“I don’t think I can —” I said, looking over at Andrew.
“It’s fine, don’t worry about this. I’ll take care of this. You’re not ready for something like that yet. Your dark side has been starved. Let’s get its appetite a little whet. I’ll line up some jobs for you, jobs I think you’ll enjoy. Just do me favor: Do not continue taking that medication; and if you need anything else, you ask me.”
Chapter Five
Entertaining Your Demons
Heeding Franklin’s advice came more naturally than I expected. It was like removing a mask I had been wearing my entire life. I was finally able to breathe fresh air. I no longer had to pretend I wanted to be good. Caro hesitated to accept me letting go of the control at first, but when she became properly acquainted with my shadow, she reveled in its essence. Franklin was right. I didn’t owe anyone anything and we are all in this world fighting for power. The difference was that power was something that I already had- better, it was a power that no one could take away.
One night we had a job pinning some drugs on an unsuspecting group of politicians aiding the campaign against Franklin. They were having an organization meeting at one of their supporter’s houses and party members were invited to join. As the other party supporters cleared out, we lingered behind, waiting to make our move. That was when the night took an unexpected turn- it would have been wise to run, but we didn’t.
We corned them in the study and my shadow overtook them. There were three men. Three of a kind, all of them middle-aged, white men who swore they’d have us arrested, demanded to know if we knew how much they make a year, and if we knew who they were. I laughed at them as they attempted to display their power and prestige to us. We had them kneel down next to each other in front of a coffee table with their hands behind their back, Caro pointing a gun in their general direction.
I poured piles of cocaine in front of each of them, lots of it. I squatted at the table opposite side of them as they glared at me.
“Do you know what this is?” I asked, pouring a little pile for myself. I diced the pile up and made a row with a credit card, then reached for the man sitting in the middle’s jacket pocket, “May I?”
I grabbed a pen out of it, unscrewed and disassembled it, leaving nothing but a hollow straw, then I ran the hollow part of the pen across the pile and snorted the line. Adrenaline swept through my body.
“See, it’s easy. Your turn,” I said, passing the straw to the first man on my left.
“Fuck you! You don’t know who you’re fucking with! I’m —”
My shadow ejected from my body and grabbed the back of the man’s neck, then began draining the life from him through its grip. I put my hand across my chest and pushed it down.
“Slowly,” I said. My shadow loosened its grip, “Who are you? You’re nobody.”
The man began to gasp for air; his eyes turning red as blood vessels began to burst, and sweat began to run down his forehead.
“What the hell are you doing to me?” he said, coughing as blood splattered across the table. Droplets shot into the white pile in front of him, creating little concave pink craters in the pile.
“More,” I commanded my shadow, who once again inflicted its poisonous touch on the man. He wrenched in pain. The other men looked at him, horrified.
“What are you doing to him? Stop!” One man said.
“I’ll stop when he does what I say.”
“Okay. . .I’ll do it,” the man said, grabbing for the pen in pain.
“Excellent,” I beckoned for my shadow to come back, but it pranced about the room, running its hand over the other men, stealing fragments of their well-being. It even glided over to Caro.
“Not her!” I said sternly. It cowered away from her and returned to the men.
Each man, one by one, took up the pen and ingested the white powder laid out in front of them. After they were finished, the man in the middle exclaimed, “There. We’re done! Will you leave us alone now?”
I pretended to be taken aback by his outburst, “Oh my, no, sir, you’re not done,” I emptied another pile in front of each of them, “Again.”
“I can’t do anymore of this shit!” he shouted, obviously feeling the drugs take effect.
“You can’t? Caro,” I said, holding out my hand. She handed me her gun. I flipped it in my hand and swung the butt of the gun across the man’s face and into his jaw. It hit with a thud and blood splashed across the table once more. He yelped out in pain, struggled to open his eyes as he regained his composure and glanced at me through gritted, bleeding teeth. Two teeth in his front lower jaw had come loose and one in the top had been knocked out. He grabbed the straw again and began to ingest his second pile.
Caro laughed at my actions in the background. I laughed too. Each man glared and obeyed as they snorted line after line, exhaling between in an attempt to disperse the remains onto the floor. They writhed and moaned as they consumed it and shook and twitched as it took effect.
“Now, I’m not one to judge, but I think you guys have a drug problem,” I said, laughing. They simply glared and tried to keep their mouths shut, “You guys did enough to kill a common drug addict like me.”
They glanced at each other, horrified. I could see their distraught expressions and worry setting in.
“Just don’t freak out. You have to keep your heart rate low or it could stop,” I said, “If
