Opaque

27 | The Man

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned." - William Congreve

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"What the hell do you want from my life?"

Blaze simply raised an eyebrow in response, which only aggravated me more. I had to inhale deeply and frequently to keep my blood from boiling over. I never knew I had so much rage bottled up inside of me, but now that I've been pushed I was going to bite back with all that I have.

"You know, you're so easy to read," Blaze said, putting his handcuffed hands on the heavy steel table.

Everything in this interrogation room had a history and a reason behind it. From the table, which had been chained from plastic to metal to steel because some criminals were overly sensitive to intrusive questions, to the same lamp enclosed in a steel cage on the ceiling, everything had a story behind it. Some of them were so interesting and unique if an author wanted to, he could write an entire full-length novel simply on these stories. But why was I thinking about this when I should be focusing on getting answers from Blaze?

The answer was simple, or is once I actually thought about it. I was simply trying to distract myself. I hate to admit this, but if there was one criminal who I passionately hated and would murder in a heartbeat - it had to be him. Perhaps it was because of all the scars my knees, arms, and legs supported after my multiple run-ins with him and his posse or maybe it was because he had been the most challenging case I had volunteered myself for, but either way I hated his guts.

And I'm sure the same applied vice versa. For why else would a person recruit a completely different criminal to do a job he could've easily done in his sleep? He hated me, that much was clear, but the questions was why.

I wanted - no, needed - to know why he hated me so much before I lost my own temper and took all of my frustrations out on his face.

"Am I?"

Yes, I was playing the procrastination game. I had lost most of my steam the minute I had taken off the mask and left the arena. The two hour ride home - I was highly unlucky on my way home with congested highways due to rush house - gave me even more time to allow my emotions to finally seep into my blood and for my brain to catch up to the rest of my body. By the time I had reached the office, it had been shut down and though I could've easily snuck in, I knew that Blaze was probably held in the most advanced facility.

I had went home and as I woke up this morning, I simply, for the life of me, could not bring myself to face the man who was supposedly, and most likely, behind my panic attack and flashback. I still hated him, that much is obvious, but instead of wanting to punch him in the face until he bled to his death and then chopping his body into tiny pieces before feeding them to dogs, I wanted to collapse on the ground and cry a river.

I didn't know what prompted this sudden change of emotions, but I figured I had probably taken most of my energy out on Scarface. It also didn't help that Blaze most likely held answers to questions I had been trying to answer for the past ten years. Answers that I had previously wanted more desperately than a druggie wants drugs, but now could not bring myself to ask for.

Was I finally doing what everyone wanted and moving on? Could I, at last, forget my bloodstained past and live a normal life away from criminals and crime? A part of me wanted to, but my heart clenched at the thought of abandoning my own personal mission.

I had let the hate and anger control my vision and actions for the past ten years and I had used to my razor sharp mind, which had been honed after the horrific events, to create a plan to get what I wanted - revenge. But did I have the guts to go through with it now that I was seemingly so close. I didn't know.