Huffing out a harsh nasal sound Mike slumped back in his seat to look at her. He interlocked his fingers across his chest, obscuring the pattern printed onto it. He didn’t relay his concerns and nor did Mel think it appropriate to ask. Though she had spent barely three days in this man’s company getting familiar with the surrounds and the generalities of the club, Mel was wary about knowing anything other than what he was telling her. Entrusting her faith in him was paramount now, given what little she already knew without being told just what he was capable of. Hiding his thoughts and concerns away behind his sudden and irritatingly ever-present smile, Mike acknowledged Mel’s entrance into his office with quick cordialities.

“How are you?”

“Good.”

“How are you finding things?”

“Yeah, good.”

“Can you say anything other than the word good or…?”

Mike smirked at her amusedly as Mel snorted with a shrug. It was meant to come off as jovial but all she could wring from it was a half-hearted smirk. Mike’s happy grin soon melted away to a more business like façade.

“So how are you sleeping?” he asked.

His chair squeaked as he relaxed back even further throwing up an instant pretense of a therapist contemplating life’s perplexities with a stern yet thoughtful gaze. Mel shrugged as her eyes wandered slowly towards the floor.

“Alright, I guess.”

“You ready to meet the guys?”

Guys, as in plural? You mean there were more of them?

“Sure,” Mel said with her curiosities peaked.

 

---

 

 

 

Downstairs in a back room of the club the ceiling disappeared in a white fog of cigarette smoke. Though it was relatively early in the day out alcohol ran freely. Mel stood in the doorway feeling Mike’s entrusting arm draped around her back staring at the table of goons playing poker uproariously and felt as if she’s stepped back into the frame of the most cliché gangster flick she had ever seen in her life. This had to be bullshit.

“Yo, guys,” Mike introduced, laughing before he bellowed it a bit louder over the din. “Hey this is Melissa, Mel, guys.”

“Woo! A chick! I’ll be damned-”

“Hey what’s the occasion? Still a couple of months off until Christmas-”

“Yo, what’s the deal man, we’re recruiting from kindergarten now, come on”!

“We finally got ourselves a piece of ass now boys!”

“Cool it,” Mike said, grinning at their animated tirade. “She’s part of the crew. Treat her with due respect, man.”

Mel felt her cheeks colour unceremoniously and dipped her eyes, as much from his statement as from the strange faces all blatantly staring dead at her.

“You take away all our fun.”

“Yeah, surely one handful-?”

“What the shit are you talking about, all you’ve got to give is one handful-”

“Hey shove it up your ass Margera.”

“Hey!” Mike snapped finally. It was hard to tell whether he was inciting control out of habit or for her benefit, his heavy frown and elated grin confusing to read at best let alone decipher. “If any of you can lay a hand on her and keep it there best of luck to you.”

Leaving them to ponder his cryptic message with a smirk he wandered in and stood by the table, surveying the faces that sat around him. Amid them Mel was quick to notice a chair remained vacant. Curiously Mike did not lower himself on to it and neither had any of the others with one preferring an upturned milk crate instead. Mel pondered the meaning behind it in silence as Mike shook his head at the men’s propositions to join them. He chuckled, instead motioning to the faces bobbing above the cards with his voice loud and rich in spirit.

“This here is Jared. The shifty looking one beside him is Lupe. That glam motherfucker there is Bam, and the twitchy guy next to him is big G. Ribisi. That one hiding in the corner is Celph. You already know Ryu and Tak.”

Mel nodded, barely able to look any of them in the eye and feeling the sheer animosity from some when she did. Slumped across a two-seater sofa against the wall Ryu seemed to be scowling as he sipped at his beer. It was hard to tell amid the shadows and general gloom of this hide out but from what Mel could quickly ascertain the swelling had only just started to subside against the blue-black frames of two black eyes.

“There’s a few others but this is the most of them,” Mike told her.

[Ravynlee]

Mel nodded. She wanted so badly to react, to say or do something beneath the collective weight of their stares staring back so expectant and apathetic but she could scarcely struggle her eyes up from the ground like some awkward new student being introduced in front of the class. Mike had clapped her shoulder perhaps a little too hard to show them she wasn’t just a girl to burden them with her petite little frame. Mel flinched and sucked it up, finding her feet with an instantaneous threatening grimace. The men laughed. Mike joined in.

“Come on, let’s leave these bastards alone to talk,” he told her.

Mel was lead back out, no more relieved to be away from the chaos and the stench and the attention of that roomful of strangers as she was here just outside it standing alone with Mike in the darkness. Finding they were on the wings of the stage Mel back peddled under the pretense

of investigating. Dutifully Mike followed.

“Listen, Mel,” he began to say in something of a hesitant tone of voice.

