Behind The Hands That Kill

TWENTY-TWO

Morrison rounded his chin; he used a cool smile to conceal the animosity.

“You heard Marina that night,” I began, “when she told me the story about when and how she met you. But when after a while she did not return the affection, you, like any deranged sociopath with underdeveloped people skills, turned on her, started threatening her, beating her, all to keep her in line and under your thumb.” (The skin around Morrison’s nose crumpled; he clenched his teeth behind closed lips. He wanted to kill me, but he could not. I was worth too much.) “I had no idea about your feelings for Marina then, but I figured it out later, after the night I slit Artemis’ throat.” On my knees now, I pushed myself toward him, as far as I could, so that he could see the look in my eyes; the cuff rattled against the bar; the knife beneath my leg, covered by the fabric of my pants, was as silent as my intention to use it. “You, Brant Morrison, are just like me; you are as guilty as I am; you are as flawed and weak as I have ever been, affected by the same attachments you accuse me of. I suspect that Marina was the first of many women with whom you confused obsession for love, and that Marina was the first of many who denied you.”

Confetti-like spots sprang before my eyes like bursting fireworks in a black sky; I fell backward against the bars; the left side of my face pulsed and throbbed. In the three seconds it took for the stun to wear off, I was still able to keep the knife hidden beneath my pant leg.

I opened my eyes, shook off the remnants of the blow; Morrison was standing over me. Right where I needed him. Patience, Victor, I told myself. Do not kill him yet, or the answers die with him. I knew it would not be my only chance to get him close if he moved out of my reach—my plan to shake him enough to get him this close worked faster than I thought it would, therefore it would work again.

“This isn’t about me,” he said, indignantly.

“No,” I came back, “it is not. However, it is about something. Everything is connected—we are all connected in some way; are we not, Morrison?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“I do not know,” I answered, doing a little bush-beating of my own. “It was just a question.” I smirked.

He sneered, and then stepped out of my reach again; fortunately, not because he realized that he was standing too close—the clouded expression of anger and perplexity in his face told me his mind was anywhere but where it should have been. I barely had time to wonder how this man could have been the one who trained me; how could I have turned out like I did, when he was failing every test I put to him? Was he simply slipping in his advancing age, forgetting the most basic of skills? Or had the student transcended the master? Oh, that’s right, I thought smugly, I transcended him a long time ago.

“You wanted to tell me something, Morrison. You would not have brought it up if there was not something you were itching to say. I presume it is something you have wanted to say to me for a very long time.”

“Is that so?” he said, with sarcasm. “And just what makes you think that?”

I nodded. “Because jealousy and envy are cheap suits made of flashy colors,” I said. “No one wears them well, and everyone sees you when you are coming.”

He crouched in his flashy suit to be eye-level with me, still out of my reach.

“Go on,” he urged, cocking his head to one side. “Tell me what you think you know, Faust.”

I cocked my head opposite his.

“You spent a great deal of time and effort talking to me about my and my brother’s hidden relation in The Order—I bet you practiced that in front of a mirror.” (He snarled, but kept his cool.) “You are at war with yourself: you want to tell me something I do not know, that you feel I should have figured out by now, so you can feel like you finally have something over me, that for once in your life, you are better than me at something. But you cannot, because you still work for The Order. You are now—last I heard, anyway—Vonnegut’s new Golden Boy, his top operative. You are now what I used to be. You now have what you feel you were robbed of when you trained me.”

Morrison’s jaw hardened.

I shrugged, pursed my lips on one side.

“You are not the first operative under Vonnegut,” I went on, “who despised me because I was better at my job than you were; because Vonnegut favored me over you.” I straightened my head, looked him dead in the eyes, taunted him, because it was working so well. “My own brother had his issues with me for the very same reasons. But I find it peculiar how much deeper your jealousy runs—at least Niklas got over it.”

His hand latched around my throat, nearly crushing my windpipe. I felt the veins in my temples bulging; the air cut off from my lungs, sounding the alarms inside my brain. But I maintained my still position on the floor, and I willed my mind to allow me control, even if only for a few seconds before I had to succumb to the sensation of being choked to death.

“Say what you wanted to say, Morrison.” My voice was rough, strained.

He squeezed harder—my eyes began to water.

“Go on,” I continued. “Say it. You want to…you could”—I was losing the control; I began to choke—“…you could get it off your…chest and then kill me…afterwards. Is…getting one over me not worth…the…money you would lose?”

Beyond the blurring of my vision I saw his lips furrow in anger.

He was going to do it—he was going to choke me to death just like I choked Marina; I was going to die, right there, covered in Izabel’s blood.

With my free hand, I secretly reached for the knife hidden underneath my leg.

I could not see.

I could not breathe.

I could not…I needed the information.

My eyes opened and shut, opened and shut, but all they took in were the darkening colors and lights; the veins in my temples were on the cusp of bursting.

If I did not kill him soon, he would kill me.

Izabel. What if she is still alive?

Fuck the information!

Grasping the knife in my fist, I started to gut him, but just before I slid my hand from beneath my leg, he let go of me; the back of my head was crushed against the bars, sending a shockwave through my skull and a ringing through my ears; a great surge of air rushed back into my starved lungs. I coughed and gasped, left the knife in its place and instinctively raised my free hand to my throat.

My eyes opened a sliver at first, and then all the way; although I could see, everything remained blurred. Morrison was out of my reach again; he stood tall, pacing the limited space the floor provided.

Finally, everything blurred back into focus.

I saw Morrison’s throat move as he swallowed. He reached up and straightened his tie, then smoothed his hands down the front of his suit jacket. Rounded his chin. Cracked his neck.

“The money you’re worth alive,” he said, “will benefit me more than the satisfaction.”

“Maybe so,” I said, still breathless, “but you have to take me in before you see a penny of it.” I grabbed the knife with my dreaded thirty-percent hand, and sent it hurling at him. And in that second it took to hit the target, I held my breath hoping that my aim had improved over the years.

“And I take it,” Izabel says, “that because we’re still alive, that your aim did improve?”

I want to smile at her, mostly because I am happy to see her here, but I refrain.

I nod. “Yes,” I say. “It did not take him long to bleed out from the neck. I waited for him to die. I sat there, drenched in blood and sweat, thinking of you”—I look Izabel right in the eyes, but then just as quickly, I look away—“and once he was dead, I dragged his body by the ankle over to me, and I fished the handcuff key from his pocket. I took his gun, and I left.”

“But what about Izabel’s bounty?” Niklas says, as if he is stepping in for her.

Back off, little brother, or you and I will have that much more added to our growing list of problems.

“That information came later,” I say out loud, “after I went looking for Izabel and the woman who took her. As I ran down the street, barefoot and bloody, I began to doubt that the woman could be trusted, that I, in my most desperate moment, fell for the most basic of tricks, and that there was no way she really took Izabel to a public hospital for treatment.”

I pause, and turn to the window again.

“But she did,” I say, staring into the distance, letting the scene materialize in front of me. “And when I arrived, and saw that Izabel, although unconscious and near death, was still alive, and when I saw the woman sitting in the room watching over her, not only was I thankful, but I somehow knew right away, that I was looking directly into a mirror.”

“A mirror?” Niklas asks.

“Yes, brother,” I say, still with my back to everyone. “A mirror.”