Page 21 of Scars of the Sun
But Benny was low-level, a hanger-on that was tolerated because he did whatever bullshit job was thrown at him. “You’re not my cousin,” I forced my spine still and faked a rigidity to disguise my muscles already descending into that slinking place.
He shrugged and tried to stand taller at the same time. Now that we were just six feet or so from each other. I wasn’t short, but he had a good few inches on me and at least fifty pounds. His suit fabric shifted softly as he put his hands in his pockets, but I saw the sleekness of a gun tucked in a holster underneath his jacket.
“We were basically raised that way. You never used to have a problem with me calling you that before.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I think you’ve got the history confused. But it doesn’t matter. What do you want?” How had this happened? How in eight years had I finally been discovered?
His dark hair was slicked back with some gel that made it look shiny under the yellow-toned security lights. Benny gave me an unimpressed once-over, undoubtedly taking in my ripped jeans, helmet tucked under my bare arm, and windswept hair. But being underestimated by anyone from my father’s life was tobe expected. They’d always treated me that way. Maybe that was why I let my guard down. Put down more roots here than I had anywhere else. Madre de Dios, I’d even fucking joined a band.
“I was sent to scout out this area, and wouldn’t ya know it? I caught scrawny little Río’s scent while walking to grab some dinner? Followed it back here and figured I’d wait to see what happened. You caused quite the stir when you slunk off into the night, cousin.”
He was going to have to stop calling me that. Although, he wasn’t going to be speaking for much longer, so I guessed it didn’t matter.
“So,” he continued, inching closer to me, “now that I’ve laid eyes on you, how about we head back and smooth over this whole thing? Your old man will be relieved to have you back.”
I fought the bile trying to rise in my throat and the phantom lashes, the torture that’d reached almost every inch of my skin. “Didn’t you hear? I don’t have a father. He’s dead to me, and I should’ve stayed dead to him. Trying to offer me up so he’ll throw some promotion at you is fucking pathetic, Benny.”
The easy demeanor cracked, frustration crumpled his face, and he put a hand on his gun like that would do anything. “Name’s not Benny, and you know that, you piece of shit. I’m letting them know I’ve found you, and then we’re gonna go back to Georgia.”
Quick as if it hadn’t been there, my fear was snuffed out. WhatBennyjust let slip was that he was here alone. And that he hadn’t told anyone of this personal mission to follow my scent and ambush me. I’d tried so much to be like Mamá, to kill all parts of me that were like Dad and my sisters, but the darkness that spilled over me like ink running over my soul was like putting on a favorite, worn jacket. It fit perfectly and was an armor I’d been kidding myself into thinking I’d shed forever.
Apparently, the fear I’d shoved off of myself and over a cliff fell right onto Benny. He tried to hide it, but the wisp of it in the air made my mouth water. What this idiot cabrón, as Mamá would have called him, and others like him always seemed to fucking forget was that I’d been given the same treatment as my sisters. Just because I wasn’t a sociopathic bitch, or untethered more than not, didn’t mean that I was any less dangerous.
“Well,Benjamin. Seems like your shifter blood was good for something. But I’m not coming with you.” The thin trail of who I liked to think I really was silently apologized to Ramona for what I’d said.
It did land the mark that I wanted it to, though, because Benny pulled his gun and lunged toward me. Probably to try and get his arms around me and put the gun to my temple.
At this point, it was just insulting. But flashes of that time with my father were a low soundtrack as I twisted, dropping my helmet, and pounced. Dark rooms, blows to the head, punishing lacerations that left me bloody and malnourished and hollow when I did anything that was deemed incorrect. I wasn’t going back. Iwasn’t.
I clung onto his back, letting my claws sink through his suit and into his flesh, and used my weight to twist us back into the darkness of the alley. I heard the gun clatter to his feet, and it thankfully didn’t go off. There weren’t any security cameras back here, as far as I knew, but I’d have to check back afterward to confirm.
He grunted and gasped in pain and surprise, and we both hit the ground, with him first and me still on his back. Benny tried to throw me off, and that sick part of me was disappointed with how little of a challenge this was. If he’d been smart enough to call in my location to someone with half a brain, they would’ve discouraged this half-cocked plan that wasn’t a plan at all. Hebucked and hissed beneath me, shouting curses and trying to get the upper hand.
It was messy but oh so satisfying as I released my fangs and clamped them over the base of his skull and the top of his spine. Teeth crashing through tissue and bone and blood. I tightened my jaw that’d grown wider with my fangs and severed his spinal cord.
Blood smeared on my face, tasting delicious on my tongue, and his last twitches and garbles just made me hold on tighter.
I killed Benny in the alley behind my apartment, and I didn’t feel an ounce of remorse. Or, much of anything aside from inconvenience and the trails of adrenaline.
As much as I hated it, my father’s training continued to drive me as I listened for any concerned neighbors that may have heard our struggle. When there were none, I lifted his limp, heavy body into a fireman’s carry and went up the two flights of stairs to my unit.
On autopilot, I unlocked my door and dropped him gently to the ground. After running back to the alley to grab my stuff and his gun and confirm that there were indeed no cameras that could’ve captured the whole bloody encounter, I went home to deal with the body.
I kept the lights off as I stripped the suit from Benny’s body to properly dispose of later. His limbs flopped lifelessly as I moved him around, and once everything of his was in garbage bags by the door, I unbuttoned my jeans and kicked off my Vans.
A ding from my phone reverberated against the robotic calm. With a bloody and dirty thumb, I swiped open my screen.
Unknown
Hey, this is Ramona. Wanted you to have my number, too.
I blinked at my phone, reading the message over and over until who Ramona was sunk in, and the roots of her in my mind grew even more. Honey, acid, winter cold, soft skin, haunted.
A burning sigh forced its way from my lungs and through my nose. I clicked off my screen and threw my phone onto the couch.
Naked and tired, I closed my eyes and shifted, letting the magic woven through my body take over and rearrange. My muscles and bones contorted, and my psyche rode the current, bobbing with the change. Never fighting it but not getting lost to it either.
When it was over, my front paws thumped to the ground, and I was still Río. The most important parts of him, anyway. A roaring hunger that I’d been ignoring since I left work had curved and shifted to one that was more than content with the body I was dragging up to the lofted area near my bed instead of craving something like a burger.