The Hit List

Chapter 7

I kept stumbling over suddenly unfamiliar words. My tongue rubbed against an open wound in my mouth, filling my mouth with the taste of copper. My eyes glazed over and my mind threatened to shut down completely, teetering on the edge of darkness. 

"Hey! I'm talking to you."

His words hit my eardrum hard as if I were sitting next to the band during an already rowdy football game.

My fingernails pierce my palm, and my mind concentrates on the discomfort. They're trimmed short, so the pressure it's more of a pressure than pain.

My throat burns as I continuously swallow, all the liquid in my mouth long gone.

"I should have known. I should have listened to my gut. Was all of this just a fantasy to you? And now that it has become a reality, you're struggling to cope? Everything just got real for you, didn't it?" 

He moved away from the counter and stalked toward my trembling body.

"You're human, and you've never felt this side of yourself have you? The true fear of your life being threatened. A life you never realized you truly wanted to live until I came along to remind you." He bent down to my level, our eyes forced to meet. "I'm just a reminder of how fortunate you are to have been given the gift of life." 

He spoke as if he was on a stage. As if he were reciting words written by a playwright who had long left this world.

The part wasn't meant to be his. 

The words hit me, but they didn't stay in my system; instead, they left me feeling empty. He was posing as some kind of savior, but his eyes never failed to reveal who he was behind the facade. They were lifeless and dead. Telling a narrative that differed from his words.

His finger flexed against his pocket, clearly craving something. A need to hold onto something physical in this endless emptiness of conversation. He had seemed so invincible originally, a hardened criminal who had avoided capture for who knows how long. 

Looking at him now though, it was easy to notice his endless list of weak points. He wasn't natural, but nor was he supernatural. His lack of blinking was calculated, as though he were afraid to lose his prey in the second it took to dampen his dilated pupils.

He had been able to read my past, but he was now staring at me as if some pages were missing from the book. That the words on those pages were ones he had failed to grasp. The type he recognized enough to pronounce, but not enough to know the true meaning of. 

He could live in the silence, but only for so long.

He craved chaos, the clearness of screams over the confusion of whispers.

He didn't make it out much. Possibly only forcibly by those who loved him, if he even had any left. 

It wouldn't be surprising if he was too much to love. Forcing his family's hands to cut his branch from their tree to avoid the whole thing contracting his sickness. To sacrifice the sheep with the darkest wool, to save the rest of the flock from slaughter.

Do they speak with pride when asked about him, or does shame creep into the long pause before being brushed away with uncomfortable humor? Was he the constant cause of every party's lull? An eventual agreement to never be spoken about by those who shared his blood?

In the rare moments when his name surfaced, the air would grow heavy with a tension that words couldn't quite get rid of. Faces would shift uncomfortably, eyes darting to find peace once more in mundane distractions.

"Do you think I came all this way to kill you?" His eyes dropped, knowing I had no answer for him. All he wanted was for the silence to stop pressing so heavily against his chest.