Summary:
You'll understand the title while reading…
Comments are greatly appreciated: please, let me know what you think!
Chapter:
Ward helped her lying on the bed, very slowly, because he could sense the pain she was engulfed in, and then inspected better the abscesses she had on her belly. They needed to be disinfected quickly, so he grabbed the first aid kit and started cleaning them with cotton and alcohol.
Skye didn't say anything, but he could feel her pain from her sharp intakes of air, now and then.
He wasn't sure these wounds could really heal, because the tissues were dead… nevertheless he swaddled and bandaged her whole belly and then left her in peace.
The painkillers were starting to have effect and Skye was drifting in a chemical induced sleep… tormented… restless, but a sleep anyway.
He wondered anxiously how long she had not been able to sleep a whole night. To shrink in such a way, it must have been definitely a lot of time.
He knew perfectly well the effects of sleep deprivation, especially under drugs, and he knew that she needed time to recuperate.
He went to the bathroom and bent down to collect all the wreckage, but suddenly he was seized by black anger and, with a wave of his hand, he burned everything, leaving only a dark halo on the floor. Gone were the bag, the spoon, the syringe, the tie, the cottons, the remnants of the liquid and the fragments of glass. All gone in a huff of otherworldly fire…
An idea was forming in him: its cleaning action would have not stopped there.
He returned in the bedroom and looked at the sleeping Skye…
It was not only she!
Out there, there were a thousand other people in the same situation!
"Enough is enough!"
He grabbed the phone and called a number he knew by heart:
"Thomas… I need you"
"Coming" was the only answer.
Then he went outside.
…
The boy glanced furtively around him and, confident that nobody was watching, slipped inside the entrance to a decaying block of flats, where the girl was waiting for him. Ensconced in the dingy kitchen of one of the apartments, they emptied the contents of a blue carrier bag that the boy had brought with him – painkillers, iodine, lighter fluid, industrial cleaning oil, and an array of vials, syringes, and cooking implements.
Half an hour later, after much boiling, distilling, mixing and shaking, what remained was a caramel-colored gunge, held in a glass bottle, and the acrid smell of burnt iodine in the air.
The girl fixed a dirty needle to the syringe, sucked some fluid in the end of it and looked for a vein in his bruised forearm. After some time, she found a suitable place, and handed the syringe to him, telling him to inject the fluid.
He closed his eyes, and took the hit.
After a while, a couple of well-dressed men came and asked the girl if everything was ready. She nodded and gave them the bottle.
They gave her some money in return and went away.
The two of them started talking with one another:
"Krokodil users are instantly identifiable because of their smell.
Any flat that had been used as a krokodil-cooking house is best forgotten about as a place to live: you'll never get that smell out of the flat!"
"Yeah… It's the same smell of iodine that infuses all their clothes.
There's no way to wash it out: all you can do is burn the clothes."
"You should burn the entire building, together with all those human scraps!
Did you see the third? He was lying on the bed, still injecting, with visible bones on his arm!
And the stench? Did you smell that fetor of decaying flesh?"
"Yeah, it was disgusting!
You're right.
Only an arson can solve the problem!"
"Maybe I can help you with that…" said a low dark menacing voice.
The two turned around and froze at the sight.
There was someone you could not tell if it was a man or a demon.
It was in a dark corner and his eyes were blazing.
"Or perhaps I should first burn the human scum that I have now before my eyes?
You, for instance?"
And suddenly his dark figure was covered with flaming fire.
…
In the early morning, in the local police station the officers were talking among themselves of the incredible events occurred during the night.
"I've never seen anything like it!
The entire criminal substrate dealing drugs, of any type, neutralized in just one night!"
"And it seems that it was one man!"
"How could a man do something like that?
There's something more, I tell you!
Those we caught say that he was not a man but a hell demon!"
"I don't think he was a demon.
If he had been, he would have killed them all, whereas we did not find even a corpse!
On the contrary, some of the dealers we captured begged us to help the drug addicts they knew, providing all the whereabouts of their places.
They said that, if no one had helped them, the demon would have returned and would have made them pay!
We brought all of the addicts we found to the Emergency Room.
Some were in desperate conditions!
Do you know that some of them were literally rotting alive?"
"I know, I know… It is that damn new drug… Krokodil!"
"I couldn't believe it existed for real… It's disgusting!"
"Yeah, a gift from Satan itself!"
…
When Ward returned home that morning, he was exhausted and, after having checked over Skye, collapsed on the bed near her.
But he had still the strength of praying for her, before falling asleep:
"Please, Father, save her!
She's my only beloved angel!
I'd do anything for her!"
And, in the mists of torpor that was engulfing him, he thought he heard these words:
"I created you for her and she for you.
And I will always be with you."
…
Around 10 in the morning she woke up and took a look around, noticing him sonorously sleeping near her.
She was confused, and didn't exactly remember what happened the last night.
But she remembered the kisses.
And she remembered his face when he discovered her trying to inject herself.
Even in a million years, she would never forget his face in that moment!
When she moved, she felt all her body aching tremendously, as if a truck had crushed her.
The pain was unbearable!
She hardly could restrain herself from yelling!
Angry tears were pricking her eyes, menacing to fall.
She hardly stood and grabbed her dress, wearing it laboriously.
It still smelled of the flowers of the restaurant's patio…
She paused, remembering the wonderful time she had there, and looked at Ward.
He was lying on his back and had his eyes closed, sleeping peacefully.
She felt the breath strangling in her throat.
He was so incredibly beautiful!
Oh, how much she wanted to kiss him, right now!
But the pain she was suffering numbed everything.
She couldn't think of anything else!
It was eating her alive!
She wandered around the room and found his wallet on a table.
It was full of money.
She shuddered at the sight and approached…
She was tremendously fighting against herself!
She wanted to take the money, in order to buy other doses and soothe her pain, but, on the other hand, she didn't want to take them, because it would have been stealing from the pockets of the only man alive who really loved her…
"Take them."
She winced.
Ward was awake, looking tenderly at her.
His eyes were saying more than a thousand words…
"Those money belong to you" he confirmed.
"But we didn't do anything…" she timidly objected.
"It has been still, despite everything and at least in the beginning, the greatest night of my life.
I will never forget it.
Take them."
She couldn't withstand the pain anymore, or his stare, so she grabbed a handful of bills and ran away, tears clouding her vision.
So she did not even notice, leaving, the presence of another person just out of the room.
After a few seconds, it could be heard the front door slam violently.
She was gone.
"Was that your Skye?" Thomas asked, entering in the bedroom.
"Who else?" Ward answered.
"Don't you think you have been unwise, to leave her all that money?
Don't you think she will use them to buy more drugs?"
"Of course I think.
But she will fail to find even one tenth of an ounce of them."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
Thomas sighed and sat on the bed.
"So? What are we supposed to do, now?"
"We wait."
"Wait?
Wait what?"
"Her."
"And why are you so sure she will return?"
"Because I know what her intentions will be after she will discover what happened tonight."
"Stop talking in riddles" Thomas said frustrated.
"What will she do?"
"She will kill."
"What?
Who is she going to kill?"
"Me.
Or herself.
But both epilogues will mean the death, for me."
"Very optimistic, brother, as always!"
But, not receiving answer from Grant, he added:
"Don't tell me you really think what you said!
There must be something we can do to prevent the worse from happening!"
"We hope. And we pray."
"You are insane.
She really made you crazy" Thomas commented.
But he remained there, with Grant, waiting.