Aberrant: 2011 - I Can Make The Shot

[Ravenshire]

I came home after a long day. Stylish white silk shirt, with everything custom tailored black, much like my mood. I kicked my shoes off as the door shut behind me. I was having such a sterling shitty day that I didn’t even see her until the second shoe came off.

“Hey,” I choked out. “Hey DS. What brings you to my home today?”

She was standing in the living room looking hotter than she had any right to. Smooth, unblemished dusky skin and spider web slender black hair pulled back in a pony tail. That hair, one of her better features went all the way down to her ass. Damningly, I let my eyes follow the hair down.

“Work has kept me busy,” she purred, but I’ve been keeping track of you. Frankly, I’m worried.”

I raise an eyebrow. This was going to be rich.

“Yes?”

“You bury yourself in diversions. You hide your pain in things of little substance and no matter.”

I walk around the living room, heading toward the question. Part of me is scared, but the other part is angry; so angry that I’m playing a very deadly game. I’m treating her like my wife, having come home after a hard day’s work. I put my laptop down on the kitchen countertop and turn to face her while she keeps talking.

“I think you are missing someone.”

She suddenly turns coy, almost bashful. “I think that someone is me.”

I don’t laugh. I laugh and she can get violent on me. I’ve been down that road before.

Instead,

“I’m still trying to live my life my way, DS. You know that … and I don’t want to change.”

This is an old conversation line between the two of us. By the upturn in her lips, I can tell she is comfortable with my response. It’s an old argument between the two of us.

“It’s a new year. You should change, Raven. I can tell you’ve built upon your superhuman perfections. I admire that. Those in the movement will admire that too.”

I don’t want her friends. Hell, those people have been thorns in my side too.

“I don’t think I can be apart of something that I don’t believe in,” I start. “I know what the movement can mean, but I also don’t see that as my personal path. You must see why I must follow my own way. It is the rhetoric anyway.”

I had moved around living room until I was at the glass top table right next to her. I put my jacket down and palm a pen in my hand. I feel my heart beating in my ears. I’m scared. This is going to be a painful form of suicide if this doesn’t work. Just for a moment, I wonder if this is what these shadow people really want.

I reach out and brush some loose hairs behind her ear. I let my fingers brush along her flesh and she leans slightly into me. I can make the shot, but I’ve got no guarantee that I’ll survive it. I clip the pin and it unleashes a dart. She feels a sharp prick and whips her head around toward me. I’m holding the pen, and a strand of her hair. I take the strand of hair to my nose and inhale the scent. She’s showered very recently. That earns me a smile even as she rubs the darts entry point.

I’m counting the time now. I’ve been told it could take anywhere from thirty seconds to a minute and a half. That suddenly seems like an eternity. To add to this, I’m now feeling guilty.

“Andhra, what passed between us in Paris will always been special to me. I think about that time a lot.”

“Paris was the crucible,” she said leaning in. “We had something special there. What we had was the most important time in my … life.”

She was a bit off for a moment and touched her head.

What I wanted to say was ‘I’m going to miss you.’ I couldn’t say that, because she could still kill me. I also knew that was the guilt talking. I wasn’t going to miss her and her terrorism. The anger came back.

“Why couldn’t you ever just get the point that I didn’t want to be with you and leave me alone?”

“I don’t know,” she stuttered, “… what you mean.”

She was starting to sweat.

“You put me in the hospital, DS. You scarred a young boy whose sole crime was being someone I loved brother.”

“But … but I had to do that. Don’t you see?”

She sat down with less grace than usual.

“I see what helping you has cost me. That’s what I see. I see nothing but pain and fear in my future unless I make you go away.”

She looked at me.

“I’ll never go away, Daniel. I love you too … too much. I know we will be together until the end. I know it.”

Her declaration was passionate and a tear came to her eye. She reached out and put a hand onto one of my own.

“I know you love me too,” she continued. “I know you will find your way to me … but I don’t want to wait.”

That was her best shot at an apology. She didn’t want to wait.

“You should have waited.”

You didn’t so know I’m going to relegate you some bleak, dark hole in some God’s forgotten place. I have to give you over to someone who does want to get their hands on you.

“Do you forgive me?”

She almost has me. The dark hole is spooking me.

“Do you forgive me for everything I had to do to you?”

She slumps against the back of the sofa, but I hold on to her hand. She loses my sympathy though. I can’t forgive Zach. It’s not my place to forgive his mangled eyes and his shattered psyche.

“No, Andhra. I can’t. I … just can’t. Too much has happened.”

“What are we going to do?” she pleads. “Where are we going to go to end up …?”

Her head slumps down on her chest, question unfinished.

I call them and they are there within the hour. They don’t talk much. They do retrieve the pen and question me about how things went down. They don’t tell me precisely who they are and I don’t ask. I don’t ask were she is going or what is going to happen to her. I try to feel more sympathy for Andhra, but the pain is too great. I wanted her gone and now I’ve gotten my wish.

It has happened so fast. Ten days ago I had two women eating away at my sense of self and now I’m alone. In a way, it’s a bitter liberation. Bitter because I couldn’t find another way out of this to get me what I wanted, but now I am also not saddled by things I don’t want either. That’s a trade I can live with. Now I can build something new.

It’s almost to laugh though; I have had two women in my life I can’t talk about with anyone. I can’t even afford to let people know that I’m now free. I can live with that too.