Enemies

Chapter 1




I stared at him, he stared at me; he knew he was only centimeters from death. A gentle stroke of the trigger of my gun, and his loathsomee brain would be decorating the Coldplay posters on the wall behind him. It was a delicate air between us, him and me, as the world kept going somewhere outside the four walls of James Fries’s house. There was a smell in the air, his cologne—heavy, overdone. It was just like everything else about him, from the leather jacket that looked like it would cost more than a third world country’s GDP to the finely manicured nails, each smoother than the last, to the chiseled features that most girls would die for. More than a few had, actually.

“So …” he said casually, not meeting my heated glare. My gun never wavered off of him and he knew it. He was doing everything he could to try not to appear cowed by the subordinate position I had maneuvered him into. “We’re just going to sit here until—”

“Yep.” I maintained a level gaze at him, trying hard not to take my eyes off him even to blink. He was cagey, this bastard, overly clever, and I didn’t want to provide him an opening. I didn’t really think he was going to try something, but part of me really, really wanted him to, just so I could have an excuse to kill him. And I’d have to kill him, if it came to that, because I couldn’t fight him, not right now. I was missing a hand from a battle I’d been in earlier in the evening. I had the stump carefully covered up, unwilling to let him see my weakness before the appendage had a chance to grow back. “The less you talk, the more likely you are to maintain the structural integrity of your skull all the way through to the end of our time together.”

He gave a half-hearted laugh, but it was a thing of the wind, a subtle breath of air like a hiss rather than anything remotely jovial. “You’re not going to kill me.”

I didn’t even blink as I fired. Twice. “No?”

Blood seeped across his clean white shirt and dribbled down his chin. A steady ooze of red radiated outward from both sides of his chest. “Bitch,” he said, and a cloud of red and spittle was brought out by his speech, wet words tinged with the air and liquid seeping into his lungs from where I had shot him. “This won’t kill me.”

I watched as he slumped on the couch, the stains on either side of the buttons that demarcated the center of his chest growing worse by the second. It had been pretty decent aim, I thought, to put one in each lung, stopping him from calling out. He wheezed as he slid limply down the couch to a resting position on his side. I sat in my chair across the room, watching, never taking my eyes off him even as he registered the agony of what was happening to him. “You …” he gasped, trying to force air into his lungs. It wasn’t staying in, however, but draining out and filling his chest cavity. I was strangely unmoved, both emotionally and physically, as I watched.

“If you’re going to call me a bitch again, you can save your breath,” I said, keeping my pistol leveled at him. I aimed for the head this time. I really didn’t think he was going to do anything threatening in his present state, but he was rapidly outliving any uses I had for him. The sting of phantom pain in my missing hand was making me ornery. Either that, or the recent rash of people I had killed had eliminated any desire on my part to be merciful to one of the most prolific serial killers I had ever encountered.

It was actually rather sad that I could say he wasn’t even close to the most prolific. The man (beast) with that singular honor still resided in my own head.

“This won’t …” He spat up blood, even as his cheek pressed against the cloth of the couch he was now splayed on. He didn’t look like he had much control over his limbs. The smell of gunpowder was thick in the air, finally blotting out his awful cologne. I was thankful for that little blessing. “This won’t … kill me …” he gasped out then went silent, a torrent of red flooding out of his lips as his eyes glazed over, then closed.

“No,” I said, relaxing in the chair, letting the gun slide out of my grasp to rest on my lap, “but it’ll damned well shut you up.” His muscles relaxed, and his body went limp on the sofa. I saw the soft up and down motion of his chest as he continued to breathe in spite of his injuries, his meta-human physiology already working to repair the damage I had done. “And frankly,” I said, rubbing my eyes, which were burning, with my remaining hand, “that’s all I need from you at present.”





Chapter 2




“Was that truly necessary?” He sighed and shook his head almost paternally. I didn’t buy it.