REVENGE

CHEAP THRILLS!

She walked away hurriedly trying to get away from the car as fast as she could before her emotions took over fully. She sighed heavily trying to push away the sudden feeling of an attack from her chest and sniffled some tears back inside her head. She hated this. She couldn't remember the last time she had lost control like that. She couldn't remember the last time anyone's words had hit her into the core as heavily as Amari's words had. And it wasn't anything to do with the words, that she could handle. What she had done was triggering something inside her, something she had buried away deep in a secret batch of memories she never wanted to have. Amari had opened Pandora's box and now she had to make sure none of it's contents spilled out because that was not a moment in her life she wanted to relive.
  She stopped on a curb a good distance away and the moment Amari drove away, she leaned forward clutching her knees. She breathed in and out for several seconds trying to balance herself and the moment she had, she crossed the road and headed to a coffee shop. She needed sometime alone to gather herself and think.
                           ★★★
He stood on inside an empty apartment a short distance away from the coffee shop, binoculars in one hand and a cigarette on the other. He could have chosen to remain in his car right outside the shop and watch at a closer angle but that didn't feel as fun as watching from a distance. At least that was what he thought. He blew out a thick blast of smoke and sighed putting the binoculars down.
"Spot, crawl, crouch, watch, wait for the right time, make a move then attack. Pow!" he said demonstrating the action with his hands and lips. "You disappoint me Blakey."  He shook his head then went on. "We never run and if we do, we run towards not away. Running away isn't in our DNA. We take what we want, what is supposed to be ours." He continued with his monologue, smoking and watching her in turns.
"Look at you, so miserable because of one person, that one woman who happened to get inside your head. Why are you letting her? She wouldn't understand you, not like I do. You and I are so different from her but she will never see it because she has grown up with a privilege you and I never had. I don't know what's holding you back but you can do better than this."
He dropped the binoculars back into a backpack then dropped the cigarette on the floor and stomped on it, crushing it's burnt side into pieces. His footsteps echoed loudly in the emptiness as he made his way back downstairs. He was about to get inside his car when he thought about something and decided to head straight into the shop.
There she was sitting on the same stool she always sat on, directly opposite the cappuccino machine. He took the one next to her, glanced at her their eyes meeting briefly and he smiled, "Hey."
She returned it but only lightly, not really reaching her eyes, "Oh, hi." Just like he had thought.
                "Oh, now that's one look I hate seeing on you. What's going on?" he asked.
                 "Nothing, just having a rough day at work is all," she replied shaking her head. "Sorry I haven't been coming to the gym."
He raised his hands, "Oh, don't apologize to me, apologize to your body." They both chuckled. "You should come back soon though if you don't want to lose that swole," he added bumping her well toned biceps. "Anyway, what happened?  Anything I can help with?"
               "My captain decided to sandwich me with a new partner who I hate and it seems to go both ways. You know how well I work alone but this woman comes and suddenly he decides I need a partner."
                 "Oh, is it so bad?" he asked as he took his ordered coffee. Blake turned to him fully.
                "She is his daughter and she wants to take over his position once he retires. The position I have been working so hard for."
                   "Oh," was all he said then took a sip of the hot drink. Blake stood up, preparing to leave.
                  "I should get back anyway but I'll drop by soon. I need an escape." He nodded and remained seated watching her leave. She walked a few steps away before she turned back to him. "Actually, do you think you could drop me off at the precinct. I kind of let her go with our work car."
                   "Sure thing, let's go," he smiled  genuinely and followed her outside.
There wasn't much of a conversation on their drive which wasn't a bad thing. He was used to Blake being a woman of a few words, barely talking about herself which was what had made him curious about her in the first place and also what had made them close. That and the gym classes he held that she attended at times. They had a relationship that one would call friendship but he knew much more about her than she knew about him. Those weren't things that she had told him but things he had dug up himself without Blake's knowledge.
He steered the car a good distance away from the precinct and stopped.
                 "Thanks for the drive, I owe you."
He nodded, "I hope to see you soon."
He watched her as she walked gaily into the precinct with much more confidence and grinned.
See, no one understands you like I do. Perhaps all you need is a little gift, something to push you forward to do the right thing. He opened glove compartment and pulled out a picture, studied it for a while and smiled. She is pretty, I wish she wasn't giving you such a hard time but well, it is what it is.
He dropped it back, closed it and drove away. Some minutes later, he unlocked a tiny door in a basement, got inside and headed slowly towards the center. He circled around the guy tied up against a post listening to his heightened panicked breathing.
                 "Please..." he sobbed.
               "Please what?"
                "I don't want to die," he said shakily and desperately pleading with his eyes. He crouched on the floor next to him, grabbed his face and hardened his gaze on him, the veins on his face popping. The man gasped in horror.
                  "Shh, listen," he said smoothly. "Do you hear them?" he asked rhetorically. "Listen again. Do you hear that tiny voice, hiding in the closet, terrified, screaming her tiny lungs out. Do you remember it?" He shook his head vigorously. "Let me jog your memory." He stood up and started pacing. "Summer of 1990, a small town in the West, a house built on a hill, home to a family of six. It is just a few minutes to dinner, daddy just got home from a mission. They are one happy family until a certain enemy decides that they don't deserve it. Goons break in, one gun  seven bullets, daddy goes down. They grin in victory. Mommy is next but this time, they decide it's too much work. You say, you want to be thrilled. Grabs the eldest daughter and-"
                  "Okay, stop... Please stop," he cried. "I remember, I made a mistake. It was the biggest mistake of my life but I paid for it. I went to prison for twenty years, served my full term with hard labor."
                   "Tsk! tsk! tsk!" He shook his  head and crouched  down again and lifted his face. "And you think that was enough? That it was fair?" He raised his tone slightly and grabbed his neck pressing hard to block his windpipe. He gasped for air, his eyes growing wide. He dragged him off the floor and lifted him up against the post grinning. "I will answer that one for you because no, it wasn't fair. Maybe for you but not for that family you killed one by one until there was no one lef-" he stopped realizing that the man had already passed out and was nowhere near hearing him. "Couldn't hold on for a few more seconds? Damn! You are pathetic even in your death." He let go and the body hit the floor with a thud. He spat on the floor then leaned down. "This gives me no pleasure at all but it has to be done," he said as he transformed, this time only letting his claws out, ripped through his cage and ripped out his heart. Bastard! He spat again and got up. Cheap thrills!