Epilogue

Marks woke up to more pain than he’d ever felt in his life. His legs throbbed and burned and his head felt dizzy. His cheek buzzed with pain and felt half-numb. If he would have known that he could stick his finger completely through it he probably would have fainted again. He felt the wind gusting around him and was grateful for that little bit of comfort. It soothed his damaged flesh somewhat and helped ease the sweat off his face. He lifted up his head and felt the dizziness condense and grow into a powerful surge of nausea. He tried to fight it but couldn’t and turned his head and vomited painfully. The burning in his cheek intensified and he put a hand to his face out of reflex.

“Awake, are we?” a voice called. There was no missing the vindictive satisfaction in it.

Marks opened his eyes and found Darius Clark staring back at him. He looked around, trying to figure out where he was and immediately wished he hadn’t. He was slumped at the foot of a radio tower on one of Ashebrook’s skyscrapers. It rose to a sickening height above him and he could faintly see a blinking red light at its top.

There was no getting away.

No escape.

“What are you gonna do to me?” he asked. His voice was raw and the pain from it caused his eyes to sting with tears.

“I’m going to kill you,” Darius stated, his voice compassionless.

“What are you waiting for?” Marks asked, a croaking chuckle slipping out despite the desperate situation he found himself in.

“I waited because I wanted you to be awake for it. Anna was awake, after all. Right before you put a bullet in her head,” Darius answered, anger starting to touch his words. “I’m gonna make you feel every last bit of pain before you die.”

The simplicity of the statement sent an icy current of fear through Marks' body. He tried to move, to get away, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate with him. They were too badly broken to even let him stand up. He watched as Darius leaned in closer.

“I’ve got some fun things planned,” he said, a crazy grin spreading across his face. “Well, fun for me at least. That’s the important part.”

“Let me go and I’ll give you anything you want,” Marks said, trying not to sound so completely afraid.

Darius' eyes snapped to his and right at that moment, Marks knew it was all over. There was too much raw, naked rage in those eyes. There was no talking his way out of this problem. Darius grabbed Marks’ shoulders, the fingers of his hand digging into them with enough force to snap the bones there.

Marks screamed out in pain, but his voice was swallowed by the wind gusting around the rooftop. Darius kept a firm grip on Marks and then jumped. He reached out with a hand and caught one of the radio tower’s metal crossbars. He climbed onto it and jumped to the next, repeating the process until he was about halfway up the tower. Marks screamed the entire time. Despite how loud it was, Darius ignored him. When he got to where he wanted to be, he put the drug lord down on the metal bar. His crippled legs and mangled shoulders prevented him from going anywhere. The only thing he could do was whimper and cry.

“This is gonna hurt,” Darius said, taking out two massive, long nails from behind his back. “A lot.”

He grabbed Marks, who struggled violently despite the pain he was in. Darius was a whole lot stronger so it didn’t take him long to subdue him. He took him underneath both arms and dragged him toward the middle of the bar. When he had him where he wanted, he suspended him over the side with one arm. Then he took one of the nails in his free hand and swung it down in a fast, vicious arc that ended at the man’s right shoulder. There was a satisfying point of impact when the nail went straight through flesh, bone, and the metal of the bar.

Marks screamed again.

Darius stabbed the other nail through his left shoulder and backed away. Marks was flailing, screaming, and bleeding profusely. Darius’s half-crazed grin broadened. He jumped into the air and somersaulted so that he landed in a crouch facing the radio tower. He backed up to the edge and looked at the results of his work.

Marks was kicking his legs around in a useless attempt to free himself. Darius sat down with his back to a wall and kept watching.

The more Marks struggled, the more he bled and the more pain he put himself in. And Darius enjoyed every bit of pain on his face. Every grimace. Every cry. Every wince. All of it.

He watched and took in all that pain until Marks was dead.

It took close to two hours for the drug lord to die. He found that the old trope from movies, books, TV, and other crap like that about getting revenge only making things worse was so very wrong.

Getting his revenge hadn’t felt wrong.

It felt good.

Very good.

He stared at the corpse of Marks for a second longer, then he turned his back on it. He stepped up to the ledge of the building and peered at the city around him, listening.

It wasn’t long before he heard someone shouting for help.

He slid Life out of its scabbard and jumped into the night air.

The End.