I put two feet of steel through his belly; that seems to shut him up.
His friends are up immediately, reaching for their irons, but none of them quite makes it. They're looking at me, looking at him, looking at each other, and none of them's moving. The room's silent, went quiet when I cut that last word out of this boy leaning against me. They're all watching, waiting, the whole world holding its breath.
I slide my eyes across the men at the table, standing over fallen chairs, hands hovering, unsure above their weapons. Some of them meet my eyes, some watch the lifeblood of their compatriot drip drip drip off my blade, still in him, clean through him. Some of them look away, chewing their lip, hating me for all the times this has happened before, trying to curse themselves into action, not realizing, perhaps, the value their fear has.
In the end they're cowards, all of them, but even cowards have their moments. One of them will have his today: he'll follow me outside after failing to goad his companions into action. He'll fly out that door, his blood hot in his veins, and he'll know that he'll kill me, that he'll set things right, and every time he woke up gasping, clutching at something, anything, in the dark will be washed away. He'll be a new man, a strong man, and it won't all have been for nothing.
He'll know these things, somewhere he doesn't know how to look, and when he comes through that door, all fire and vengeance, and he points his weapon at my back, he'll be the man he was always meant to be, for that moment, and I'll take it all away for him in one screaming second.
The boy's knees are going and he's batting at me feebly, like a kitten. I let him go and he slides down off the blade. Nobody moves to catch him, or to see to him once he's fallen.
I turn to leave and stop, my hand on the door. I look back at him, the one in blue, the one who'll come out after me, and he meets my gaze. I think I envy him his moment.
The battered ceiling fan spins on overhead.
10 May 2012
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