Volume X: The Industry of Chemical Artistry - or - The Age of Rockism

12. Kill Me Slowly

My life had been torn apart and rebuilt too many times to count. This was my last attempt to be free. I would play by Dacien’s rules - I’d keep clean. And Riley’s well-being was out of my hands.

Only after you’ve lost everything can the idea of starting over take hold. I just needed to hit bottom. The fall needed to cease, at least long enough to make it to my feet. And I did. I was upright again.

I’d been absent from the scene for a while, but I didn’t miss it as much as I’d hoped. At the end of my re-invention, Dacien showed up to see me. She knocked properly and everything. I let her in like nothing ever happened.

She refused to sit, pacing around the apartment slowly. I watched her eyes roll over my new work slowly. She turned to face me.

“Been keeping busy?”

‘Yeah. Been thinking a lot.”

She nodded. “Side effect of being sober all the time.”

“Are you...?”

“A user?” she cut in, smiling. “Course - my mother was an addict. So was my father. I was born like this; I just made the best of it early on.”

I sat down, dizzy watching her. My work was stationary; I’d watched no television in the time I was working. She was the first moving person or idea I’d seen in awhile. She sat down slowly, across from me. And I watched Dacien Ransom compose herself.

“This is your final test. No more tricks, no more smoke and mirrors.”

I watched her body language like a hawk, the downcast eyes, the heavy sigh. Her eyes came up to meet mine, the fire back, determination fixed there.

“Wes, Mason, and Brie - they’re all dead. Really. We told you otherwise to give you hope, to motivate you to do better.”

The next few events were blurry, but they happened. I hit her, hard, square in the jaw. I lost control and attacked her. I was sick of being a puppet. I’d worked so hard to get this far and she was fucking with me still. I kept fighting until she caught me, locking my body. My body couldn’t take it and my knees buckled. She dropped with me.

“Calm down,” she whispered. “It’s over.”

“Is it really?” I cried.

She nodded slowly, almost maternally. “Yeah, it is.”

She let go, sitting on the floor with me. The shaking went deep into my spine, leading me to rock slowly back and forth.

To make a mental side note - Linkin Ransom, Dacien’s brother, died by my hand. After years of abuse - physical, emotional, and mental - I couldn’t take anymore. When I was 18, he raped me in an alley, dragging me away from the bus stop I’d been waiting at. I had been trying to escape. He denied me my freedom, so I took his life. I killed him in front of Dacien. She has sought no revenge. Except now. She had good intentions, right?

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

This was her making up for my pain from her brother and taking revenge for my ending his life. Both at once. It took her years to set this up. But it was a resounding success.

I didn’t know what else to do. I had worked myself to exhaustion. Every ounce of strength was lost and I was left on the floor, looking around to regain my bearings. She had won, as she was meant to. Course she was meant to. She always was. She had everyone on her side. For a moment, my mind flashed back to the moment I shot Linkon. The look in his eyes. Almost...satisfaction. He wasn’t the least bit surprised. He had smiled awkwardly before hitting the ground. And Dacien smiled too in her own way, knowing she would have to avenge him. But she took her sweet time, waiting until it would be the most effective.