Mel froze. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the rest of the club bathed in darkness. In her memory she could see the interior of cupboards rushing up to meet her, trapping her in like she remembered them every waking moment since that night at that man’s house. That dead little girl. That little target, that’s what they were, they weren’t people to you now they were targets, forget about it already! Her inner voice chided.

Mike was standing in front of her now. He was so close she could smell him keenly from his cologne to his breath and closed her eyes with a frown, willing all thoughts and trepidation away. Feeling him shove something into her hand she tensed up. It was a huge wad of what looked like, in this gloomy darkness, hundred dollar bills. Mel almost swallowed her tongue.

“I just… I wanted to say I’m sorry, for the other night. I said some things that… well, you know. And like thank you. You were awesome and I really appreciate it.”

Struck with the fear he was singling her out now, now that she was alone out here away from prying eyes and that he was about to use his position of power over her, Mel clenched her fists and the money at her sides in anticipation.

I bet he doesn’t thank all his cronies like this, I know what you’re doing, so help me god if you try and touch me I swear to god that I’ll-

“Was nothing,” she lied with a dry raspy mouth.

Mike’s dark eyes like polished black pearls were staring straight at her again, into her, intimate.

“I need your help,” he said in that low, enticing, affably serious manner. “I have it on good authority that one of the crew here is leaking information on me, on what we do here. I don’t need to explain the gravity of this situation Melissa, I’m not gonna lie to you. If the wrong people got their hands on this place it would all come undone and you along with the rest of us will be going down with it… I need you to find out who it is and bring me proof. I don’t need to know the details, I don’t care how, just do what you have to. Watch your fucking back. When you know who it is you come to me, like, directly to me, do you understand? I’ll deal with it from there, got it?”

“You… want me to be a spy?”

“I’m asking you to keep your eyes and ears open that’s all. I’ve already had one… unfortunate incident happen over misplaced loyalties, I’m not about to risk seeing all this hard work go under.”

“But they already don’t trust me. How do you expect me to- If they find out they’re gonna kill me. I’m done for.”

“Then don’t get caught,” Mike said, matter-of-factly. Smirking at her in the most irritating of ways he reached up and brushed at the shoulder of her tee-shirt with a parent’s fastidiousness. “Are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Good. Now I suggest… you go make friends before I-”

“Boss.”

“What?” Mike grunted. He rolled his head aside to see Ryu rushing towards him extending out his cell-phone with open urgency.

“Dude, it’s lil Jon. They’re at the station. They found Joe Hahn. They’re bringing him here right now as we speak.”

“Really?” Mike wondered with genuine surprise. It was an ominous moment later that Mel watched the tall half-Japanese man’s expression shift from elated to malevolence as he snatched up the phone. After grunting a handful of words into it he snapped it to a close and handed it back.

“Tell the others to take off,” he ordered, watching Ryu stride away like a man on a mission - and a blatant scowl in the young woman’s direction. Mel went to follow but the sudden grip of Mike’s fingers around her upper arm halted her in barely half a stride.

“No. Wait. I want everyone to see this,” he said.

Mel’s stomach was sinking. The look on his face she already well knew and she also knew with chilling clarity what it would lead to.

When Joe Hahn was brought in by an escort of two a few moments later Mel, Mike, Ryu, Tak and at least seven other men all stood in the room where the gang had recently been playing cards, watching as the portly Korean was dragged in front of them. He looked freaked and a little rough around the edges, bloodied up no doubt during his capture and squinting through half closed and badly swollen eyes. It was obvious he was scared but he was defiant too. The way he slumped there between his two assailants almost smirking despite his pain made Mel’s stomach nose-dive expectantly. Looking around at all the stern faces that flanked her Mel blinked up, watching the haze of cigarette smoke swirling and slowly dissipating around the dusty hanging bulb. She felt like she were standing in the bowels of hell here and no one would ever hear her outside of it if she were to scream.

[Ravynlee]

Joe took a beating by Ryu and Tak. Winded and on the floor in the foetal position he was wailing for absolution. It was all just some big fucking misunderstanding, he cried, he didn’t say anything, he didn’t do anything-

‘-Please don’t kill me! I didn’t do anything, I swear, I didn’t do anything, I didn’t-’

Mel sniffed sharply at the memory of that dying man’s face those nights ago all but feeling the blood gurgle up beneath her fist like a warm torrent. She let out a strangled sound. Mike was looking at her. Had he heard or had he asked her something? No. With sickening clarity Mel stood there watching Mike approach his old friend ominously knowing this whole performance, for want of a better word, was being played out for her benefit.

