Page 45 of Cry Madness
“Curiouser and curiouser!”
—Alice,Alice in Wonderland
Ienter Folly House to find March perched on the edge of the couch. He’s immersed in his game, fingers of one hand flying over the controller’s buttons. With his other hand, he jerks the joystick, manipulating a soldier running around on the television’s colossal screen. The game casts a vibrant glow on his face, accenting his focused expression.
“I need to kill a man,” I announce as I slam the front door shut. The cleaning brigade must have come today. Everything is nice and neat, and the house smells like lemon. “No, scratch that,” I add. “Two men.”
Without taking his eyes off the chaotic action unfolding before him, he barks into the headset, “Do these dead men have names, or are you going to pick randoms off the street?”His question is thick with sarcasm. “No, that question wasn’t for you,” he snaps into his headset’s microphone.
I cross the room, the soft carpet muffling my booted footsteps, stopping in front of the television screen, purposely blocking March’s view. “Both have names. Are you in?”
“Naturally,” he answers without hesitation. He gestures for me to step aside. When I remain rooted in place, he exhales with a frustrated sigh. He pauses the game, the screen freezing mid-action. “No,youstay where you are,” he instructs, addressing the unknown player on the other side of the headset. “Mad just walked in. He’s being an asshole. Give me a sec.”
With a flick of his wrist, he turns off the headset and tosses it onto the coffee table. “So, who are the unlucky targets?” His eyes light with anticipation because, like me, he’s always ready to fuck shit up.
“Virgil Adaway raped Sparrow Zanders.”
“Motherfucker.” March leans forward to drape his forearms across his thighs. “Did this come from Roman, or are we working alone?”
“It came from Roman.”
Not that we’d change how we’d handle the situation. The only difference is that with Roman giving the order, we get paid for our involvement. “This time, I won’t let you have all the fun,” he says, because when we…dispatched…Nick Lowell, March got relegated to a cameraman while I had the honor of putting the bullet in the man’s head.
“I won’t hog the kill this time.” I cross my heart. “Promise.”
“Good,” he snaps. Then, “And who’s the other prick?”
“Rook Knavish.” The name erupts from me like a venomous arrow, fueled by a fresh surge of rage. The cacophony of demonsscratches against the inside of my skull, demanding to be unleashed from the suffocating confines of my thoughts.
“What’d he do?”
“He’s why Alice returned to Wonderland.”
“You sure you want to kill him and not thank the man for the assist? Your goal has always been to get her back here.”
“A stalker running her out of Riverton isn’t how I wanted to get her home. That miserable piece of shit gave her a fucking painting of her severed head.”
“Jesus Christ.” March drags a hand through his tousled blonde hair. “You serious?”
“You see me laughing?” I demand.
Then I recount what Alice told me about Knavish, my fury becoming a consuming flame that sears its way through my veins. The longer I talk, the more I need to know what Knavish’s heart would feel like, warm and beating, in the palm of my hand.
March reclines against the couch, his mouth set in a tight and angry line. He’s quiet for a beat, tapping his fingers against his thigh in an absentminded action before he says, low and slow, “I see why this bastard needs to die.”
“You can sit this one out if?—”
“Eat shit, dickhead,” March snarls. “That’s a hell of a thing to say to me. Even if you and I weren’t brothers, you forget I grew up with Alice, same as you did. Fuck yeah, I’m in.Allin, and as a matter of fact, I’m already mentally tearing this prick apart. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to kill this fucker.” He points to the television screen where his avatar is getting gleefully teabagged by assmaster69. He slips the headset back on before annihilating his opponent’s avatar. “Go ahead, jerkoff, teabag me again. I fucking dare you.”
Iclap March on the shoulder. “Good on you for trying to earn back your dignity, my dude.”
“You jumping in?”
He means the game, and no, I’m not. “If I don’t get rid of some of this tension…” First, I gesture like I’m jerking my dick. Then, “Boom.” I make an exploding motion with my hands around my head. “It’s gonna get real ugly, real fast, in here.”
His pained groan is theatrical. “And here I am, reminding you for the thousandth time that I don’t want to know when you jack off.” Into the headset’s microphone, he snaps, “Holy shit, no! Not you, asshole. I was talking to Maddox. Mind your business and play the damn game…and if youeverteabag me again, I’m shooting you for-fucking-real.”
Ignoring his little tantrum, I drawl, “Think you forget that I’m forced to listen to every time you get laid, you loud bastard.”