Most people had a morning routine.
The fortunate ones got to sit down and read the paper in a comfy, cozy house and enjoy a cup of espresso. They sat in some plush ass chair in the fleece robe or plaid pajamas they had slept in. Maybe they propped their slipper-clad feet up in the process.
Thank fuck that wasn’t me. Espresso tasted like pig shit, and I slept naked.
The unfortunate ones had to figure out if they were going to be able to drink a glass of water or eat that day. Then they had to double check that the boogeyman hadn’t snatched up a family member in the middle of the night.
They couldn’t even piss in safety.
Gotta say I’m real fucking glad not to be one of them, either. Having to worry about my life while my dick was in my hand would really fuck up my day.
Then, there was me.
Every morning, I looked out at a world that had rotted and gone cold. A world responsible for taking away the parts of me that ever dared to care. I had nothing left anymore but a cyclone of endless rage constantly churning thorns and venom through my veins.
I didn’t give a shit if someone’s family member went missing in the middle of the night. I had my own people to take care of.
If I wasn’t so deranged, I might have pretended I wanted to change. I was better off like this, and I refused to hide from what was inside me. In my anarchy, only the strong survived. I had the scars beneath my ink to prove it. The bodies buried all around my domain only solidified it.
The weeping that burst through my monitor and had me turning away from the window, putting an end to my daily morning reflections, sealed the deal.
Without bothering to look, I bypassed the screen and left the room. The warehouse was silent now that I was away from the monitors; not even the woman’s cries could be heard.
I made my way down to the lower level of the building, reminding myself I still needed to get rid of the dead redhead on my bedroom floor.
Beyond a metal door that sat alone at the end of a short hall was my unhappy new friend. The door groaned and squeaked when I pushed against it, slamming shut with a loud bang after I stepped through.
I glanced around the barren room, noting that the pliers had been moved from their resting place on the wall. That meant Cobra had come in after I left the night before.
Looking towards the woman restrained in the center of the room, I began to approach her with slow, measured steps.
Her husband’s naked body was directly across from her. His arms were still tied to the poles that had pulled them from their sockets, his tibia stuck clean through his right leg, and dried blood coated the back of his thighs and ass. He’d bled out sometime the previous day after he was fucked for a solid hour and then had his wrists cut open.
The woman stopped wailing and started trying to swing her suspended body in my direction. I had purposely secured the ropes around her so there was no give in them, making sure she couldn’t find a way to ease her discomfort or look away from her husband’s brutalized asshole.
A fresh line of drool hung from the side of her busted lip. On the floor beneath her head lay Cobra’s handiwork—a small pile of bloody, broken teeth.
She looked up at me with swollen green eyes I wanted to carve out of their sockets. The blind would see a helpless woman made to dress like an old-style nun, hanging from the ceiling. I saw a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.
“Do you remember where David is now?” I interrogated.
“I’ll never tell you.” She tried to sound strong, but with spittle flying from her mouth and her voice almost gone, I was severely unimpressed.
“That’s funny. I swear a few hours ago you said you couldn’t remember.”
I grabbed her cheeks and squeezed, applying pressure on her tender gums. Her pained bleat was a fucking delightful sound. I knew she would never tell me where her precious prophet was. None of them ever did. I’d lost count of how many people I had killed trying to get a solid answer. The motherfucker had his followers brainwashed.
These people’s weak, corruptible minds believed his interests and theirs were the same. The Order wasn’t a religious group; it was a widespread cult with a made up doctrine that revered David like a god. They had their own convenient definitions of sin that matched their bullshit religion, which made the fact that David used a fucking cross of all things as his insignia comical.
I used the symbol in a much more appropriate way. It was my endearing way of saying fuck him. I could never embrace that shit. The only god I believed in was myself and death, and she had always been on my side.
As I watched blood begin to pool between the woman’s lips. I wondered how many children she had helped steal. How many men and women were killed in front of her. It wasn’t that I cared—I was just curious.
I was still squeezing when Cobra and Grimm walked in, carrying sandwiches.
“Get rid of her. We have a problem,” Cobra announced around a mouthful of food.
“Lena still hasn’t come back,” Grimm clarified.
“Well, that doesn’t fucking surprise me.” I let go of the woman’s face to retrieve the Browning knife I kept in my back pocket. With one fluid motion, I flipped it open and inserted the seven-inch blade into the side of her neck, then just as smoothly pulled it out.
She gurgled, choking on own her blood. Her body swayed, twitching involuntarily as it died. I placed the palm of my hand over her heart and shut my eyes. It was beating in an erratic tempo, fighting so desperately to cling to a life that was already lost.
I expelled a quiet breath and opened my eyes to watch the blood run down her face, turning her honey brown hair a vivid maroon before dripping in a steady pattern onto the concrete floor.
Death was such a beautiful thing. She could take everything in the blink of an eye, or draw the suffering out for as long as she desired.
I wiped my knife clean on the woman’s habit and then turned to face my brothers. “I guess we need to go find Lena, then. I’ll get her down later.”
“I’ll drive, you eat,” Grimm replied, tossing me a sandwich on our way out of the room.
We searched the only place someone could get lost—the woods that sat twelve miles down the road. The longer we were out playing find the needle, the more our irritation grew.
I could admit that for the most part, society had kept its shit together. We weren’t considered part of that society. We didn’t live in the fancy fucking houses that had twenty-four seven patrols and a fence to keep people like us out. You know the ones who tie up Daddy, terrorize the kiddos, and then fuck Mommy to ramp up the despair? We are those people.
It was dumb to go anywhere alone if you weren’t someone people knew not to fuck with. I wanted to believe Lena didn’t come across someone that fucking stupid, but the evidence was not in her favor.
“I don’t think she’s out here,” Grimm said, breaking our companionable silence.
“Do you think that’s human?” Cobra pointed to a flattened plant with a small amount of fresh blood on its leaves. Looking beyond the plant, it was obvious someone or something was recently dragged through the dirt.
Guess we were about to find out which one it was.