“So, what we gonna do with you, ese?” Spider asks. “That was some crazy shit you just pulled. You seriously thought running was a good plan? And I thought you guys were supposed to be smart. Educated and shit.” He spits on the ground. I can’t see the expression on his face, but I’m betting his eyes are glinting with that same poorly concealed depravity he fixed on me a moment ago. This man thrives on power. He thrives on blood, and from the way the old man on the floor is shrinking away from him, I think he knows it, too.
“I…I can’t help you. You know there’s nothing I can do,” the old man says. His voice catches in his throat. “Just…just let the girl go. Please.”
Spider looks over his shoulder at me, one eyebrow arched into a bemused black line. “Her? You’re begging for her life?” With a shrug, Spider crouches down, still playing with the knife. “What about your life, Conahue? Not worth begging for?” he asks.
The old man—Conahue—swallows. The action looks painful, as though he’s swallowing razor blades. He looks up at me and I see the last flicker of fight in his eyes fizzle out and die. “You’re going to kill me anyway. Begging is probably a waste of what little breath I have left.”
Spider barks out a sharp blast of laughter. “Your life’s been in your hands for a long time, my friend. We gave you plenty of warning. When my employer asks for something, he gets it. There are consequences if he doesn’t. Hence this little…meeting, my friend. You could always change your mind? Do as he asks?”
Conahue gives a brief shake of his head, breathing heavily. His face, underneath the congealed, drying blood, is mottled and ashen. “I’ve never lied. I’ve never taken bribes. I’ve never let a piece of shit gang lord get away with murder.”
“Ah, so you’re a man of morals?” Spider asks this, twisting the knife over in his hands.
“Yes,” Conahue gasps. “Not that Hector would understand that. He hasn’t suffered a guilty conscience a day in his life.”
Most of the men snort at that. It appears as though the majority of them agree, and they’re proud of the fact that this mystery man, apparently their boss, isn’t inconvenienced by a functioning moral compass. Conahue struggles to push himself upright, but Spider tuts at him, wagging the knife back and forth in front of his face. The action is enough to stop the old man in his tracks.
“You do realize,” he says, “that the whore Hector’s accused of killing was a junkie, right? She was a drain on your country’s precious resources. You’ll die for some cracked out bitch you don’t even know?”
Resolve flashes in Conahue’s eyes. “I will.”
“So be it.” Spider acts slowly, extending his arm with deliberate purpose so Conahue can see what he’s doing. From my vantage point, still a foot off the floor and unable to turn away, I witness the point of the weapon press down into Conahue’s chest and travel slowly, slowly, slowly, into the man’s body. Conahue’s eyes widen, a look of mild disbelief coming over him as he starts to convulse.
A pool of thick, dark red blood begins to rise up out of the wound, around the blade of the knife, and then around the hilt when Spider has driven the weapon all the way into the other man’s body.
I scream, but there’s no sound—only a high-pitched out-rushing of air from my lungs. The vice-like grip around my chest tightens, and a sharp pain lances through me—my shoulder, burning, suddenly on fire. Spider draws the knife out of Conahue’s body; the old man is still alive, but the muscles in his face fall slack. He’s not got long left. He reaches up a shaking hand and clutches at the wound in his torso, his feet twitching. Spider watches him, back still turned to me, with such stillness that I get the feeling he’s mentally recording this—the life slowly slipping out of his victim, absorbing every fine detail of the moment so he can replay it again later.
A violent crash of sound roars down the alleyway, and I’m suddenly hit with the sensation of it—a wall of noise slamming into me, rattling my bones. I don’t know how I didn’t hear it before. It can’t have registered through the fear, the horror of watching that knife disappear into a man’s body. The guy holding onto me turns along with everyone else to see what’s going on; a motorcycle has pulled into the alleyway behind us.
The high wrought iron railing is all that stands between me, trapped with this group of killers, and the single biker on the other side. The bike’s headlight spears through the darkness, lighting us all up and eliciting a chorus of Spanish curse words from Spider and his friends. “What the fuck is he doing?” one of them hisses.
Spider snarls, pacing to the railings, knife still in hand, though it’s now dripping with blood. “You’re too late, ese!” he hollers. “It’s done. Run back to your cabron and tell him he’s fucked. And so are you!”