"Nicholas," William interrupted, but the crazy man beside me ignored his brother.
"Kill him, and all of this will be over."
I started sobbing, and Malice leaned in to lick my tears. I gasped and heaved. My heart felt like it was about to beat through my chest. A sluggish line of thoughts crawled through my mind. "Does he have a family?" I asked. How could I even consider this?
"Does that even matter? If you want to live, I’m your family. I’m your law. I’m your everything."
"How would I even…" More sobs cracked me open and swallowed me whole. Was I willing to give him my humanity in exchange for my life? I couldn’t imagine…
I heard the chains binding me to the ground move, and soon, I was free. I still felt weighed down, though. Heavy with a choice I didn’t want to make. The man started crying out. "No! No, don’t do this." His voice was garbled and broken. "My wife…"
He had a wife?
"Get creative," Nicholas suggested with a malicious grin. He was enjoying this. "You have two minutes before I lodge a bullet into your skull."
My wrists were still bound behind my back. My legs were weak. My entire body trembled. "I can’t," I cried out.
"I don’t care what you can and can’t do. Figure it out."
I shuffled over to the man and stared down at him. He had no discernable features that I could tell. I wondered how many times I’d seen him around town. Did he have life aspirations? How old was he? Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as he begged for his life with garbled, slurred words. Time moved too quickly. I didn’t have the luxury of hating myself for what I was considering.
"One minute," Malice said.
His guard, Hale, laughed. William stared at me encouragingly.
I knew from studying various crime cases that it was really difficult to suffocate someone. It took a lot of strength I didn’t quite have at the moment but was a humane option.
The time clock kept ticking. A deep dark part of my mind had already made the decision, though. It felt primal. It was him or me. It was my life, my future, or his end. It was Grams or… I leaned forward and whispered in his ear, "I’m so sorry." At the end of the day, I’d survive. I wouldn’t leave anyone behind, wondering what happened, not like what happened to me.
I refused to die today. I refused to be intimidated by murder. I let the darkest parts of me take the wheel, and I did what I was told, like a soldier at war.
Malice grinned when I pulled back. He laughed when I slowly stood on shaky legs. He crossed his arms over his chest when I raised my bare foot up and slammed it down on his skull. I repeated the action. Again. Again. The sound of crunching bones filled my ears. With all my weight bared down, I stomped on his skull until blood poured from every orifice. His concave bones cut through brain and veins and my humanity. He didn’t struggle, but wheezes escaped his lips as I crushed him again.
And again.
And again.
Despite the adrenaline, my foot ached from the brute force of it. It was stomping on concrete. I prayed his sharp, cracked bones didn’t stab me.
Whatever Malice’s men had done to him leading up to this point had broken him far past repair, or at least, that’s what I told myself. I hugged the reality where I didn’t have a choice, where he was dead regardless. Where when given the option to kill or be killed, I made the selfish sacrifice. I’d forever be haunted by this decision. I closed my eyes and let my roaring pulse drown out the disgusting sound of his groans and gurgles. His cracking bones. His pain.
Then, he went still. Too still. No pulse. No shuddering breaths. Nothing.
And when it was done, I felt a wave of rolling nausea travel up my throat. "Good job." Malice creeped up on me. Slowly, slowly, he moved until his lips were hovering over the shell of my ear. Awe littered his tone. I looked for William, who stared at me with a mixture of kindness and disgust.
I removed my foot and put as much distance between myself and the dead body as possible. Blood covered my skin, it dug into the cracks in my heel. I stared at my crimson toes with disgust. My back-tied arms and back crashed into the concrete wall, and a wave of dizziness washed over me. I nearly crumbled from the realization of what I’d done.
I killed a man.
I killed a man.
"For the record," Malice began, "I was never going to actually shoot you. I didn’t think you had it in you."
I could barely see from the tears. Shadows moved around the room as his guards left. "What?" I choked out.
"He was dying anyway. Probably wasn’t going to last much longer. I punctured his lung before we got here. But you finished the job." Malice pulled out his cell, and the glow from his screen illuminated his cruel, beautiful face.
"You’re a fucking monster," I whispered.
"Says the woman who just crushed a man’s skull with her bare foot," he snapped back distractedly while typing away. I felt my chest tighten. I could barely breathe. What had I done? "It was beautiful. I've seen grown men cower at a request like that."
More hollow tears fell down my cheeks, and I stared at him in disbelief. "You’re insane."
"Tell me," Malice demanded. "When you cry, is it because you genuinely feel a sense of sorrow? Or do you cry because you feel like you’re supposed to, because the world watches how you respond and you don’t want anyone to know how much of a monster you really are?"
I choked on the shock. It was a question that completely stunned me.
"Your Grams has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. You should probably hurry up and get rid of the body so you can get home in time for dinner. She’s making meatloaf. She likes cooking, Juliet. Let the woman cook."
I shook my head, feeling sluggish and confused. "What?"
He huffed, rolled his eyes, and pocketed his cell. "Get rid of the body, go home, and make sure your Grams gets to Dr. Hoffstead’s office on time tomorrow, Juliet. I don’t make a habit of repeating myself."
"Dr. Hoffstead?" I asked in a cracked voice. I recognized that name. He was one of the leading neuroscientists in the state. I’d been wanting to take Grams to him ever since we’d gotten a diagnosis, but the wait list was too long, and I couldn’t even afford a consultation, let alone the treatments he offered.
"Welcome to the family, Juliet. There are perks for selling your soul to the devil," he said with a grin.
4
The scalding water turned my skin an angry red color. My gaze was downturned to the tiled floor, where crimson-stained water swirled over the drain. I still wasn't sure where I was. The basement had a hidden door that led to a bathroom with a compact walk-in shower. Steam quickly filled the room from the hot water, and I tried to pretend that I was in a normal space, taking a normal shower, and not washing off the blood from my victim. I was acutely aware of the man standing just outside the door.
I was in numb shock. Hollow emotions scratched at the surface of my mind, but I could only stare at my foot. It was too easy to stomp on his skull. I didn't even question it. I was in survival mode. It was do or die, and I did.
"I was never going to kill you..."
I couldn't tell if Malice was testing me or grooming me. My body was enveloped in a sense of shame that wouldn't let go. There was a strange disconnect between my mind and my ability to express what happened. I knew it was wrong. I knew that I was now a murderer. I connected the dots and made sense of the brutal thing I'd just done. But it felt like this gory out-of-body experience.