No matter how many letters Blythe added to the end of his name, pages stapled to his every growing resume with certifications, letters of recommendation sent in no more than a secondāā Blythe Sweetwine would never have a driverās license. Heād taken it four times and failed, and when the fifth charm had arrived heād been forced to make enough mistakes to ensure a pattern. No how many times he tried again, Blythe had been unable to pass and therefore relied on the four wheels of his skateboard or the hearse to get to and from work. For a while, it had been a burden until Aaron had learned to rope his son into helping and Mascha into keeping him as the most comfortable thorn in her side forever.Ā
āInept? Sorry, what the fuck do you for a livingāā doodle?ā He spat back, gritting his teeth against the sound of the rain.Ā
He forced his breath to a chant of safety, taking it in after three seconds and blowing it out through his nose after five. It helped him push through the weight of the body in hand and give him not only the strength or will, but certaintyĀ to get the job doneāā until Abraham once again made his presence known.
Blythe gnawed at the inside of his cheek, pressing down on the soft and scarred skin until he could taste the warning of copper before he actually broke it. He averted his gaze from his brotherās shadowed figure and let him fade away into the night until he needed him. Blythe should have known better than to give him any more responsibility than he had, because once Abrahamās rejection hit the air, every calm and every balance and every confidence washed away under the storm overhead.Ā
āWill you stay on fucking task? I am the goddamn medical examiner for half the cases since the file. Iām the one who reports the gravel and the one that sends out the goddamn evidence, and the one that figures out where the fuck it came from!ā
Blythe yelled, his voice breaking the grumblings of the rain. It fought against the thunder that rolled over them, small gasps between them when he forgot to breathe the only saving grace against his savagery. Still, Blythe let the bile in the back of his throat corrode his better sense.Ā
āI know that any bruising post-mortem wonāt show up except on his head because Iāve positioned his neck in the same place for three days to keep blood pooling in that area.ā His shout scraped the back of his throat as he tried to convince himself of his own work.Ā āItāll produce enoughĀ haemosiderin in macrophages and haematoidin to-to make it look like he was hit beforeĀ coming down. Thereās already gravel from this same street and the desert scraped on his face for micro-tears. He has a wound on his chest that I couldnāt fix and I need you to run over it to break the bone to demolish it or the cause of death changes. He had surgery on his chest for two metal plates, but I removed them. Thereās still scarring in his bone that is antemortem that I canāt fix, it-itās too much. I need it broken. I-I fucked it up and I need it broken. It has to be broken.ā
He drifts between specificity and vaguity, his thoughts moving faster than his own body can and the blood traveling up and down. Heās numb and his focus falters. Terminology keeps him in a tunnel in refusal that the light at the end is his brotherās stark white face under the dead of the night.
āBack up ten feet. Count five seconds, with the Missisippi, and then throw the car into drive. Donāt break. Go,ā Blythe repeats again, and then again.Ā āBack up ten feet. Count five seconds, with the Missisippi, and then throw the car into drive. Donāt break. Go.ā
He carefully manipulates the body again, turning the head as best he can where it lies stiff. Itās been days, but Blythe measured the terrain and mimicked placement long before. He ensured a timeline he could sell on paper before proper funeral arrangements and where evidence would be six feet deep with no means to review. It would be harder then, anyways. The embalming always complicated things.
Blythe rolls the direction over and over again in his head, presses it against his front teeth with tongue under the clench of his jaw. Then, he counts as he watches Abraham play out what he needs to paint on muscle, bone, and flesh.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.
-
back in the rain-slicked seat, abraham swallowed hard. there was no shortage of shit abraham had gotten used to in his life, and even then he continued to heap it all upon his own shoulders. tongue darting out to catch a few rogue rain drops that slipped down the contours of his cheeks, he cast another uncertain glare into the rear-view mirror.Ā āson of a fucking bitch.ā whispered to himself, he reached in his pocket and freed a cigarette from the carton he kept close to his chest.
the tremor in his hands made it more difficult than not to wrestle it between his lips, but the first pull of nicotine helped. his only trouble now was figuring out the reason behind his shake: lack of craving, flood of adrenaline, disbelief, or a scalding crucible of all three. it was a molten pool of alloy, all being poured into his mouth. it scorched, it made him sick, it cooked his resolve and charred his already blackened lungs.
twisting the key in the ignition, abraham threw the shift into reverse, foot held over the brake. whatever information blythe thought to share had passed between his ears and tumbled out the other, landing heavy on his shoulders. it weighed him down like the stone that would drown the witch. even then, there wasnāt a single enchantment abraham couldnāt break and make his own. he was at his own will and mercy, and in that will heād already tried and taken the lives of many, courtesy of the incense that perfumed him. jaw set firm, he reached the final few numbers, the echo blythe provided himself now echoed in his ears.Ā
- six missisppi. throw the car into drive. donāt break. go. nine mississipi. ten mississipi.Ā
foot peeled from the brake and onto the gas, he rolled backward, executing the directions with a sickening crunch he could almost feel beneath the rear tires. if there was one positive aspect to be grasped from abrahamās doodling for a living, it was the care, detail, and attention he poured into it. not all of it came from ink and needles; instead, it was learned on the backs of antiquated masters whose ancient brushes left behind hair in the deposit of their strokes and whose hands trembled against their signature at the base of oil and pigment.
creation and recreation were the business heād given himself and in that business he sought out the perfection he lacked at every other turn.Ā
as the vehicle fell back onto the asphalt over the body, abraham gave it another half-second before he hit the brakes again, throwing the car into park again. he breathed another clouded breath. heels of his palms coming up to rub static into his eyes, he swallowed the spare nicotine that hung heavy in the front cab, straightening his shoulders before he stepped out again, rain capturing the smoke that followed him and dragging it down to the ground by his feet.Ā
āget him up. fast. weāve already fuckinā been here way too goddamn long.āĀ
