Because You Love to Hate Me(73)

You hate being told what to do.

You almost shoot Mike while the gun is fixed on him, but you can see the pure terror and surprise on Mike’s face—he didn’t set you up. The accomplices in these ambushes are always so proud to have gotten you, but that doesn’t last long. In the past, you’ve used Trance on your opponents, turning them all against one another. It’s always amusing when you force the accomplice to strangle the mercenary who recruited him.

You nod at Mike, and he gets your signal, fleeing with the powerful seeds you’ve sold him. He was right. You are an angel.

But even an angel has to put her halo down from time to time.

You turn your attention to the tacky brute, and you wonder how you’ll make him kill himself. A bullet to the head is too easy.

“You probably shouldn’t let someone run off with the drugs you’re hunting me down for,” you say, eyeing the bag of cash from your transaction. You’ll go home with the bag and whatever money is in this clown’s pocket, if anything.

“We don’t care about your drugs,” the brute says.

Two more figures file in from your left, where Mike ran away. One is a woman, pretty if you’re into faces with less personality than a mannequin’s, and slender enough that breaking her arms should be easy. The other is a young man in a black lab coat with a face in desperate need of a mask—swollen nose, black eye, receding hairline.

“Let me guess. You work for Pierce.” Only power-hungry junkies hopped up on Brawn would be bold enough to take you on weaponless.

“We know you kidnapped Franklin,” the wannabe scientist says.

You cringe. You’ve always hated the name Franklin.

“Where is he?” the girl asks. She looks to be in her early twenties. She’s likely the victim of many poor life choices, but stepping into the arena with you will be the one she loses her life over.

“He’s gone forever,” you happily report.

“You don’t kill,” the girl says.

“Oh, I kill. I just don’t get blood on my hands.”

This confuses them. You’re sure they’re picturing the manner in which you killed their boss. You take advantage by dashing left, hiding behind a collapsed dumpster piled high with stained planks. Four bullets sail past you. You wonder how long those bullets will fly before they drop and sink through the ocean.

You pop out for a moment, wasting another bullet from the brute, who’s not only a tacky dresser but also a terrible shot, and you dive out from the other end of the dumpster, rolling onto your back and taking cover inside a high stack of construction beams. You crawl your way around the beams, a lot like the days of high school when you would flee underneath the bleachers to hide from your bullies. Except now those who are out to get you aren’t teasing you for the scars on your face. The three of them are wondering if they stand a fighting chance against you.

You slide out the mini blowgun from your boot and insert two more Trance seeds.

This is your favorite part.

You take aim as they all group together.

You blow into the steel pipe three times, each seed finding its home in the neck of your enemies. You crawl out from underneath the beams, like a sniper bold enough for a fistfight, as the three of them wince in pain and realize what’s about to happen to them. The brute points his gun at you, and you point your finger at him.

“You don’t want to pull that trigger,” you say, and he doesn’t. “Go back to base or wherever the hell you came from and kill everyone in their sleep. When you’re done, tie concrete blocks around your ankles and go for a swim in the ocean.”

“Don’t do it!” the girl shouts, holding the brute back. But he knocks her to the ground with a simple push, sending her rolling twice, and walks off.

The wannabe scientist stands there, helpless. He knows if he runs, you’ll tell him to stop. Maybe the stories have trickled down to him, too, that you made others cut their legs off for challenging you to a fight and then running away.

Trying to run away, at least.

“Brute, wait!”

The brute stops.

“Give me your wallet.”

The brute tosses you his wallet. There’s nothing inside. You knew it.

“Carry on.”

The brute walks off to go kill anyone looking for their poor leader who should’ve never gotten in your way.

“Please.” The wannabe scientist cautiously approaches you. “I just wanted to find my friend. Have mercy.”

Mercy.

The client called you an angel.

All these people after you, confusing you for the devil herself, and he saw the good in you. A little mercy can’t hurt.

“Fine. You hate each other,” you say, reprogramming any alliance they previously held. “You want to beat each other to death.”

You watch the switch in their eyes—once fearful of you, now monsters to each other. You sit on a barrel, legs dangling, watching the fight. The girl finds a pipe, and, well, it turns out a little mercy can hurt. A lot. The wannabe scientist is dead within minutes. The girl looks at you, bloodied from the few punches her victim managed to land on her, and awaits instruction from you.

“Finish what he was too weak to do.”

The girl loses the fight against her own pipe in less than a minute.

That was fun.