(Trigger warning!! Graphic depictions of violence/ gore)
An upstanding citizen, even when not in uniform, a great father to his children and a wonderful provider to his wife was how the outsiders viewed Neil. Brian and I, though? We called him fucking dead. For someone who was supposed to be tough, supposed to be well-trained in the art of disarming and de-escalation, he sure cried a lot. First thing that threw me off about Neil, other than his tendency to give out names he barely had the right to know, was that despite how well he was paid by our Operation, he kept his family living in a low-income complex. What a fucking mess. Used the money to pay for his little "business" trips to see his wife's sister, Ingrid. He had a deep-rooted sort of pride in the assumption that we didn't know any names of anybody closely attached to him. In reality, we knew his wife's name, his children's names, his mistresses' name, fuck we could probably find out the fucking name of his goldfish if we wanted to.
Before Brain and I had left the old and decrepit mansion to mosey our way over to Neil's complex, we hadn't hesitated to stop by the Conversation Room, where we knew Slenderman would be.
When I had told him about Toby's excursion and how he had dragged Jeff into it, he had instantly disappeared, leaving only a barely-visible, thin black smoke that fully dissipated within seconds. He was pissed.
We had taken his sudden exit as our leave and had grabbed our weapons and signature clothing articles; for me, it was my mask. For Brian, it was his hoodie and mask combo. Looked fucking stupid to me, but it would make sense that he would like it, him being fucking stupid to match.
Brain never really wanted to kill somebody unless it was directly ordered, and Neil was no exception.
"We need to wait for a direct order to rid of Neil, Tim. Jack said there was more we needed to hear about Neil before attacking,"
His stupid, childish voice-changer just fueled into my anger. I was the leader of the Marble Hornets, and had worked my fingers to the fucking bone getting there. I had proven myself way more than once, and didn't take kindly to being questioned. As far as I was concerned, my word was gospel with Brian and Toby as my faithful followers. Though, if they disagreed, they would turn their head to their holy gospel the same as Judas had.
I whipped my entire body around to face him, my hand coming up to grip the collar of his sweatshirt as I clenched my fist around the ugly, bright yellow fabric.
"What, a direct order from me isn't fucking good enough? What are you, a pussy? You act like you haven't killed hundreds of fucking people, Brian,"
He yanked himself out of my grip, his hand gripping the handle of his .9 millimeter he had concealed in his waistband, his sweatshirt hanging over the weapon.
If he wanted a fight, he'd get one. It wasn't like either of us were ever unarmed. I clenched the crowbar in my other hand tighter, and though I didn't look, I knew my knuckles would be turning white from the strain of my grip.
"The boss has no knowledge of our intent to kill a police officer, and an ally at that, Tim. This is dangerous territory,"
He was royally pissing me off; a real ill-advised fucking move.
"You wanna stay back and bark for our master when he tells you to? You gonna eat from a fucking dish on the floor, too? Get a little pink fucking collar with his name and number on it in case you should you stray five fucking feet from kissing his ass? Go the fuck ahead, Brian."
He could never be completely unpredictable with our thoughts connected, so when he whipped out his gun and had it aimed directly at my skull, I had already raised the crowbar just a foot above his head.
Click.
"Awww, did he finally teach you how to turn the safety off on a gun? That's too cute. Maybe next he'll teach you how to fucking use it without being a pussy about it,"
I knew I was pressing his nerves, but he was pressing my word. It was more important to follow up on allegations of leaked information than it was to wait around with our thumbs up our assess, giving the informant more time to spread names.
"This is why we get laughed at, Tim. Our group is a mess on the field, and it's due to your horrible leadership. You act on impulse rather than intelligent decision; you make yourself look stupid without Toby's or my own help. I wouldn't be surprised if our master gives him a promotion,"
And that was it. I swung the crowbar the rest of the way down as hard as I could, but he dodged it with merely an inch to spare as the metal tool collided with the floor, splintering the wood where it had hit. I had swung so hard that the end of the crowbar had dug itself a deep hole on impact, creating a large hole in the wooden flooring when I dislodged it.
In the same moment it had taken me to dislodge the metal weapon, he had re-aimed his gun directly at my forehead, the short barrel of the weapon making direct contact with my skin.
"These are the impulses you act on that will one day leave you dead."
And the impulses you don't act on will one day leave you worthless to him, Brian. Jack's name was given to his hostage. He's one of the best associates in the entire operation, and if the existence of him is leaked, it'll cause fucking chaos. They will hunt for him again as they did before. The outsiders can't comprehend anything beyond themselves.
Knowing he could read my thoughts, I waited for some sort of reaction. For his gun to lower, for his mind to answer the reasoning in my own, for some sign of fucking life from the mannequin-like bastard.
If this goes wrong, you are to take the entire fault of it.
You wouldn't know that Neil was arrogant, unfaithful, or secretive from looking at him on the outside. And honestly, you couldn't tell from the inside, either. As far as I could see, his insides looked like every other worthless life we had taken before his, and likely after his.
His head, so full of information he had the audacity to leak was popped and drained of any thought all together. Not once, not twice, but three times.
His once decently-decorated apartment now reeked of gunpowder and was plastered in vomit and copious amounts of blood. He had been a sniveling mess before he finally died, snot bubbling out of his nose and blood pouring down his ears from the sound of the bullets breaking into his skull bursting his eardrums.
Brian had shot the fucker three times directly to the dome, while I delivered graphic blows to his ribcage. I must have stuck the metal rod into his chest over ten times; however many it was exactly I wasn't sure, but it was enough to open the chest cavity completely. You'd think his heart would have been something huge to have the love for his wife, his kids, and his mistress all packed in there, but it proved to be quite unimpressive. An little ugly thing, barely big enough to fit his narcissistic love for himself inside.
And it was a good thing that his wife and kids weren't home, it was always a bitch trying to haul screaming and kicking children back to the boss.
I comically wiped my mask with my arm, Neil's blood smearing onto the fabric of my heavy jacket.
"Are you happy now, Tim?"
I threw my head to the right of me to look at Brian who was holstering his gun into his waistband when my attention was pulled toward the window just behind him.
"Hey, Brian, is that..?"
I nodded my head toward the window, and he followed my masked gaze as he too looked out the second story window.
"Yeah, it is. What is he doing stalking around here?"
And with that, Brian confirmed seeing the same thing I had; a white-sweatshirt clad, sickly-pale skinned associate stalking his way towards the woods; the direct way to Jack's cabin.
--NEIL IS DEAD. GONE, BYE BYE, HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!!!
Oh my god this chapter was so needed, and buckle up because it all goes to shit after this y'all!
I'm super excited to write the next chapter tomorrow, thought about writing it tonight but like i gotta work and such :(
And as always, if you're going to Meatball, do it Extravagantly.--