hellbound; cory | ACKLEY BRIDGE

A GOOD MAN GONE

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why oh why does god keep
bringing me back to you?
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! explicit content near end of part !

three in the morning is no time to be chucking on your boyfriends hoodie, watching your shadows under orange streetlights and emptying your bank account for all its worth. it's no time for your heart to be pounding, your body to be shaking, your breathing to go jagged and your stomach to twist into knots.

it's no time to meet a murderer.

his face is covered mostly by the hood of his own jumper, and just from that i know it's him. my body goes numb, and the only thing that lets me know i'm still alive is the pounding of my heart bumping against my chest and racking my body. bump. bump. bump.

"you came," he says, and my head is spinning. his hood is lifted from his head and his face set alight by the lamps on the street, and i notice immediately it is battered. bruised, scarred, puffed, black eyes, busted lips.

"did you expect me to let you kill him?" i asked, my voice shaking desperately. i wished i could sound strong, be strong, for donté and for jordon but i couldn't. i wasn't. sickness surged through me, wave after wave, and i felt anything but strong. i felt minuscule. some speck on some dirt on a rock in space, whilst he was a giant, even at his 5 foot something height.

"i expected you to run. you did before."

his voice is colder than the night and sharper than a thousand knives, as his words plunge into me one by one, splitting open my skin to ravage my throbbing heart. i find it hard to breathe, but i do.

"how much does he owe you?" i ignore his comment, though my voice cracks and i feel pathetic. so, so pathetic.

"hundreds. and interest. two thousand should cut it."

"and you'll never bother him again? you'll leave him alone? leave us all alone?"

"oh, sweet cielo. doesn't my face tell you what the people in this town think of me? i'm not welcome here anymore. i'll go."

"take your hands out of your pockets," i murmur, eyes staring unblinking at where his hands are fumbling inside them.

and he obeys, raising his hands up like he's under arrest. his eyes bore into me like he can read me like a book — and he can. for all the wrong reasons. he knows i'm scared, petrified, even. he knows.

"two thousand pounds," i say, taking out the money, rolled and wrapped with hair ties. "keep one hand in the air. hold the other one out," i instruct, and with my voice quavering as much as it is, i don't know why he's taking orders from me. there's something in his pocket though. i know there is. a knife. i know, i can feel it, but he does what i say and i pass him the money.

i swallow thickly as his hand disappears back inside his pocket to place the money there, and my whole bodies jittering. is it a trick of the light, or can i see metal glimmer in the glow of the street lamp? everything inside me was screaming to get out of here, from the way the hair on the back of my neck stood up, to the goosebumps etching onto me, my erratic breathing and my sweaty hands.

"a pleasure doing business with you."

i want to slap the smirk off of his face. i want to jump on top of him and claw his eyeballs from their sockets. i want to smash his face into the concrete and stamp on it with the highest of heels. i want to rip open his chest and squeeze his black heart until it popped in my hand.