J. Redmerski - Behind The Hands That Kill

I snap out of the private reverie.

Laughter. Smiles. Tickling. That was a time so long ago, when I was the one still wet behind the ears, despite my progression in The Order. Still so young. So incredibly foolish. But most of all, vulnerable. Needless to say, I learned from that mistake.

Or so I thought I did.

“Judging by that look on your face,” Apollo says, “I don’t believe you.”

I look over at him.

“Yes,” I answer with honesty this time, “sometimes I still think about Artemis.”

The woman holding me hostage in this room looks over at me, expecting some kind of response, knowing it’s the moment she’s going to get one. A shift of my facial expression? The tensing of my shoulders? The holding of my breath? How about all three?

“I don’t want to hear this,” I tell her, looking away from the speaker on the desk where I’ve been listening to Victor talk to some guy for several minutes now.

“You don’t have a choice,” she says.

She’s wearing all black, every part of her covered but her head and her hands. Black boots that stop just below the knees. Black bodysuit that zips up the front from her navel to just beneath her chin. Black hair pulled into a tight braid that drops to the center of her back. Black eye shadow. Even the gemstone on her only ring is black.

“Does it bother you?” she asks, stepping toward me with a gun in her right hand.

“What exactly?” I can’t look her in the eyes.

The soft sound of laughter finds my ears.

“That the man you love,” she begins, drawing closer, “loved someone before he loved you.”

I laugh lightly, though it’s fake. And forced. Swallowing my pride, I keep the woman in my sights, but keep my eyes on the wall beside her.

“Why would that bother me?” I say, pretending that it doesn’t. “It would be ridiculous—everybody has a past.”

I can sense the woman smile, I can feel her eyes on me, studying me, laughing quietly at me like a bearded woman in a freak show circus.

Then I feel the cold metal of her gun press against my temple.

“Go ahead. Shoot me. I have a feeling before this is all over, you’re going to anyway.”

There’s a pause, and then she says as if she’s bored, “As much as I’d like to, me killing you wasn’t part of the plan.” Not sure I’m comfortable with the emphasis she put on ‘me’.

“Well, if using me to get Victor to talk was part of your plan”—smirking, I turn my head to look her in the eyes, despite the barrel of the gun—“then you’re going to be disappointed.”

She smiles, and the gun falls away from my head.

“That’s probably true,” she says. “Because a man like Victor Faust—specifically Victor Faust—is incapable of choosing a woman over his nature.”

She has no idea what Victor would do for me— I know, but I don’t want her to know, or this could end badly for both of us.

“But surely you knew about Artemis,” she says. “Or did he have you believing he’s never been in love with anyone but you before? Think you popped his love cherry, huh?”

I want to smack that mocking look off her gorgeous black face, but she’d probably retaliate with a bullet in my glowering white one.

“I don’t care what Victor did in his past, or who he loved.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yeah.” I nod, pursing my lips defiantly. “Pretty sure.”

She smiles. Ah! I hate that!

“I wonder if you’ll change your mind before you walk out of here—if you walk out of here.”

Both of my brows rise curiously. “So then it’s a choice?” I ask, leery of the prospect, and the conditions surrounding it.

Her smile melts into a mysterious smirk; she looks at me sidelong, without moving her head, to follow my movements, which are few.

“That’ll be Victor’s decision,” she answers, cryptically, and for some reason I can’t figure out, a chill moves up my spine.

The woman walks back over to the desk, fits her thumb and index finger on the volume knob of the computer speaker, and Victor’s voice fills my tiny cell of a room.

The Stone Family are royalty in the crime world, primarily Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and Brazil. And the siblings—once a total of seven—were all named after mythological deities. Osiris Stone, the eldest, is who started all of this fifteen years ago. Gaia Stone, the second eldest, was a black widow. Ares, third eldest, did not live up to his ‘God of War’ namesake—I killed him as he ate a pancake, sitting on a barstool in a Waffle House; his embarrassing death brought shame upon the Stone Family. Hestia, fourth eldest, was in a Guatemalan prison last I heard, and murdered nine prisoners in her first two days—she was the deadliest one of them all. Then there was Theseus; nothing special about him—I killed him too.

Apollo and Artemis, the youngest of the Stone Family, were born eight minutes apart, Apollo’s cord wrapped around his sister’s neck. The family, coming from a long line of superstitious people, thought that when the twins grew up, there would be jealousy and conflict between them, and that Apollo was destined to kill his sister because he tried to do it in the womb with his umbilical cord.

But that was not what happened.

And that was not how they lived.

And that was not how she died.

Apollo and Artemis were as close as twin brother and sister can be. Vengeance—it is most certainly what fuels Apollo now. But money always lit a fire beneath him, too. As with the entire Stone Family. And now he has me. And now he can have everything he has ever wanted since his sister’s death—his revenge, and my head for the biggest payday of his life. And it is my own fault that we are here.

“So then shall we get on with it?” I suggest. “No need to drag this out, I suppose. What do you want?”

Apollo’s smile softens, but behind it I know there is nothing but malice.

The chair legs, uneven on the stones, tap against the floor as he stands. He walks around my cage, his eyes never on me, but I know they are watching every move I make. Then his tall figure disappears into the shadows again, and although I cannot see him, I can plainly hear his voice.

“I know you probably wonder why I never came after you for killing my mom and dad and two of my brothers.”

“I never thought about it much,” I say, “to be completely honest.”

“But you’re thinking about it now—aren’t you?”

He knows that I am. No need to answer the question.

Apollo moves around in the darkness; I cannot make out what he is doing, but I get the distinct feeling I am not going to like it.

“Then tell me,” I urge. “Why haven’t you come after me sooner, for killing them?”

He shrugs. “Dear ol’ Dad and Mommy Dearest deserved what they got. Ares was a smart-mouthed little shit and I’m still not that fucked up over his death, if you wanna know the truth. Theseus?” He shrugs once more. “He was like a blip on a screen—easy to miss—and he fucked my girlfriend, so there’s that.”

Growing tired of the runaround, I ask, “Is that what you want, Apollo—the conversation?”

I don’t have to see him grin to know that he is.

“Actually, Victor, that is exactly what I want from you.”

His answer surprises me.

“You…want to talk?” I ask, leery. “About what?”

“About you, of course.” He steps out of the shadow, carrying a cattle prod in one hand. Interesting. Perhaps I am just too accustomed to the macabre interrogation methods of my Specialist, Gustavsson, but I am curious as to what Apollo expects to get out of me with a simple cattle prod.