Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
“I am so sorry, sir.”
“Don’t be sorry. Find the asshole.”
“Yes. Sir.”
He shuts the door. That’s it.
I am furious. Furious at myself, but almost equally as angry with Justice. We curled up and slept while a brave man was slaughtered. One of our own.
Tessie looks at me, wide-eyed. “We should have done something.”
“Yes. We should have. And we’re going to.”
I get up and stride toward the door. I hear Tessie say something, but I’m not listening. Blood is rushing in my ears. I know exactly what I’m going to do.
I am going to kill Rage.
It’s the only way to ensure that he doesn’t end up in the justice system and reveal Justice’s secret to the world. It also ensures nobody else dies. This is the sort of thing we are very much trained not to do. We are not supposed to take the law into our own hands. But I do not see what other choice I have. Rage is happy to murder and destroy, and Justice seems unable to reason with him, let alone contain him. That webbing was nothing, or maybe there wasn’t enough. I don’t know. What I do know is that there’s one bug about to get swatted.
I have several hours of daylight and a pretty fucking good idea where he is. The body of Officer Peterson was found not far from a Red Light Discount store. There’s a chance Rage changed his habits after I caught him the first time, but given how badly that went for me, I doubt he feels actually compelled to make any adjustments. He thinks he’s untouchable, and that is precisely the arrogance that is going to let me take him out.
I tell myself it’s not really murder, what I’m about to do. It’s more like extermination. Nope. That doesn’t make it feel any better. Feels worse. Feels bad because I know what I am about to do is wrong, against everything I stand for, and against the moral of the law I signed up for, if not precisely the letter of that law. Nobody says you can’t kill monsters. You’re supposed to slay them.
I reach the store without too much trouble, mostly because I took Tessie’s car. Huh. Didn’t even notice I’d done that. Oh well.
I get out of the car and head right to the inevitable alley. Brooklyn loves itself an alley. It’s like hives of scum and villainy built right into almost every block. Rage is surrounded by filth, addicts, criminals. He blends in with all of them, but I see him. I know the shape of him. That dangerous V pressed against the alley wall, those two antennae twitching ever so slightly with the breeze.
I’m plainclothes, as usual. Nobody has any reason to suspect I’m here to take a life, but I feel as though I’m giving out a very specific energy, one that makes most of the inhabitants of the alley scatter out of it.
I walk slowly toward the sleeping monster. I wonder what he’s dreaming of. Perhaps disemboweling another officer of the law, or perhaps a father of two. The heinous thoughts of a creature like him cannot be fathomed. I suppose now I am learning what it is like to be on the verge of taking life, to savor that moment of complete power over another being, to know that by my action, I will end one complete universe. Something unique is before me, and I will end it because it is evil.
Standing behind him, I lift my weapon. It is best I do this quickly, before someone sees a woman in an alley pointing a gun at a bit of wall. There is life all around us, busyness that will not allow anyone to notice what is happening here.
I push the gun against his head. I thought it would be easier to pull the trigger. Just pull the fucking trigger. But I don’t. Or I can’t. I don’t know why. He deserves to die. He has to die.
He’s helpless. That’s the fucking problem. It doesn’t feel sporting to just walk up and shoot someone who isn’t expecting it, even a cop-killing monster.
“Hey, asshole,” I say. That's enough warning.
He laughs at me, swings around, and grabs at me with all four of his hands. I lost the split-second advantage of surprise and now I am just as helpless as the rest of his victims.
The junkies scatter as the alley erupts into violence. Nobody here is laying down their lives for anybody else. They’re saving their own skin, and it’s a good move.
Rage pulls me into the dumpster. Foul smells and worse substances coat us both as he attempts to choke the life out of me. His MO is to slash at his victim’s belly and rend them open. He tries to do just that. His claws hit the kevlar of my bulletproof vest. I did not come unprepared.