My feet carried me where my brain didn’t know to go. Brick buildings lined the streets, people standing around and chatting as though the world hadn’t shifted.
As if it hadn’t lost someone who was far too good for all the ugly in it.
Tony grinned as I walked up and put my hand to his throat, pressing him against the bricks with a strength I didn’t usually have. Life on the streets kept me thin enough that, even with my abnormal height, it didn’t take much to subdue me.
But he allowed me to feel like I was in charge, raising his hands as if he was innocent. “Did you spend it all already, Paolo?” he asked, sneering down at me. “It certainly wasn’t on a bath.”
“Who was it?” I snarled, leaning further into his face. I towered over him, feeling inhuman in a way I never had.
It was because there was no longer a heart beating in my chest, nothing but the robotic pumping of blood. A body without a soul, a boy without fear. I had nothing left to lose.
“Who what?” he asked, still laughing and not understanding that his life hung in the balance.
“Who gave my sister heroin?” I roared, watching his eyes widen. He swallowed, seeming to come to terms with the fact that something had gone very wrong.
“Man, did that stupid fucking bitch take too much? I swear, these cunts can’t follow simple instructions these days,” his buddy said, laughing from the sidelines until I released Tony and rounded on him.
“Was it you?”
“Yeah, it was me. She sucked me real good for it, too,” he taunted. “She’s probably flying high right now, but she’ll come back down. Tell her to come see me when she needs more.”
“She’s dead,” I said, pulling out the knife I kept tucked in my back pocket. The steel gleamed in the dim light as rain dripped onto the blade in the seconds before I plunged it into his stomach.
His blood was viscous, covering my hands and staining them red as I twisted it and pressed harder.
Deeper.
I withdrew it as the others around us shouted, then stabbed him three more times in quick succession before Tony got his hands on me and pulled me away. “You stupid little shit,” he growled, throwing me to the ground and kicking the knife away from my hand.
I lay there glaring up at him, daring him to do me the favor dancing in his eyes.
He sighed, glancing over to his friend where he’d fallen to the ground. His eyes were still open as he gasped for breath, staring at his friends in agony as they watched him bleed out.
“Should I call the doc?” one of them asked Tony.
“Don’t bother. He’s as good as dead,” he answered.
“What about the kid?” the other guy asked, nudging me with his boot. I turned a snarl his way, rolling to my side and grabbing him around the ankle to yank him down with me.
He fell hard, landing on the pavement at my side so that I could roll on top of him and straddle him. I punched him in the face.
Once.
Twice.
I kept punching with every beat, knowing that it was one pump of the heart my sister didn’t have. One breath she should have taken and never would again.
“Enough, kid, you made your point,” Tony said, pulling me off and staring down at me. “When Franco gets his hands on you, you’re gonna wish I’d fucking killed you,” he said, pulling back his hand and pummeling me in the temple.
I had one last thought before everything went black.
I already do.