Vincent inhaled deeply, shoving hysterics back down his throat. “Go to hell,” he whispered.
The other flung his arms wide, hands out, and smiled even broader. “Let's go together, huh?”
And then he lunged.
Pushing forward, snarling, the switchblade bastard thrust his knife at Vincent's chest. His mind screaming curses at his body, Vincent managed to lash out at his assailant with his feet – ropy coils of pain springing down through his shins and making exit wounds at his soles – and caught the other in the groin.
A grunt.
As the other fell to the ground, Vincent scrambled to his feet, tears streaming down his face, his heart punching at his ribcage. His mother was still watching emotionlessly.
Streetlights peeked in from the road.
Please God.
Vincent tripped, the switchblade bastard's hand wrapping around his ankle, cutting him to the ground. The kid dragged him back, flipped him over, and straddled his chest, breathing heavily. Hissing. Gravel crunched beneath Vincent's head as he stared – petrified – up at the face of his reaper.
Sobs punctuated by cotton ball breaths exploded into the air from his mouth.
The switchblade bastard ran the tip of his knife against Vincent's scalp, down his face, and lingered at his neck – sending shivers arching across his spine. He began humming. Quietly, softly. Humming a lullaby. Humming a prayer before he made a blood sacrifice.
“Don't mess with the the Sureños, maricón,” he whispered.
Vincent almost pissed his pants.
He was going to die.
No!
Not tonight! Not now! Not here.
His mother's face vanished, enveloped by cigarette smoke.
Now!
Gathering every ounce of strength left in his body, Vincent screamed, grabbed his killer's wrist, pulled it forward and snapped up. Bones crunched like carrot sticks and the switchblade stumbled to the ground. The other yelled and yanked his hand out of Vincent's, radiating pain in fountains. Vincent's face crumpled with anger and he punched the switchblade bastard as hard as he could, splitting his knuckles to the bone on the kid's teeth.
Ivory coffee-stained by crimson.
Lots of red.
He hit him again. And again. That regal face contorting under his fist, giving way, becoming soft and malleable. Vincent liked the way the switchblade bastard's flesh felt as he punched him. Like molding clay.
The kid was on the ground now, eyes swollen, lips dribbling juice. Vincent was above him, laughing uncontrollably. Whatever was pulsing through his veins was incredible. Explosive. Addicting.
See me now, Mom?
And then his upper hand vanished.
He felt his stomach implode as the switchblade bastard freed his arm and hit him in the abdomen like a bullet through a sheet of metal. Air was immediately robbed from his lungs by invisible hands and he fell back against the ground, writhing.
Scrambling. Struggling.
The kid had knocked him aside and dove for his knife, now in hand. Whipping around he plunged it to the handle into Vincent's thigh, grinding it there.
Vincent screamed.
The pain was exquisite.
Things rippled. Wine glasses shattered behind Vincent's eyes, shards catching the light of his pain, magnifying it by a trillion. His whole body sang. It exploded.
He cried.
He boiled.
In an instant – everything illuminated by raw agony – Vincent jerked the knife out of his thigh, glistening with syrup blood, and rammed it into the stomach of the switchblade bastard.
Into his stomach.
Time stopped.
Calcified, the kid's face lit up with confusion. With shock. His mouth dropping open and his eyelids flipping up. The poetry of his face had returned. Vincent faltered, his grip on the knife loosening, the red fading. The parking lot suddenly returned to him; an inky, rain spattered scene, now laced with droplets of blood.
He realized that the switchblade bastard's own blood was creeping out of his shirt. There was some on Vincent's hand.
What had he done?
The kid choked.
He wheezed. His hands fluttering over the knife in his gut like wounded paper cranes, unsure of where to land. Vincent withdrew his own hand. He wiped the blood off. He pushed himself away slowly.
What had he done?
The kid was dying.
New music, now. The music of grunts, of wheezes, of choking. Music that dripped sweat and mixed itself with cardinal colored blood on the ground of the parking lot; a new kind of oil spill. Vincent couldn't look at his face anymore. He couldn't read the poetry. His ears were filled with static and his head throbbed violently.
Choke.
He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth, his fists, which were slippery with someone else's vital fluids.
What had he done!
And then.
No more music.
The kid in front of him was motionless, his hands barely touching the knife protruding from his stomach like a flag pole. His swollen eyes stared forward, brimming with disorientation, and his chin jutted out, smeared with flecks of dirt and gravel from the cold, unforgiving blacktop.
Cradling his broken body.
Vincent began shaking uncontrollably.
These hands.
Staggering to his feet, drunk with guilt and horror, Vincent began limping away. Oxygen burned his lungs again and he felt blood raining down his thigh, like hot oil from wounded battlements. He wanted to run again. He wanted to get as far away as possible from the body, from the Norteños, from the parking lot. Instead, it just felt like he was running back to Juan.
Glancing back over his shoulders, he could see his mother kneeling over the switchblade bastard, cigarette smoke coiling and groping at the air above them like some kind of funeral veil.
The scene was etched into his mind forever.
