Under the cover of the dark night skies and the silence ruling the streets, Demilan and Maileena looked at the tall apartment building on 16 Pine Street, where Odis Maben was claimed to be, as they approached it on his motorcycle. A quick look at the mail slots at the building’s entrance revealed that Odis lived in apartment 6, on the third floor.
While Demilan had his usual black duffel bag strapped on his back, Maileena had her revolver stuffed in the back of her pants, fully loaded. Demilan decided not to bring the Skyla assault rifle with him this time, seeing no reason to waste his bullets and simply use his trusty knife and strong hands.
He slicked back his damp wavy hair and looked at the dream catcher necklace that hung around his neck, once more driving himself with motivation. Remember who you're doing this for, Demilan.
“You ready?” he asked her. Though Maileena seemed a bit hesitant, she nodded her head. Demilan was a bit concerned about taking Maileena with him. He didn't know her too well, and having her with him could complicate the situation. He tried talking Maileena out of tagging along with him one more time while they were on their way here, but her stubbornness made him realize that she was one of those types with a will of iron that no amount of convincing will probably affect.
As the two got off the motorcycle and entered the apartment building, a foul stench of muck filled their nostrils. The walls were littered with stains and drawings, certain parts of them peeling. With faces full of disgust they covered their mouths and noses while calling the elevator. Once the two were inside, Demilan pressed the 3rd-floor button and Maileena quickly drew her revolver from the back of her pants, ready to take down whoever might be waiting on the other side of the elevator doors.
“Listen, I want you to keep it cool, alright? Stay behind me, keep me covered and let me take care of everything.” Demilan hoped Maileena wouldn’t think that he was underrating her, though the truth was he wasn't going to depend on any skills on her part. Once the elevator door opened the two quickly strafed towards the door on the left, which belonged to Apartment 6. Demilan knocked three times on the door, though no answer came. After about a minute of waiting he knocked again, harder and louder. Suddenly he could hear footsteps inside the apartment. The foul odor still dominated his sense of smell, but he tried his best to endure it and not let it overwhelm him. Once the footsteps reached the door, a rough voice spoke through it. “Who is it?” the voice sounded full of contempt.
“I'm here to see Odis,” Demilan answered. The door slightly opened, as much as the chain lock allowed it to, and a face popped through it, peeking out to see who dared to ask for Odis. The man had dark skin, with long, brown dreads on his head, a grizzly-looking scar on his left cheek and two silver ring earrings in each ear. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked, sending bits of spit at Demilan’s face. As soon as Demilan looked up and saw the person’s face through the slight opening, he recognized Odis's long brown dreads immediately, and although he noticed Odis’s widening eyes, hinting that he also recognized Demilan, Odis wasn't quick enough to react.
With a sudden burst of rage, Demilan forced the door open with the ram of his shoulder while letting out a scream of wrath, sending Odis down to the floor. Demilan quickly made his way to Odis, his eyes so red with anger that his mind wasn't sharp and clear enough to notice the other guy that was sitting on the couch in front of him and was already reaching for his gun.
“Don’t fucking move!” yelled Maileena as she aimed her revolver at the guy on the couch. The guy froze in place and raised his hands. Seeing that the situation was under control, Demilan picked up Odis by his shirt and sent a frightening punch at his face. A bleeding gash appeared on Odis’s face when he got back up.
Demilan punched him one more time in the stomach before hurling him next to his friend on the couch. Odis moaned in pain while the blood ran down his face. “McCloud, you motherfucker,” he said in between cries of pain. “Is this how you repay me after I fixed you up so many times?” he laughed while holding his aching stomach.
Demilan started walking towards him, ready and eager to send a few more punches at his smug face before Maileena’s voice stopped him. “Demilan!” she called. “We need him, remember? Don’t be an idiot.”
Maileena’s words managed to calm some sense into Demilan’s enraged conscious. “Right,” he said. Calm down, Demilan, he said to himself. Demilan grabbed the gun that Odis's friend had in the back of his pants and threw it aside. He searched Odis for any guns or knives and found nothing. When he backed away to stand near Maileena, he noticed various drugs on the table in front of him. A few grams of heroin in the form of a powder, wrapped in little plastic bags, several pills of ecstasy and an ashtray filled with a couple of burned out cigarette butts. But among those things, one caught his eye the most. A syringe that lay there, with a purple liquid swimming in its cylinder. He knew what it was as soon as his eyes fell on it. Vexillum. That damn drug haunts me everywhere… he thought. Looks like they were ready for a fix right when we arrived.
