Flesh and Blood

Chapter 22 - Pulled My Trigger, Now He's Dead

When Luke returned to the apartment, he didn't expect to hear noises coming from it. As he stepped towards the door, he realized that it was music.

"But life still goes on . . ."

Luke raised his eyebrows and pressed his ear against the door.

"I can't get used to living without, living without, living without you, by my side. I don't want to live alone . . ."

Luke then leaned away and started unlocking the front door.

"God knows, got to make it own my own . . . so baby can't you see, I've got to break free . . . I've got to break free, I want to break free, yeah . . ."

Once he opened the door, he immediately noticed Damien, sitting still on the couch while the music blared from their cheap speakers.

"Hey," Luke greeted quietly, almost a whisper.

Damien gave him a brief nod, but didn't look at him.

"I want, I want, I want to break free . . . ."

As the song neared its end, Luke headed towards the kitchen to put away the groceries. By the time he reached the kitchen cabinets, the apartment was filled with a tense silence.

"So," Luke sighed out as he sorted through the groceries, "I wasn't sure which bread you wanted, so I got white bread."

"That's fine. It's up to you."

Luke glanced at the floor and noticed that the bottles of bleach were sitting out.

"Okay," he continued, now pushing aside the groceries. "I don't think I'm going to cook anything tonight. Do you want to order something?"

"I don't know. I'm feeling kind of indecisive."

Luke then glanced at the knife block and noticed that one of the knives was missing.

"Are you busy tonight?" he asked, his hands now clutching the grocery bags. "Maybe we should go out to eat?"

"Maybe, but I think we're going to have a busy night."

Luke then glanced at Damien and noticed that he was staring at the bathroom door.

"Why?" he asked, his voice cracking.

"Because I killed Helen."

Luke froze. Then he darted to the bathroom and was greeted by a giant smear of blood on the floor and Helen's lifeless body shoved into the bathtub.

Helen was dead.

Luke froze again. There he was, once again, standing in a bathroom, not moving, not breathing, just staring at the corpse of someone he cared about.

Helen was fucking dead.

"What do you want to do, Luke?" Damien asked.

Luke shook himself out of his daze and glanced back at Damien, now getting up from the couch.

"I don't know what to do anymore," Damien continued. "So, I'm asking you."

"You're asking me now?  You didn't think to ask before you killed Helen?!"

Luke glared at Damien, now noticing that he was only a few feet away.

"Helen got in my way," Damien said with a shrug, "so I had to kill her."

"That's not a good excuse to kill someone!"

Luke stumbled away from the bathroom and turned towards Damien.