My body shakes.
My muscles tense as my fingers clamp harder around her purple-tinged throat.
She gasps, fighting for breath.
Her face is blotchy, her arms torn to shreds by her nails from all the hallucinations she’s had. Ice will do crazy shit to your brain.
My mother is a fucking mess.
While the life draining from her pathetic body makes me feel like more of a man, it’s giving her a fitting end to a pathetic excuse for a life.
My breathing is slow and steady.
Surely, I should be freaking out?
The thing is, I’m not.
I’ve wanted to kill this woman for as long as I can remember. She’s brought this on herself, and as the life fades from her miserable eyes, relief floods every part of my being, knowing I will finally be free from this existence. This prison she has me enslaved in so securely inside that no one can escape, but perhaps I have found my salvation.
Suddenly, I’m being yanked away. My hands detach from her throat as I fall back on my ass, and her scrap of a body falls to the floor with a thud.
“What the fuck, kid? You gonna throw your life away for this useless whore? Jesus!” T-Max, my mother’s pimp, yells at me while running his hand through his black curls.
A single bead of sweat drips down my temple from the exertion my body has experienced.
But I feel nothing for her.
Not a single damn thing.
That woman on the floor, her eyes close, and I can’t be sure if she’s dead or alive. All I can do is hope to hell that crazy bitch is dead. Gone! Forever out of my life.
A rush of adrenaline spikes through my body. It’s like fucking nirvana as I let go of the piece of fucking shit that was my mother.
Taking a step so I am now standing over her with my chest puffed out feeling like right now I could do any-fucking-thing, I spit on her.
I am not terrified.
I won’t be violated again.
I’m not restrained.
I’m free.
Free from this terrible existence.
Draining the life from my mother was everything and nothing like I expected. I didn’t know I could experience such power in the moment and how it charged like energy flowing through me. Like I’m the king of my own fucking universe.
Curling my lip up, I kick her in her stupid fucking head for good measure.
“Dumb fucking cunt,” I murmur.
“Hey! You need to rein your dumbass self in, kid. You’re in a fucking lot of trouble. I saw the whole damn thing,” T-Max bellows.
Turning to walk out of the home I’m currently living in—an abandoned apartment on the second floor of the worst street in Houston—I smile. If my mom wasn’t so good at using her pussy to find us accommodations, we’d have been out on the streets long ago.
Now, I have to find a way to make it on my own.
But I’m better off.
That bitch was evil.
Wiping the sweat off my brow, I continue for the door, picking up my mom’s pack of cigarettes from the filthy countertop and lighting one up on the way through. Grabbing my backpack, I swing it over my shoulder, then open the door. When the sound of T-Max cocking a gun reaches my ears, I jerk back in shock, virtually stopping me dead in my tracks.
“Can’t let you go, Talon.” He pushes the tip of the gun into my back.
Spinning around, I exhale a puff of smoke in his face, not giving a shit about any-fucking-thing right now. “T-Max, the thing is… you might see me a kid, but I just learned something.”
He narrows his eyes on me. “What’s that?”
My heart beats so fast I can hardly bear the feeling drumming in my ears.
I have the hunger, the need for it now.
He can’t stop me.
No one can.
“I have an addiction.”
He narrows his eyes. “For what?”
“Death.”
At full force, I reach out, grabbing his hand to shove the gun away as I push him out into the hall and up against the wall. In an instant, I grab the gun away from him and aim it at his head, ready to pull the trigger, and not giving two shits about the consequences.
“Police! Freeze!”
My stomach rolls, and my face pales.
T-Max chuckles. “Didn’t think with all that commotion going on in there, I wouldn’t call for backup… now, did you, kid?” T-Max chuckles.
Anxiety rushes through me as the three officers approach, so I spin to run in the other direction, but quickly realize it’s a dead end.
I’m screwed.
Fuck.
“C’mon, kid, put the weapon down and your hands up.”
Curling my lip, I figure my life’s already fucked up. What’s going to juvie going to do? It can’t be any fucking worse. It registers–I have no choice because that’s where I’m headed, so I slowly place the gun on the floor, kicking it away from me to the officer. My hands go up as I fall to my knees.
The good to come out of this is my hateful asshole of a mother will probably die. Perhaps I’ve found a new calling along with it because that rush of a life slipping through my fingers, I want that feeling again.
I need to feel it again.
It’s a high better than the drugs my mom forced on me, most of the time without my knowledge.
Death is my
