𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐜𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐯𝐢𝐥 ✔️

♡ Chapter 10 ♡

~ Azalea POV ~

Strawberries have always been my favorite fruit.

I eat them all the time. I love to have them as a snack while I watch movies.

Strawberries are all I can think about as I stand in the shower. I look down at the drain, watching the red blood go down. I have the water so hot that it makes my skin turn pink.

I've done the one thing that I never wanted to do.

I've hurt somebody. But not only have I hurt, I've killed.

I took a mans life today. I stabbed him in the throat. There was so much blood. I had never really thought much about how much blood you need to lose in order to die. But it's a lot. 

"Azalea, leave the knife here and blame this on me."

"Don't you dare blame yourself for this. Do you understand me?"

"Go home and take care of yourself. I'll make sure they know that it was me."

Reese's words echo in my head as I scrub the blood off of my hands. Aggressively. I use a vanilla-scented body wash to get a man's blood off of my hands. I have to scrub extra hard at my nails. I make a face, as if his blood getting under my nails was an inconvenience. Even though I took his life away.

I stick my hands under the running water and slam the dial down, turning the water off. The room is filled with fog as I step out of the shower, and I wrap a short silk robe around myself before stepping out into my bedroom.

My bedroom is large. The floors can be heated. I have a balcony, that overlooks a flower garden outside.

All with money that comes from blood. Exploitation. 

But I just killed a man. How am I any better than my father now?

I collapse onto the bed. I pull my thick white sheets over me, my body sinking into my mattress. I look up at the ceiling, watching the star projector I had turned on. I watch the blue sky dance, and the bright white stars that accompany it.

Perhaps I'm just as bad as my father now. Not because I killed that man that was about to kill Reese.

But because I don't feel bad about it.

I watch the fake stars dance with no emotion written on my face. 

I don't feel guilt. My stomach isn't turning, I'm not beating myself up about what I did, and not a single tear falls from my eyes. 

I'm glad that I did it. 

I'm happy that I was able to save Reese's life. I'm happy that I got there just in time. I'm happy that Reese is still here, even though it meant having to take out a different person.

I roll onto my side, and pull my blanket up. It covers nearly all of my face, and after just killing somebody, I shut my eyes in my silk sheets and custom-made mattress.

With closed eyes, I start thinking about something. The concepts of good and bad.

How I've always wanted to be good. Do good. Never cross the line into the dark side of New York.

The people here aren't like the people you see in movies. They don't just shoot you in the head if you know too much information.

People torture each other. Cutting body parts off to get it. Killing your family members to get it. 

There is nothing off-limits in this world. 

But, good and bad are just concepts after all. 

Maybe it's best to stop looking at them like that, and allow for them to blur together. And look at things through the same morally grey way that everybody else in this world does.