This is what will happen to you if you cross me, he seemed to be saying. By the expressions on the other men’s faces around her watching on with awkward subservience she knew it was a lesson they had all been subjected to at some point before this. Maybe it was even a regular occurrence, like preventative discipline. Jesus Christ what the hell have I gotten myself into? She thought in a mild panic for the billionth time since arriving. Suddenly the cold hard cash that had since been shoved into her hip pocket felt unnaturally heavy as if she carried a pocketful of lead. Blood money. This is just the start of it. There’s no way out for you Melissa. This is the path you’ve chosen, just suck it up now and accept it. With that thought she let instinct take over.

With cool detachment she watched as Mike approached Joe and planted a fist into his face. Mel couldn’t help but flinch, the sound of Joe’s horrified screams ricocheted around the darkened room. Struggling to reconcile that this was the same Mike who had all but come on to her out there on the wings of the stage, the young woman felt sickness fill her throat watching him now attack his friend like a proverbial Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde persona.

“Who did you tell? Who did you tell!”

“No one, man, I swear, Mike, come on, you know me, they set me up, you know I’d never-”

Wordlessly reaching back Mike gestured Ryu with an open hand. With a click Ryu had snapped open a knife and handed it over. Joe panicked when he saw it but Mel’s eyes only saw him in the haze of her peripheral vision. Ryu, with his white face, red nose and black eyes, was staring straight at her, his expression threatening. You’re next, he smirked. He nodded. Seeking a visual distraction Mel glimpsed aside at Joe who was now back first against the table.

“Hold his hand out.”

“What?” Joe freaked.

“Hold his fucking hand out!” Mike barked over his shoulder.

Men began to move but it was at Mel he was staring.

“You, come here. Hold him down.”

With a rock in her throat Mel approached beneath the weighted stares of all her male counterparts, ignoring their s******s of sarcasm as to how someone as perceptibly small and weak as she appeared could do what Mike asked of her with any great success. Joe’s eyes were on hers and the terror she saw in them stabbed at her heart chillingly. Huffing out a determined sigh Mel stood along side her boss and with a new air of authority slammed the Korean’s hand into the table and pinned it there. Mike was sawing through the bone with his teeth snarling. He almost appeared to be grinning maliciously.

Joe’s screams of pain and horror flooded the room but no one made a move to help him, no one did anything but stand back and stare, shuffling about uncomfortably.

Wrenching the dissected finger from Joe’s hand Mike held it up to inspect it with a murderous glee. Mel frowned back. It seemed an odd trophy to keep from anyone much less someone he arguably once considered a dear friend. Just when she was mouthing the words to ask him what he intended to do with it, on sheer impulse, Mike had stepped back and Ryu stepped forward. Mel cringed. She let go as Tak took over in her place; back-peddling a few steps from the evil eye the big white man was giving her.

“This is gonna come in handy,” Mike said, smirking at his clever homonym. A few brave souls s******ed; Mel however was not one of them. She watched as Mike told one of his associates to quickly take the severed finger up and put it on ice. Take special care of the prints, he directed, predicting something along the lines of its usefulness in the near future. Mel swallowed the stone that had been choking her. Just like that she realised what the future held in store for her, for any of them should Mike in his paranoid psychotic way suspect any of them to be dissidents. He would set them up and have others kill them, never needing to dirty his own hands.

True evil or true genius, there seemed no way to separate them when it came to Mike.

And this is the life you have agreed to, she pouted broodingly. Then so be it. Don’t defect or don’t get caught, simple.

“What do you want us to do with the rest of him?” Ryu asked, struggling to keep Joe from thrashing himself free and keep his screams to a barely tolerable level with the aid of his friend.

Wiping his hands on a jacket that had been tossed to him Mike considered his options carefully. Even from a good five metres away she could practically see the wheels turning over in his mind. Pulling himself upright he sighed.

“Take him home. Put him in his car. Gas it. Mr Hahn here’s going to be so overcome with grief he’s about to have himself a little accident.”

Joe was suddenly screaming with renewed terror, the pain of his missing digit all but forgotten, but was stifled as he was quickly being dragged out of the room. The relief was temporary however as Mike beckoned over Giovanni and exchanged a few discreet words with him. The slight man with traumatised eyes and nervous demeanour nodded in agreement.

“Sack his house, then torch it. I don’t want to see a single fucking fibre left the cops can trace back here, are we clear?”

“Sure boss. It’s done.”

“Take Bam and the girl scout here with you. Any problems-”

“I know what to do, don’t worry.”

Mike smiled at his friend and clapped him on the back cordially. He nodded. Worry, it seemed, appeared to be the last thing on his mind. Then with his eternally satisfied smile and casual swagger he too left the room.

 

 

---

:spiteful:

[Pheonix791989]

ballin mum!! as far as his personality I sent you a PM tellin you what he was like. he says hi. well... thats the gist of what he was saying before he ran off to get drunk.