Three years later. Mello has run away, and is currently operating a large cross-atlantic illegal organized crime group he calls
"Project B.U.R.N."
#############################################################################################################################################
"Say it." The woman knelt between Mello's legs, her hands trembling. The men scattered around the room were laughing, jeering and egging Mello on.
She mumbled something into his thigh.
"What?" Mello took her chin and forced her face up, so that she was staring at him. "Look at me when I'm talking to you. What? Does this- " He drew a gloved hand across a mangled pink network of burns which decorated the left side of his body- "scare you?"
Her shoulders shook, and tears brimmed in her eyelids. "Thank you." She said.
"Fuck you." Mello kicked her, just under her ribs, hard, and she crumpled in a heap to the floor, sobbing and jerking in terror.
He stood up and lazily drew a gun from the waistband of his leather pants. He cocked it and pointed it at the shaking figure.
"Fuck all of you. What is she? She didn't do a damn bit of good, did she?" He bent over and and rustled her hair. "Blew our cover, didn't you?" The gun, nestled up under her ear, made Mello smile. The hollow sound it made as it went off made him frown.
A puckered hole in the other side of the woman's head clarified her death to the room of slavering onlookers. Her hair matted with warm blood, pooling and trickling about her face and neck.
"Clean this up." Mello nudged her limp body with his boot before stalking out of the dimly lit basement B.U.R.N. called its headquarters. He extracted a bar of silver-wrapped chocolate from his coat pocket and bit into the corner.
*snap* A perfect, clean break. He chewed slowly, thoughtfully, as he strode onto the smog-choked streets of L.A.
A car, red but dusty with age, was waiting for the man with the warm gun. Its occupant was smoking a cigarette and trying to get the car to start.
"Matt..." Mello plopped down in the passenger seat.
"Hm?" Matt rubbed Mello's thigh.
"Oh, Matt..."
"What, Mells?"
"I have to get out of here. Drive fast."
As Matt sped off down the dark streets, Mello felt the old familiar heat rise to his cheeks. It was anger and embarassment and, as always, regret. An emotional cocktail he drank often. He hated killing people. It was useless and, he knew on some level, wrong.
Mello looked over at Matt, his arm draped over the back of Mello's seat, his cigarette glowing red. Mello remembered the days when he used to yell at Matt whenever he smoked. He would stalk off and Matt wouldn't be allowed to sleep in their bed until the smell wore off. Nowadays, Mello was hardly ever home often enough to care what happened to Matt. Matt knew Mello was sleeping around, and, even though he denied it, Mello thought Matt was probably back to girls. When they were home together they were either fighting or avoiding each other. Matt slept on the couch.
"Did you get milk?" Mello was suddenly furious at Matt's cigarette. At Matt's draped arm. At his stupid goggles.
"Um, was I s'posed to?" Matt blew a smoke ring out the window.
"Yes! You do nothing! I just had to kill someone, the least YOU could do was buy some milk!" Mello's voice was pitching higher and higher.
"D'ya scream like that at B.U.R.N.?" Matt's voice was mocking. "You sound like a little girl."
"Shut up!" Mello had twisted in his seat to scream directly at Matt. "Just shut up! You used to like that I sounded like a girl! But now you're off fucking a real one, I don't
really matter, do I!"
"Oh, you should talk! Every night you're at some underaged boys' house on your knees, pretending to be the old Mello!"
The roar of the car's engine was the only sound. Both men knew an invisible line had just been crossed. The past was just that: the past. They were never supposed to talk about it. Matt shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"Let. Me. Out." Mello's voice was suddenly dangerously quiet. Every cell in his body was throbbing with hatred. Matt flicked his cigarette out the window. The car slowed. The streetlights slipped silently across the windshield. Mello unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the glove compartment. His gun glimmered amidst a stack of bills Matt had stuffed into the compartment last month. Mello grabbed it and, as the car pulled over, opened his door.
"Goodbye, asshole. I'll get my stuff next week. Don't be home." Mello stood with his back to Matt as he said goodbye. He didn't want Matt to see him crying.
Long after the sound of Matt's car had faded into the muggy night, Mello stood there, tears rolling down his cheeks. He cried until he couldn't feel the ache in his stomach. The tears dried on his face as he started walking down the street.