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He was new, I guess. He had no idea I worked here. But he recognized me.
I cut off his words by wrapping my hands around his throat, pressing both thumbs into his larynx.
“Tired of your fucking bullshit.” I dug deeper, making it hard for him to breathe.
And then, I let go. “Get the fuck upstairs.”
He quickly left, but not before he hit me in the face with his dirty fucking saliva.
My sleeve brushed it away, leaving behind the pressing compulsion to vomit.
I clicked the door shut and took a step forward.
“They’re gone now.”
The tiny woman froze, her spinal bone hiding within her skin as she sat up, facing away from me. Her sniffles faded out as she nodded.
She tried to talk, but I couldn’t hear her, and that wasn’t because of my impairment. I turned up my hearing aid and waited for clarity, but all I heard was senseless noise.
She twisted her body around. Her puffy face stared my way, one side hidden by her hair. It reminded me of someone I cared for, and it made me want to hurt that fucking kid again. Plentiful tears fell over a high cheekbone, mixing with the cut beneath her eye and washing away the blood.
She followed the sound of my footsteps with a teary eye, the light squeak of my laced-up boots moving across the floor—a slackened lace dragged behind on the stone. I stopped at the bloody patch. Something lay in the middle, bringing back the urge to be sick.
I’d seen a lot in my time here, but this would be beyond the paycheck for most.
Needing a closer look, I bent to my haunches, both knees clicking after the long day on my feet.
A string of would-be words left her mouth, her sentence cut up by the injury that resulted in her tongue being deposited to the ground in the center of her blood stains.
She looked so pitiful. So broken. My chest rose and fell at the sight of her before I stepped closer.
She scurried away, slumping to the ground and back into that ball-like position. Her strength was gone. Completely gone.
“What did you have to say?” My words weren’t like everyone else’s, not laced with sneers and disrespect. Part of me genuinely wanted to know what her last words might be. Would she continue to beg? Would she have wishes for a long-lost family? Or would it be a simple fuck you? Whatever they were, someone should hear them. The sane part of me felt like it shouldn’t be me because I didn’t need another thing to keep me up at night.
I pulled out the pad and pen, flipping some sheets of paper until I found one free of words and numbers. I pushed it close to her while I remained a few feet away, proving to her I wouldn’t hurt her.
Her right eye was all I could see, the left still hidden by dirty hair. She found the pad and pen but didn’t dare to pick them up. Her blue eye remained dull and lifeless, focusing on me, without a twinkle of hope, without light because she only knew darkness.
“You can trust me.” I eyed the camera in the corner of the room. God, anyone could be watching. But not the fools who were here last. They wouldn’t have that sense.
Risk weighed up with the reward, both sides of the scale were equal.
I pulled a Glock from the back of my jeans, where it spent its days, day in, day out.
I angled it at the camera, the red light acting like a perfect target, and pulled the trigger.
The woman didn’t flinch at the sight of my gun. The silencer attached meant the noise couldn’t scare her.
A shaking hand picked up my pen, getting blood all over it.
I know your voice, she wrote.
“The world knows my voice, babe,” I replied, tucking the gun back into my pants.
I sat down, stretching my legs out. The wall behind me held the cold of the room, and I felt it all as my shoulders pressed into it. It was one of the reasons why she shivered.
I pulled off my hood, allowing her to see me if she looked.
