I want to be the lightning. I want to wreak havoc. I want to destroy something.
I already have though, haven’t I?
I want to destroy something else. Something that deserves my destruction.
Fuck it. I’m not going to fall sleep, I may as well get up and do something with my time.
Throwing back the blankets like it’s their fault I’m alone in this bed tonight, I rise and go to my closet. Like most days, I select a suit and tie. Today I grab a crisp white shirt—the one at the back with the fucked up stitching along the side seam. I snagged it on something—I don’t know what or when, I just noticed it when I took it off one day. It’s not even visible since I always wear a jacket, but it bothers me so I don’t wear the shirt. I meant to throw it out, but I never wore it again and forgot about it.
It’ll do just fine for tonight.
Once I’ve put myself together, I grab my gun and head for my study. I hit the surveillance room first to check in on Mia and make sure she’s okay. If Vince has hurt her again, maybe I’ll just let Adrian sleep and go put my gun in his mouth. He’s the one I’d like to feed a bullet to, to be honest. I can vent my anger and dissatisfaction on some other unfortunate fucker, but that’s the one I want to kill. Not maim. Not shove out of my way.
I want him dead.
I don’t want Mia to have been hurt again, but as I rewind and go back through the footage, I almost hope he did. She can survive one more offense against her; then I have an excuse to murder him.
Probably not a good excuse, but it’s good enough for me.
Of course he lets me down. Of course all I get to watch is footage of the little asshole holding her afterward, trying to make amends. He goes about that wrong, too. She lets him hold her but he doesn’t reach her. It’s nothing like any of the times I had her in my room. Now that I’m watching it a second time, I see that.
She’s not happy.
I should just kill him.
Maybe she only went back to him because of her fucked up sense of loyalty. For someone not raised in my household, she seems to accept ownership over her person without much trouble. The only reason she wasn’t Vince’s anymore was because she thought he dumped her. Despite the days we had together, of course she took the opportunity to escape me and ran right back to that asshole’s side as soon as he said he still wanted her.
Goddamn her guilt.
Goddamn my self-sabotage.
Now I’m itching with aggravation again so I pull up Adrian’s room and check the monitor. He’s sleeping, naturally. Most people are around 2am.
I head to his room next. If I can’t sleep, he can’t either—not tonight. I slip inside fairly easily. He’s still asleep. He’s not as light a sleeper as I am and I can be a stealthy fucker anyway, so while he slumbers, I retrieve the guns he’ll reach for once startled to make sure I don’t accidentally get shot. That would be a hell of a thing. I wonder if he’d even try to stop the bleeding, or if he’d just accept his good luck, go retrieve Elise, and leave me here in his room to die.
Softly depositing both guns on the dresser, I head back to the red tufted chair beside his night table. I take a seat, recalling that night long ago when he sealed his own fate in a similar situation. The slimeball he killed tried to harm the girl he loved. He didn’t love her then, I suppose, but he must have known he would. In order to do something like that, to make the sacrifice he made, he must have felt it.
A flash of Mia in my bed just yesterday flashes to the forefront of my mind, her soft blue eyes, her smiling face, her arms around me.
I roll my shoulders, stretch my neck—try to ease the tension out of my body. It doesn’t work. I’m so fucking dissatisfied. I feel like every tendon in my body is tied in knots and I’ll never be comfortable again.
I can’t remember the last time I felt like this. This is a horrible feeling. I wish I could escape myself. I wish I could abandon my own body and get the hell away.
Unfortunately, more than anyone else, I am quite firmly stuck with myself.
I need a distraction so I lean forward, resting my elbows on top of my legs, and call just loudly enough to wake him, “Adrian.”
He jumps, his hand going for the gun no longer stashed behind his headboard.