"I see you got yourself a little soldier girl now with you, McCloud," said Odis with a big smile smeared upon his face.
"Shut up." Maileena turned her aim to him.
"Tell me, girl, what is he paying you with? Because I know that fucker doesn’t have any money on him, do you, McCloud?" he turned to Demilan. "Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gathered that much debt with us in the first place."
"Shut the fuck up, Odis!" Demilan snapped at him.
"You used to be such a good client of mine, McCloud. It's a shame how things turned out. I heard my boys did quite a number on you." Odis's crude words ended with a mighty punch to his face, gratitude of Demilan. The smiling drug dealer writhed in pain and spat in Demilan's direction.
Maileena turned to look at Demilan, her eyes basically asking the burning questions she had for him. She wants to know what he's talking about. Goddammit, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to bring that up, but… I don’t think she's going to let this slide. If there's anything I DO know about her, it's that she's stubborn, and she's going to want to know who she's hanging with, and I can understand that.
With her revolver still aimed at Odis, Maileena placed herself in front of Demilan, her eyes looking straight at his. "Demilan, don’t take this the wrong way, but I need to know what's he talking ab—" her words were cut short, thanks to Odis's friend, who used the short window of time, when Maileena turned her back on him, and lunged at her from the couch, attempting to grab her revolver. It happened so fast that Maileena didn’t even have the instinct to react, yet Demilan did. With a split second reaction, he pushed Maileena aside and grabbed the assailant once he was close enough, throwing him to the floor on his back. Demilan drew his knife from its leather holster. The knife was military-grade, just like his rifle, so I punctured through the man's flesh with ease. It had a black blade with a matte texture that was now painted in red. He stabbed the man three times in the chest, making sure he wouldn’t be making any further attempts at him or at Maileena. Spatters of blood covered Demilan face, and as he rose from his latest kill, he saw Maileena lying on the floor, and Odis still sitting on the couch, choosing to be a good boy, and not trying to piss off the ex-soldier.
"Are you alright?" Demilan asked Maileena as he helped her up.
"Yeah, thanks."
"You shouldn’t have turned your back on him like that."
"Y-Yeah, you're right. I-I'm sorry." She looked ashamed. Demilan ran his hand over his face, wiping the fresh blood from it. "Stay here and keep an eye on him," he ordered her. "If he moves, shoot his leg or hand." He went to the kitchen and brought a wooden chair to the living room. He opened his duffel bag and took a rope out of it. "Sit," he snarled at Odis. The man with the long dreads did as he was told, and once Demilan made sure he was tied and secured to the chair, he took Maileena aside.
"So from what I've gathered so far, you're a drug addict, and this guy was your dealer," she said to him.
"I USED to be an addict." He made it as clear as possible. "Back when I was still in Code Sanguinary, my wife, Telia, and I were having trouble having kids and… it took a toll on our relationship, so… I tried some Vex to take the edge off. Odis used to be my supplier. Thing is… you don’t just try Vex. You get addicted to it before you even realize it." Reminiscing about his days of addiction wasn’t easy for him. His face had a dark, depressed appearance. "With Code Sanguinary not bringing in enough money, I gathered quite a debt to Odis. Even with the money I made with Code Sanguinary, I was having a hard time paying it off, but once Blackburn found out about my Vex addiction… he kicked me out." It was a known fact that Charles Blackburn ran a tight shift with his soldiers. Drug use was strictly prohibited in his organization, and those who were caught doing it were banned from Code Sanguinary. "At that point, there was no chance of wiping my debt, and when the time came…" he turned to look at Odis, his face now turned red and his teeth ground together. "That motherfucker sent his men to beat me up and kidnap Telia. I was in a coma for 6 months. As soon as I woke up I started looking for her. The first place I went to was the warehouse where I found you. I remembered from my days at Code Sanguinary that that warehouse was owned by Men of Midas, so someone there would know to point me to Odis." His head now turned to the floor, looking ashamed and in pain. "And that's my story. Now you know."
