A weight presses down on me, and in an instant I spot Callum, one hand gripping my head scarf, pulling on it, the other holding a vial of pale red liquid.
Faster than a blink, I flip him over, the vial crashing to the rock that is my bed, yellow stone absorbing the anemic fluid, glass splintering in every direction. He pinned beneath me within seconds, and I immediately tear off his mask, finding a pale, blond hair, blue-green eyed man with the face of a baby and rough, patchy stubble on his chin. This fucker. He's not from here.
"What the absolute fuck do you think you were doing?" I speak mere inches from his face, watching as his petrified expression shifts into something sour, something animalistic and greedy as he begins to smile.
His knee rises, pressing into my crouch, "You and I both know you want this."
I cover his mouth, flipping him on his back, and digging my knee into his spine, bone piercing bone. He wails, but no sound escapes as my right hand is clenched around his throat, fingers piercing his pale flesh. Red moisture slowly trickles down to my wrist, dripping to the hard Earth below.
I'm fucking sick of this shit.
He will be the first to suffer.
Shifting my hand from his throat to the scruff of his hair, I grab hold of him, and repeatedly, ensuring no sound escapes, bash his skull into the hard rock. Not enough to kill him, but enough to cause him long-term damages and pain. His saliva coats my palm, making my skin uncomfortably moist as his DNA spills and spreads onto the very place chunks of his scalp will be painted onto. His body trembles and vibrates beneath me, the air struggling to be sucked in through his nose and bursting out, breathing quick and shallow, worsening as the moisture builds. He coughs and seizes but I don't give in, instead, I stop slamming his skull and crawl my fingers to his eyes like a spider, and reach into his sockets, his screams no longer producing sound as howling rises off in the distance.
Finally, his legs cease movement, and I dismount him, wiping off his spit and blood from my hands onto his own clothes. His breathing slowly stabilizes, and I head out to clean myself up while he wakes up—unfortunately.
Leon is already awake and setting up the truck to travel, occasionally kicking Shushi's tent, likely trying to force him to wake up and get moving. When he spots me, he rushes over like a hyper puppy and stops less than a foot away. His morning voice is deep in groggy, the kind I've seen girls fall over in the past, but I know it won't last long, "We'll be arriving tomorrow, get back into your tent and masturbate, Callum was supposed to be getting you off. Where the fuck is he? I'll kill him." He zeroes in on where I had just beat Callum to a pulp, seeing no movement and hearing no noise. "That pussy fucking slacker."
"It'll be fine, like I said before, I don't need-"
"Shut up, whore, you don't know what you need, Dima is the one who owns you and him not being here is already creating enough problems."
I keep quiet and head towards the truck, Callum, weakly crawling from the shade just as Leon walks to one of the corners and kicks it loose, a near silent yelp escapes the herbalist as he's crushed by the fabric that continues to weigh him down more with each peg released.
We're off in under an hour, Shushi had to be rushed to put his pants back on and his lover, Frae, appeared to be sick as she was hunched out and wobbling while walking alongside him. They didn't question the dried blood and mucus stuck to Callum's clothes, he didn't tell them either. Instead, we're mostly silent as we speed through the colourful desert sands.
My clothes feel like muck as they cling to my skin warmly, like sap building beneath my armpits and along my lower back. In the front seat, Frae shifts constantly, one hand resting over her stomach while the other holds onto the truck frame for dear life, her head swaying. I count her breaths, noticing they are far too shallow and far too frequent—perhaps she's getting a cold?
It's not long before they spot a car off in the distance, clearly already banged up and hardly capable of speed as it drives slower than a human can run. The life of our truck immediately skyrockets as Leon, Shushi, and the girls begin yipping and cheering.
As we close in, it becomes clearer that these people aren't from here, no, this is a more wealthy car from Sareanin; not the most technologically advanced, but still costs far more than the majority of the population.
We mow them down before I can even spot the victims, blood splattering in the wind as Leon drives on, stopping a moment later as they all hop out and scavenge the wreckage; myself scanning through the back of the truck, except, there's nothing there. The vehicle was completely flattened into a sheet of metal, no fuel leaking anywhere either.
"Who are you?" Callum speaks beside me, keeping his distance as he rests his hand on his chin, words coming out as though his tongue is numb. "You were never this… violent."
I call bullshit on that, a life like hers would make anybody violent.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I respond sweetly, voice light and elusive, avoiding his existence like the plague. "I'm simply defending my lover's honour, so for future reference and to ensure your own safety, keep your hands off me."
"Excuse me?" His voice raises, snapping. "Keep your mouth shut, woman, you dolls do not speak to men that way, understand?"
In the corner of my eye, his arm grows larger, hand reaching for my covered hair, in a swift movement, I pierce my thumb into his wrist and twist his entire arm until he's barking in pain; I muzzle him with my hand. "Shut the fuck up, if you speak another word to me or another person that does not involve the bettering of the business, I wear tear you apart limb-from-limb and rip out chunks of your hair until your brain oozes out. Understand?"
He yelps and shrieks in my grasp, body convulsing as I hold him in place, refusing to acknowledge that a woman is better than him.
I clench my hands around his mouth until my nails begin to pierce his skin beneath his cloth, refusing to let up, "Understand?" My mouth is right next to his ear now, my hot breath clinging to his headwrap.
Finally, he nods, and I lighten up and he cries, "I understand! I understand!"
Releasing him, his head falls harshly against the window, breathing heavily and struggling to remain composed. Walking around the truck, the others begin returning, and in a fluid motion I grab hold of his balls overtop of his clothes and begin squeezing, he weeps as I add, "Promise?"
"I promise! I promise! Please just let me go! Fuck!"
I unclasp just as the doors open, and by the time the four others are staring at us, we resume our positions, a decent amount of space between us, neither person willing to acknowledge the other.
They begin driving once more, disappointing as Leon exclaims, "The tits were as flat as pancakes."
Shushi adds incredulously, "Because you fucking flattened them!"
We begin speeding along the sand and stone once more, the caverns and ditches growing more frequent as we close in on Snowfall of Explosives. Gently, I shut my eyes, ensuring that I remain aware of all the freaks around me.
Just one more day.
Just one day until we arrive and I can meet our suppliers, gather the intel and materials needed, and return to Antonio. No, return to the campsite where Antonio just so happens to be. It doesn't matter where Antonio is, I have a mission to do, and he can follow along or not, doesn't bother me.
Just one more day.
The Earth shakes all around us and we begin to hit bumps and fly every thirty seconds rather than every twenty minutes, and these assholes practically hunt down the potholes.