Page 64 of No Sweeter Poison

I watch as blood pools around his body, staining the beautiful white and blue tiles.

Both Moises and Bertha know how to fire a gun and do so without hesitation. But how? Why? There’s no time to think about that. Bertha abandons the weapon and crawls behind the counter. A cry leaves her lips but I don’t have time to check on Moises.

Glass shatters and more gunshots go off. The heavy-set man Alejandro was fighting earlier is on the ground, his face unrecognizable. When I get closer, I see that his skull is caved in…

The first man Moises shot has a bullet wound in his shoulder but that doesn’t stop him from lunging at Alejandro. They struggle for the gun and another round goes off. This time, Alejandro staggers back.

“No!”

The man lands a punch across Alejandro’s jaw that knocks him completely off-balance. From here, I can’t tell where he’s been hit but it has to be his leg because there’s blood beneath his feet but no visible injuries above his waist. Tightening my grip on the pan, I rush to the other end of the restaurant, slipping across pools of blood, and losing my footing as I make a half-hearted swing.

He grunts and his arm shoots out, knocking the pan from my grasp. I trip over the dead man’s arm and hit my head on the corner of a booth on the way down. Pain explodes behind my eyelids and the throbbing in my temple temporarily disorients me. By the time I lift myself into a sitting position, the man has Alejandro pinned to the ground with a wire wrapped around his neck.

Everything in me starts shutting down. My heart falters, my lungs stop expanding, and I lose feeling in all my limbs. The man keeps pulling and pulling and Alejandro’s fighting back but he’s injured—badly. Bleeding out from various injuries and now color blooms across his side, bright red staining his once crisp white button down.

I move but I don’t feel my body moving. I only know I am because my fingers are locked in the man’s hair as I tug and pull, trying to force him to let go. He elbows me in the ribs, hard enough to knock the wind out of me, and I’m not foolish enough to think I can overpower him.

That’s when I spot it; the broken dishes and utensils that Bertha dropped as she was clearing our table.

I crawl over to the counter, through puddles of blood and broken glass, and shuffle through cracked porcelain plates and shattered cups. My fingers grasp the wooden handle of a cutting knife.

I don’t think. Just move.

This time when I jump onto the man’s back, he doesn’t get the chance to pull away.

I plunge the knife into the side of his neck, pushing deeper, harder, twisting until he finally releases the wire around Alejandro’s neck. He stumbles backward and I yank the knife out. Blood gushes everywhere. It stains the edges of my vision, soaks the front of my dress, and gathers in garnet pools at my feet, joining the rest of the massacre on the blue and white tiles.

I can’t see the flowers anymore.

My back hits the counter. I still have the knife in my hand when the man collapses, limp hands falling from around his throat as the life leaves him. He dies with his eyes open, glossed over, and sky blue.

He’ll never see the sky again.

I can’t hear anything over the rush of blood in my ears. The pressure in my skull builds until my eyes are throbbing and I think they’ll pop out of their sockets. My entire body is hot and sticky with the blood of who knows how many different men. Every time I try to breathe, the air never reaches my lungs. It’s as if I have stones in my chest instead.

“Dahlia.”

Someone says my name but it’s so far away.

“Dahlia, Dahlia, Dahlia.”

A hand wraps my wrist and I flinch, ready for the edge of my blade to sink into flesh—

“Dahlia, baby, it’s me. It’s me.” Alejandro squeezes my wrist until I release the knife. “Look at me. Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

For some reason, he’s blurring around the edges. He’s a smudge of dark hair, deep olive skin, and bloodstains. And when I blink, my cheeks feel hot and wet.

“He was going to kill you,” I whisper. “I had to stop him.”

He takes a steadying breath, gaze flickering between me and the bodies at our feet. “I know.”

“I had to stop him. He was going to hurt you, he—” I keep blinking but no matter how many times I do, my vision never fully clears. The blur returns and my cheeks get wetter. “I couldn’t let him kill you.”

“I know, I know.” He pulls me into his arms and I don’t speak. Don’t move. “It’s all right. It’s over now.”Five people are dead now because of me. The four who tried to take me and the one who tried to kill Alejandro.

But I don’t feel any remorse. Only relief and a desire to do it again.

KILL FOR YOU