Elegy in Red

Nine

“Now, onto the fun part.”

Ari felt a hand grab the back of his collar as soon as Francesca’s frantic steps had faded away in the cobweb of town streets and then he was wrenched to his feet, nearly slipping over the worn, dusty paving blocks under his shoes. He’d only just caught his balance before Gus’ fist connected with his mouth, sending him stumbling until his back met the cold wall of the nearby house and he slumped against the stone, recovering from the punch. He felt the metallic taste of the wound as it stained his tongue and he looked up at the two men who had approached enough to close him off from running.

They have no idea. They have no idea…

The pressure of something – something dark, illicit, something that had slept in stasis for a long time – augmented right under his gullet, awakened and overripe like grape that was about to burst. He’d promised not to run, and he wasn’t planning to. But just like Jin, Gustav wanted him frightened, and that was something bound to eventually backfire.

“Alright, mutt,” Gustav began brightly, shoving the end of the bar into the boy’s chest to which Ari responded with a small grunt and a scowl. “Since ya lil piece of shit have done such a good job at making me look like a fuckin’ fool any chance ya get, I reckon it’s time ta settle the score.” And he grinned widely, hoping perhaps that such expression of aplomb would actually translate into making him feel as empowered as he wished he was.

Against his better judgment, Ari barked out a short, crude laughter and regarded the other with something vaguely akin to sympathy. “Oh, you mean our unnecessarily long card game? As much as I would love to, I can’t very well take all the credit for that. At the end of the day, the grand finale was all your-”

The last of his sentence exploded in his mouth. The second blow in the gut was crueler than the first but, curiously enough, it felt like more of a joke than the previous ones. Bent over a little from the impact with the dull weapon, Ari unwisely wheezed out another chuckle and reached distractedly to wipe the blood that was now trickling down his chin. The back of his hand returned to him smeared with angry red ribbons and he held the sight of the besmirched skin – strangely fascinating - for an extra moment before he switched his attention to Gus’ taut face. “So, anyway. What do you want?”

The bar was once again shoved into his chest and Ari was forced to straighten up, mustering, after a moment of struggle, an expression of polite interest as he absently sucked on his damaged lower lip. Now that Francesca was out of the picture, he didn’t have to worry about her accidentally getting hurt and the thought alone snapped loose a tightness around his lungs he hadn’t even realized was there. He could breathe now, and think, and this new situation left him curiously unhinged, too light to feel right. The metal digging into his torso was physically unsettling, but underneath, there lay an emptiness that he could sense growing bigger and colder by the second. He felt vacant, free of something he knew he should always keep close.

And it was disturbingly comforting.

I live inside a shell.

To be so empty, for a change. The memories reduced to a murmur. The need to stop holding back, exaggeratedly vivid, dripping like wet paint with possibilities.

A chest that is a husk; this body, it rings hollow like a pitcher, because the heart inside it has festered, it’s rotten, putrid, halved and sewn wrong.

The look on Gustav’s face made that little, darker part of him want to laugh. He thought that he could watch them tumble down into limp heaps of rage with the flick of a hand – these two grown up men that thought they were so in control. Let me talk to them, let me talk to them, come on, comeoncomeoncomeon… Ari blinked and resisted the urge to shake his head to clear the mess between his temples. He’d anchored himself away from anything genuinely uncontrollable such a long time ago that he wasn’t sure what he was going to do if the chain rattled. He was inches away from tiptoeing that line, that line he fought to stay clear of for his sanity’s sake. If the stink of blood drew him in, pulled him out in the open where he could no longer obey the basic laws of society-