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Chapter Twenty-Seven

A Quick Thought

F itz finished his piss-warm can of beer, squeezed it in his hand, and threw it into the woods as hard as he could. He didn’t bother seeing where it landed. It didn’t matter.

“The time has come,” Fitz said out loud. “The time has fucking come.”

He wiped his forehead. He was sweaty. Nervous as hell. He rubbed his jaw too. There were a lot of scenarios running through his head right now.

He normally didn’t like to approach life this way. He liked to have a plan. A good plan. A concrete plan. But he realized that plans weren’t working for him.

His plan with SOFRAW turned stale. Fucking stagnant. Then his plan with the detective. There was a fucking end game there. An end date. That got all fucked up too.

That damn word again—rat—running through his head. Over and over.

“I’m not a fucking rat,” he growled. “Okay? I’m not. I’m a man of opportunity. I can see… I can…”

Fitz shook his head.

Late last night he ended up in a trailer park and stole some pills from some sleeping whore. He didn’t fuck her. He wasn’t interested. He just wanted the pills. He wanted to think. He needed to think. The pills made him feel fucking crazy.

He stripped himself naked and ran around in a circle for hours in the woods, chanting and pretending he was a bear. Then he fell asleep on his back, still naked, and woke up to himself shivering and crying. Weeping. Bawling. He got dressed and vowed not to take any more of those pills. But whatever that shit was he took it made him so uneasy. Off balance. He felt ready to explode at any moment .

That’s when he knew it was time to end this thing once and for all. One more thing left to do. Fitz walked to the car he had stolen earlier that day and got himself another beer. It was piss warm, but beer was beer.

He opened the can and called out, “Cheers!”

He smacked the can off a tree, sending beer and foam everywhere. Then he put the can to his mouth and began to chug. A voice in his head told him SOFRAW was closing in. The other charters were on notice. Guys were definitely put on notice. Everyone searching and sniffing. Things getting more and more tense.

Fitz knew he controlled his own fate right now. They wanted to find him and they wanted him to meet Dr. Smile. Fitz screamed out a laugh. “Good fucking luck with that, boys!”

He woo’ed as loud as he could and finished the can of beer. This one he threw against a tree. It was all right there. The ending. The perfect ending. Cause as much hell as possible and then just end it. End himself. End his life.

What would SOFRAW do then? It wasn’t like they could bring him back to life only to kill him. It was perfect.

Fitz reached into the car again and took out a gun. He put it against his head and felt his heart scramble. He growled and moved the gun away.

“Not yet,” he said. “Whoa, not yet.”

He walked to the trunk and opened it. He smiled and reached down.

“Welcome home, honey, I’ve missed you.”

Fitz pulled his tied up and gagged wife out of the car and threw her to the ground.

“Oh, Mara, what am I going to do with you now?”