In The Back Streets Of France, Chapter 6: Alex

Chapter 6: Alex

“Open your eyes,” Michael says.

Alex does and finds himself looking at the scared face of Charcoal. He starts to say something but she shakes her head at the same time as Michael rams the gun in his back. He resigns himself to just wincing. He is 16 and she is 14, but he is still matchlessly ashamed that she has to see him like this.

“What are you doing?” she asks Michael.

“Oh, I think I was just about to kill Alex here, right, Alex?” He is taunting them both. Alex can only nod.

Charcoal frowns. “Why?”

Michael looks amused and mockingly taken aback. “You mean he never told you? But he loves you!”

Charcoal looks inquiringly at Michael. “Well you seem so eager to share so why don’t you tell me yourself?”

Alex catches his breath. Charcoal has always been the cool, calm, confident, and most of all, sarcastic one in the face of peril. He is only afraid all of this might land her in trouble. If she has to get in trouble, he wishes that she could not do it with this crowd. With this crowd, you are never to young to die.

Michael decides that all of Charcoal’s loyalties lie with Alex and he decides not to waste his time feeling emotions for her. He only laughs.

“Thomas, go get the others. Make sure that Kevin, Spencer, Mark, and Devin are in the group. It’s fine if you get others. I also want rope. Wire rope. Thanks.”

Thomas points at Charcoal and Michael shakes his head. He knows she will stay because Alex is here.

“Sit,” he says, pointing to a crate. She can still see Alex’s face clearly and he isn’t looking at her. His face plainly says sorry.

Michael starts, “Alex was for the longest time a criminal mastermind, working for the best in the criminal business. Actually the International Mob. I’ve seen what the girls look like when he is done mentally torturing them. Their nervous wreck for life. What’s even worst is the physical damage that he ends up doing. Lets just say... babies are the least of it. actually, no babies. Number One always seems to manage to kill them so Alex isn’t emotionally attached.”

“Alex...,” Charcoal says softly. “Why?”

Alex can’t meet her gaze. “Do you remember the times that you all asked me what I did whenever I left the orphanage?”

When Alex finally looks at her, she sees his eyes are sad, scared, lonely, and most of all ashamed. But she also sees something she hasn’t ever seen before: a strange foreign wildness that scares her.

“Yeah. So?” she says hesitantly.

Michael answered: “For a while he worked for them. I guess he must have been really depressed and he was constantly listening to ‘I Hate Everything About You’ by Three Days Grace. It was like he was in a trance. I can’t believe he did the things he did, but I do remember that he told me he thought it was the coolest thing in the world to run around with the French branch of the International Mob. What he did was get information out of girls who didn’t know any better. More than once he killed the girl, quite mercilessly in fact, in order to keep himself out of jail. So now you know stuff he’s probably never told any one else.

“So now there is a huge sum of money over his head for deserting. Dead or alive was the way the voicemail went. So I think I would rather him dead. He killed, and now you have to watch him be killed by his own business partner.”

Charcoal’s eyes go wide and she starts to get up.

“Sit down!” Michael snarls. He runs the tip of the knife down Alex’s cheek, with just enough force to draw a thin line of blood. Charcoal sits down again quickly. She can see the sheet of blood trickling down Alex’s face.

“Sorry,” she says without emotion.

Alex’s heart sinks. He can hear the lack of emotion as well as anyone there. He wishes he could say firmly, “No, you have nothing to be sorry about. I’m sorry that you have to see this.”

“How sweet. Our heroic couple is saying good bye to each other!” Michael says and laughs sarcastically.

“Um, I just said “sorry.” How is that being a heroic couple or saying good-bye? I don’t intend to say good-bye for awhile.” Charcoal says in a teenage deadpan voice. “Where’s Shawn.”

“He won’t be joining us tonight. We have taken care of him. Don’t ask”

Alex and Charcoal nod.

“So, back to business. Kill time.” Michael states cheerfully.

“Can I talk to you privately for a second?” asks Alex.

“No, anything you have to say to me, you can say to Charcoal.”

“You sound like you’re going to marry her, jeez. Anyway. You can do anything you want to me, but don’t make Charcoal watch.”

“Oh, I think that I will,” says Michael. “Oh, lovely.” He looks at the crowd of boys ages 14-16. They are cracking their knuckles and being all around scary. This is especially scary for Charcoal because she is the only girl among nineteen or twenty guys.

“Devin, would you please?” Devin strolls over to Charcoal and takes her arms gently behind her back. He makes sure she can’t turn away by firmly keeping his hand in her hair at the base of her skull.

“This is a demonstration of kill by pain.” Michael says, catching the wire in one hand. He winds the rope around Alex’s hands behind his back and tied it leaving little room for circulation of blood.

“You’re using me in a demonstration?” Alex is astounded.

“Yeah, shut up. I will just do this one and you all can ask me questions later. I have a special reason I want to do this. Its because he was once us. He was my greatest friend and I hate him.”

I have a few shout outs I want to dole out.” Michael’s eye’s flash. “The first one is to my friendship, which one shithead ruined.” As he says this, he makes Alex take off all of his shirts until he end up topless.

“You’re gonna kill him from the cold before you even draw blood!” protests Charcoal.

“Smack her, will you, Devin?”

Devin smacks her and Alex yells hoarsely, “Get away from her.”

Charcoal sticks her tongue out at Devin. He sticks his tongue back out at her. Both Alex (in his pain) and Michael roll their eyes. They are acting so babyish.

“This one is for that shithead’s girl, soon to be mine.” He slides the knife in a sharp diagonal across Alex’s back, starting from just below where the spine goes into the neck, to where the last rib starts to make the bend to the front of the cage. Alex arches in pain. The clothes he still has on are soaked through with sweat and now blood.

“This one is for all of you and to your future success.” Another sharp stroke and Alex arches his back again. Oh My God! The pain! I am going to have to bare it for Charcoal. I love her so much I wish she didn’t have to see this. This was one part of my life that I am truly not proud of. And this all started because I kissed her.

“This is for all of your future success and prosper from your line of employment.” Another moment of searing pain, this time from just below where the spine goes into the neck to the other last rib.

Alex’s eyesight is dimming and he can feel his strength going. He can feel the blood trickle down his sides and into his pants. It is excruciating. He had never realized what it is like to be killed, but if he could only redo that part of his life again, he sure as hell wouldn’t choose to kill anyone.

“This one’s for all the girls he killed.” Michael draws the knife across from the left bottom rib to the right bottom rib. This makes a triangle.

“And this one,” he pauses, first looking at Charcoal, who is crying silently, then at Alex, who is hunched over in pain and agony. “This one is for me.” The knife slashes the air so fast all present can hear the whistle. He stops with the tip only a millimeter away from the center of the triangle, right where, if he had kept going, will have severe his spinal cord and plunge straight into his heart.

Charcoal screams.

Michael laughs.

Alex just puts his head down in defeat.

Everyone lets out their breaths.

“Fool! He wants you alive, not dead!” Michael says. He sighs and goes over to Charcoal.