Vicious Minds (Children of Vice #4)(46)

Pulling the needle out I put it on the tray, taking some gauze and wiping his eyes. “I want you to experience that before you die. I want you to know the terror of someone else pinning you down and destroying you. You will burn, it will feel as if you have been sunk into lava, like your skin is melting off your fucking bones. You will want to scream for mercy, but your mouth won’t open. You will feel death on the inside, until I am satisfied you have learned your lesson, then I will break the rest of you and you will beg me to end your life.”

I got up and sat on the plastic covered chair, taking off my gloves again and lifting my mug of peppermint tea, dipping the tea bag in the water a few more times before sipping.

“Oh…I miss wine.” I exhaled tiredly and leaned back in the chair, looking down at him. He couldn’t move, but tears ran down the side of his face and onto the plastic he lay on top of. “It’s starting, isn’t it? The fire…the pain. Good. I applaud your father. Some would say it is vicious and cruel, but it is just nature. If your child is weak, if it cannot survive in the world…you must leave it to die. I’m having a child of my own, so it is a lesson I appreciate and will remember; make them strong or the world will put them down.”

He let out a small gasp of air, I think it might have been a silent scream, and I sipped on my tea.

I think that was what provoked Ethan’s mother, that’s why she left. She had to make them strong or else someone like me would have done this to them. I understood. Which was also the reason why I needed to help trap them. That was nature too. Sometimes, the older ones must die because they prevent the younger ones from reaching their full potential and I wanted to see just how he would shake up this world…how we would.



ETHAN - AGE 24





CALLAHAN FAMILY JET


Saturday, September 8th





“Boss,” Greyson approached my chair looking at the phone in his hands. “Remember that Chinese kid…the one trying to get in Killer Instant?”

“The one with the tacky suit and women on his arm?” Tobias asked as he came from the back-jet, rubbing oil on his hand.

“Yeah, that one! Turns out the kid was someone important. He was the—”

“The Chinese ambassador’s son.” I interrupted and they both paused and focused on me. “What of him?”

Greyson opened his mouth then closed it, shaking his head before he looked at his phone. “They said he died of blunt force trauma to…fuck…everywhere. The idiot was drunk or high and he fell off the rooftop of his apartment in the city this morning. 270 feet straight down.”

“Drunk?” Tobias looked at his watch. “It’s 8:45 in the morning. Sure he didn’t throw himself off?”

“Oh shit, it’s both. The security cam has already been leaked.” Greyson showed us and I watched as the man stumbled like a drunken man, and climbed on to the edge of the roof. He wiped his face, smiled, and then walked off the side of the building.

“Fuckkkk.” They both grimaced as they heard the screams and the impact of his body hitting the ground.

“That is some way to go.” Greyson observed.

“My father had a saying, Il triste mietitore non sa pietà, vuole solo la tua anima.” Tobias snickered but Greyson just stared, as lost as a newborn calf.

“And for us non-Italians that means?”

“The grim reaper knows no mercy, she just wants your soul,” I translated. Their gaze shifted me but I focused on Tobias whose hair was pulled into a ridiculous bun I wanted to cut off. “But why is the grim reaper a woman?”

“He said it’s because women have the same goal and that’s why they invented marriage.” Tobias couldn’t help but laugh, as did Greyson.

“Interesting. Are you both finished?” I was tired of their conversation.

“Uh, yes, just thought you might want to know,” Greyson replied.

“Now I know.”

They both nodded and walked back to their seats, but being the children they were, they couldn’t look away from the videos in their hands. I glanced out the window, staring at the white clouds over head. And it just made me think of her. I’m not sure how she did it. I heard the muffled screams coming from the other side of me, and yet it looked like suicide. Every time I met her, somebody ending up dead or dying.

Il triste mietitore.

She was the grim reaper. So was I getting closer to death or being spared from it?





Chapter 10





“Myth is much more important and true than history.”





~Joseph Campbell





ETHAN - AGE 24

Chicago, Illinois

Thursday, November 22nd





One by one they brought the food out, handing it to other members of my family to arrange around the table. None of them prepared it, but setting Thanksgiving dinner on the table was something my grandmother made sure we were all a part of. They spoke and laughed, while I sat watching in my chair at the head of the table. I glanced over to the chair beside me…the one my sister sat in. The one Calliope would someday take. This was still strange to me…this slight ache in my chest. Originally, I had settled on her because I knew she and I would be the most compatible with each other, I knew she would understand me, and I had dared hope she’d come to care about me…to love me. Instead I was the one who had fallen. I didn’t even see it. I didn’t even feel it, the fall. It was like I woke up on the ground and when I looked up, I realized, ‘Oh. I’m in love with her.’