Page 114 of Tempt Me

“Hey, Xenia,” I said to the rock, dropping some sunflower petals onto the mound and using my shirt to clean up dirty smudges from the granite. “Sorry, kid. This is definitely not bedtime material, but I just wanted you to know I’m making it right tonight. You can rest easy.”

The wind picked up, and I took that as a cosmic sign that my niece was giving her blessing on my suicide.

I stuck my hand in my pocket, feeling the ropes frayed rough edges.

I hoped that wherever Tal was, she was safe. It had been a year, and our sister had disappeared without a trace. She was resourceful, so I knew she’d landed on her feet somewhere, making skipping the ‘boohoos’ easier. I left a note that probably no one would ever find, but it would never make up for what I’d done.

My dreams were filled with images of blood. All the lives were taken from my own hands. I couldn’t accept what I had done. Maybe I could have learned to forgive myself If it hadn’t been for Xenia Lynn Masters.

My brother recovered from her death. That fate was my own to bear.

“Where-oh-where should I do this? Larry? Any suggestions?”

I was met with silence, of course, but old habits died harder than people knew.

“You suck ass. Randy would have told me where to snuff my ass. Hell, he would do it for me.”

I ignored the pang of annoyance chirping at me anytime I thought of Randall. He wasn’t my little rookie anymore. He was moving on up, and damned if I didn’t slightly regret not watching him take over the world of piggies.

I skipped along the graves, not finding any particularly good spots to hang a noose.

Getting more irritated by the minute, I left the cemetery and made my way to some abandoned building in the slums. I didn’t need to freak out some fucking grandma with my exit. The least I could do was die in the silence I lived in.

“Roxy, how about that shiny spot? It looks noose-abled, right?” I said, hopping up onto the beam and looking for a broken window among the rubble and debris.

“Oh yes, Judes. That spot is perfection for some dying. A+, Boo Boo!”

I was truly insane talking to myself, but it was better than the fucking silence, and regardless of what I deserved, I…didn’t want to be alone.

I found a fragile point on the glass and used my boot to kick through the window. It was a nice drop that would knock me on my ass, and I smiled, thinking of how I would swing.

“Judie, oh Judie,” I sang, throwing the thick rope over the bulky wooden beam cracked from the stairs of this broken warehouse. “I will meet you on the hanging beam.”

“Any last words, Larry?” I said, adjusting the rope around my neck and climbing up the broken boards to the top, across from the beam.

“Liiike…I dunno, maybe why you betrayed me, took over my body, and killed my fucking niece with my hands?”

Silence.

“Yeah. Didn’t think so.”

I felt a strike of fear, and I rubbed the scar on my side where the bullet had gone through. A last little homage to my brothers, as it were.

“Okay, Judes. Don’t fuck up dying.”

My hands began to sweat, and I took an unsteady breath, leaning over to see the floor below me. I was alone on the broken flooring of an abandoned building with a noose aroundmy neck. It was attached to a board that had a fifty-fifty chance of breaking after suffocating me long enough to die.

There was nothing to elude that this would be blamed on anyone else. It was weird to think how my brothers would respond, considering I attended my own funeral in the shadows.

I was an asshole to make them relive this all over again, but at least Roe would be able to stop having those nightmares of shooting my stupid ass.

I was stalling, and that was pathetic.

I knocked myself on the head and adjusted the rope to be sure it was nice and snuggly around my neck. It had to be comfy, of course.

“I have sinned,” I said, walking closer to the edge. “For I, Judas Masters, have betrayed innocent blood.”

And then I walked over the edge.

THE END

…or is it?