Chapter Twenty-Five

Watching the Butcher get shredded by the turret's bullets, I feel warm satisfaction flow through me.

Desire is still screaming, although the volume of her screams have begun to lower with each heave. No doubt the work of blood loss.

"You're going to die here." I manage to huff out, terribly out of breath, my heart still pounding like it wants out of my body as soon as possible.

She stops screaming at this. I turn my head to look at her through the glass and I say it again, "You're going to die here."

She raises a bloody hand and slaps it on the glass, wiping across it lazily she moans, "This…this is what you're supposed to look like."

"What?" I breathe, my heart slowly pacing back to its normal speeds.

She lets out a guttural sound I can only describe as a cross between a groan and a growl and bangs on the glass, "Blood! Blood! You're supposed to be!"

Supposed to be covered in blood.

"Huh." I let myself breath a light, tired chuckle, "You're crazy."

Lying on the floor all I see is the white porcelain roof with a single small fan right above where she would stand and serve the customers.

Desire seems like a person obsessed with convenience.

At the other end of where I lay on the floor covered in the droids' wires, there's a stool with a shotgun leaning on it.

Why didn't I just grab that?

Oh. Right, I was immediately tackled by a bunch of bolts tied to a chainsaw.

I groan, deciding it's about time I got up. My body hurts, every bit of my back feels like I've been bent over backwards and beaten with a stick in that position.

A metal stick.

My jaw is sore and clicking now, not to mention bleeding from the grazing punch the Butcher let off before being taken out by an automaton that would regularly be its ally.

I guess Desire forgot to set it as an ally. She may have been prepared, but it seems she skipped a few steps.

Sluggishly dragging myself up the wall next to the counter I realize I haven't heard her groans or moans in a while.

Now standing, I look over the counter, clutching my aching side, "Desire." I call out.

She lays there on the tarp she laid out, her fingers still touching the glass, sliding down it slippery with her blood.

But her eyes are wide open.

"Desire?" I call out again, but my voice breaks. "Are you…?"

I cut myself short from asking the foolish question and close my eyes. It's not like I didn't tell her what would happen. I did.

"I'm sorry, Desire. I'm just…doing what I'm told."

She lays there, still as stone and even more still than the twitching droid parts beside her.

Taking in her image; still, eyes open, cheek smeared in blood and lips parted. Her finger sliding down the glass and her hair made wet by her own blood. Dead.

Desire isn't the first person I've seen…dead, she isn't the first warm dead person I've seen either. I realize she probably wouldn't be the last.

As I stare at her last expression, her last image. It dawns on me that Desire is the first person that I have killed. That I have confirmed as dead, warm but soon to be decaying.

With this comes the late realization that I shouldn't be staring at my firs-

"Bluragghhh!"

The contents of my stomach wait for no one before spilling out my mouth and to the ground where I laid not a minute ago.

"Ah fuck." I breathe out, huffing and wiping my mouth. "Fucking…"

Suddenly, there's a tap on the glass and my heart nearly jumps into my throat as the thought that Desire would have turned into an undead pop into my head.

But it just happens to be Austin tapping the glass of the entrance. I still give Desire a glance just to be sure she isn't horrifically, suddenly glaring at me.

She's not. I regret it.

The tapping continues until I give him my attention. I wipe my mouth a third time on my sleeve and sniff, giving Austin a tired, exhausted look.

He's pointing at the turrets.

Right. Desire activated them, he can't come in without being blasted to hell and back like Butcher was.

I sigh and look at the button under the counter, it's the most obvious place it would be set.

There it is. A switch.

Flicking the switch, the turrets immediately power down and hang limply on their hinges. After that Austin marches in.

"Quite a mess you got here kid." He starts off instantly, hands on his waist and a troubled look on his face, "So this is what happens when I let you take care of things…they die."

I don't answer him, rather I walk into the back where I'd seen her keep several of the real merchandise and pick up something more powerful than my now-empty pistol.

"Did you have to kill her though?" He yells out from the front, "And what's this metal…is this…is this a droid?"

Again, I don't bother answering. Focusing on the pile of handguns I'm spilled onto. Most of the good-looking ones are slide guns, but perhaps with the added benefit that they're automatic.

I pick up a silver one and start my search for its ammo pack.

"Hey Vern! I'm talking to you!"

I don't know when he got here but here he is, standing in the doorway, blocking all of the dimming natural light.

"I heard you." I answer. My voice is numb and sore and it makes me hate myself.

"So why the hell aren't you answering?" His yell is punctuated by a bang on the door frame.

"You didn't ask me any question that didn't have an obvious answer, Austin."

He sighs at this, rubbing the bridge of his nose he looks back at me as I pull out a magazine and try fitting it into the gun. It doesn't fit.

"You'll need the one at the back, that's a Wilson, isn't it?" I stare blankly at him, "Yeah it's a Wilson, it's the magazine at the back."

He stretches over me, stepping out of the doorway and into the room to pick up the one he spoke of. He snatches the gun out of my hand and in a smooth motion, loads it up.

"Combat handgun, a bit too heavy for a kid…but you're not a kid are you." He doesn't look at me as he says this, rather his eyes trail past me and back out the door where the fruits of my labour lie.

I snatch the gun back, pull the slide and before he even starts flinching, I fire off two shots.

BangBang!

The second shot is an automatic. Satisfied I pluck off more of the magazines he picked off the wall.

"Jeez, let me know before firing one of next time."

"I'm going back to Paige." Is all I say before making my way out of the back room.

"What-m wait! We haven't…" I feel his gaze on my back as I veritably flee the scene of my crime, I hear him sigh as he gives in.

"Just hold on a bit, I'll call someone to take care of this and then we leave."

Great, can't wait.