Here's chapter 2. ^^ This is when we jump to 1938 with none other than Ladd Russo. :P Enjoy!
-1938-
Ladd Russo wondered quietly to himself just what he would have to do to kill Claire Stanfield. How hard would it be? Lua had been involved, regrettably, the first time. With her safely tucked away, it would be just Claire and Ladd himself.
That stupid Claire.
Thought he was invulnerable. Thought he would never die.
What a schmuck.
How Ladd would enjoy wiping the walls with his blood. Vino, the assassin, would finally bleed his own death. And Ladd suspected he would bleed more beautifully than all the others. He was the ultimate murder. Possibly the only man alive who truly believed he would never die. It would be pure ecstasy to see it. To see Vino plastered in sheer gore upon the walls. In fact, it would please Ladd more than anything else to blow a hole in the chest, reach in, and rip out and eat the heart of Claire Stanfield. Claire was the only man alive to have crossed Ladd so courageously, to have the gall to say such things to him.
There was only one problem.
Ladd was sitting in prison, his butt resting on the grimy prison bench behind the iron bars, long rusted and damp from the rain that always seemed to pelt the island. Ladd both respected the architect of Alcatraz, and desperately wished to wrap a hand around his neck and squeeze ever so slowly, gloriously, feeling the warmth of the blood wash over his fingers as death passed over the victim. Upon Alcatraz Island, it would not be easy to get to Claire. Unless, with some ridiculously amazing luck, the red-head was thrown in there with Ladd as a jail-mate. Ladd doubted that though. Even his highest level of optimism couldn't bring him to believe that.
It was sad.
It was dreadfully and incredibly sad to know that he would never kill Vino himself. No. And it was equally depressing to realize that the assassin was far too talented to be murdered conventionally. Only Ladd himself had the possible power to wring every last drop of life from Vino's lips, and by the time Ladd got out of the wretched Alcatraz, it would be too late to fully enjoy the death.
Or would it? Would it be so hard, so incredibly hard, to slip out of the cage in which he had been encased? Would it? How could it be? He was Ladd Russo. Ladd. Russo. Who would dare keep him here against his own will? Who would do that, and live on to tell their grandchildren that they had once imprisoned the great Ladd?
None.
None would live to tell this tale, for Ladd would take them all. He would take them all to a magical place where they only lived to feel pain, and wished for death to have mercy upon them, and swallow them into a black nothingness. He would make them all wish that they had never been born.
"Hey, Russo," Ladd heard the guard calling from the hallway, the heavy boots splishing and thudding down the stony hall. The reverberations echoed into nearby stalls. The only responses were groaning, and perhaps a shriek from one of the older inmates. People went crazy in here, but Ladd would keep his head. He was already nuts. There wasn't much more they could do to him in here.
Taking a deep breath, Ladd flung himself upon the scummy floor, and mustered the loudest scream he could produce. He wrapped his hands around his stomach, rocking back and forth, sobbing and screaming, and carrying on as any man in severe pain would. The guard, predictably, came running. He threw himself at the door, blocking the light, appearing as a silhouette against the bars.
"What are you whining about?" he yelled to Ladd. There was a twinge of panic in his voice. "You're going to get the others worked up! Shut up!"
"It burns! Oh God, it burns! I can feel it! Make it stop!" Ladd sobbed it out, gasping and shaking. He convulsed and the guard's face went pallid.
"What? What is it?"
"MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP!"
The guard had heard about Ladd Russo's reputation, and he knew from observing Ladd over the past few years that the psychotic blond would not indulge in such pain if it was his own. Ladd was not one to injure himself. He injured others. He took pleasure in that. He was a sadistic man. Therefore, this level of torture to himself could only be real, be dangerous. And while a prisoner, Ladd still had the right to a doctor. The guard began fumbling with the keys.
"Okay, okay! J-Just calm down! I'm-I'm coming!"
"Please," Ladd was whimpering. He was dying. "Please. Please. Please. Please."
The guard rushed in, kneeled, and Ladd snatched his neck and squeezed. Ladd began to smile.
"Please, tell me you didn't fall for that? Oh, you did? Really? Oh, how cute! That's just priceless," Ladd said, chatting to guard in the tone he would reserve for a reunion with a far-away friend. "You really should watch your back, kid. I'll getcha when you least expect it."
Blood leaked from the guard's nose onto the floor. The boy was about twenty-four, with a young girlfriend in Dallas and had flunked out of law school. The man hadn't had a thought about death in his head, had thought that after a few years of Alcatraz security, he would live on and reach a ripe age. This is what Ladd loved the most about the man. He had never seen it coming. Watching blood slither upon the floor, he smiled, and thought of the Rail Tracer.
Ladd wanted Vino's blood in both their mouths, on both their hands. Ladd wanted it everywhere. He wanted to paint with it, play in the puddles it made, and then Ladd wanted to lift the innards and show Vino what they were as the assassin died. Ladd chuckled as he sat up, palms pressing to the grimy brick on the floor.
"Glorious," he said, closing his eyes. "Simply glorious."
His hands dabbled in the blood of the guard, pressing his palm to the thick warmth, the puddles. He painted, as a child would with pastels, upon the ground of the cell. Blood made such a lovely paint, made such beautiful pictures. To paint with blood was to paint with the waning life of another, and nothing was as sweet as this. Nothing.
He traced words upon the floor, reading them quietly to himself as he stroked his chin, staining his skin with the blood.
"I will paint with you, Rail Tracer. I will decorate this city with what remains."