"Demilan, I-I'm so sorry, I didn’t know—"
"It's okay," he reassured her. "Now you know. I made a mistake… and it cost me everything I had. But I want to make it right. I NEED to make it right. The same way you do." He turned to look at Odis once more. He remembered the many trades he had with him. Every one of them was a mistake leading him on a path of self-destruction. They say most people who try to quit Vex fail and the few who succeed only manage to do it by the time that they've lost everything around them. "Let's get this over with." Demilan started pacing toward the tied man who had stolen his wife. "Things are about to get ugly."
Demilan looked straight into Odis’s eyes. The redness surrounding the apple of the drug dealer’s eye suggested that he had taken some kind of drug shortly before their arrival. His teeth presented shades of green and gray, and his breath reeked. His friend’s body was lying beside the couch, creating a blood pool all over the floor around him.
“Where is my wife, Odis?” asked Demilan.
“Fuck you, McCloud!” Odis gave him a snarling smile in return. Demilan gave him a frightening stare before turning to Maileena. “Get me something to cover his mouth with,” he told her. “I don’t want him screaming. There are other people in this building, and we can’t have them calling the police before we’re done here.”
Although looking a bit reluctant at first, Maileena did as commanded and brought a dirty white rag from the kitchen.
Demilan could spot the fear in Odis’s eyes as Demilan drove the rag into his mouth. He knows that I'm an ex-soldier. He knows that I used to work for Blackburn. He SHOULD be afraid.
“Maileena,” he turned to her once more. “Go through my duffel bag. Get the syringe with the green liquid. It should be there.” Odis’s eyes opened wide as he figured what Demilan was planning for him. He started screaming and wiggling in his chair as panic overtook him, but all Demilan could hear was the muffled cry of a person who had long deserved it in his mind.
A few minutes later, Maileena presented him with the syringe. A green liquid was swimming inside the cylinder, and a plastic cover was guarding the needle. As Odis stared at the green substance, his pupils widened and his muffled screams increased in volume.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Maileena.
“Sorelium,” Demilan answered her question. "A very dangerous drug that makes the nervous system go into overdrive, intensifying every feeling and sensation, primarily used as a sex enhancer." A leftover from my days of addiction. One that I would gladly put to use on this occasion.
"W-Wait, isn’t Sorelium deadly?" Maileena asked.
"Not when you take it in small doses," Demilan replied.
Before thinking too much, he removed the plastic cover from the needle and stuck it in Odis’s arm. He made another muffled cry as the green Sorelium was driven into his veins. Demilan pulled the syringe and returned it to Maileena, who placed the plastic cover back on and put it back in his duffel bag.
“Maileena, I'm going to have to ask you one last thing,” she looked at him. “Leave us.” Suddenly, she looked enraged.
“Fuck, no.”
“This is not something you're going to—”
“I've told you once before, I am NOT a little girl. I'm staying right here. I can handle it.” At this point, Demilan was unsure whether it was true courage or plain stubbornness.
“Fine,” he surrendered. He turned to Odis. “Now, you and I are going to play a little game,” he said to his gagged prisoner. “The Army taught me many things; many techniques and methods to make enemies talk, but only people like Blackburn taught me what I'm about to show you.” Odis stared at Demilan in horror, his pupils dilated with fear. “He liked to call this 'Looking Back.' You see, in life, every person makes mistakes, and until he does the right thing to correct those mistakes, his past will keep haunting him. Now, mistakes tend to pile up, so the longer it takes for him to do the right thing, the more mistakes he has to atone for. This is going to work just like that. The longer you keep refusing to answer my questions, the more your pain is going to pile up. Here, let me show you.” He sent a fierce punch to Odis’s stomach. Considering the nerve-intensifying Sorelium in effect, Demilan could only imagine the agonizing pain which Odis must have been feeling at that moment. His muffled screams made quite a noise even despite the rag in his mouth.
“Where is my wife?” asked Demilan, only to be greeted back with a muffled, “Fuck you.”
Good. I was hoping he wouldn’t make it too easy. More fun for me. Demilan sent another punch to his stomach, this time, followed by a swift, frightening punch to his face. “See what I did there? Every time you avoid giving me an answer you can expect every hit you’ve received before, and every time we’re going to add a new one. And every new hit is going to get worse and worse.” Demilan almost sounded like a frantic sadist.
“Where is my wife?” he asked once more, and again was greeted with muffled curse words. He straightened his back and took a good look at the beaten man. He drew his knife from its chest holster. Its dark blade shone brightly as the sun beams coming through the window shutters hit it. Demilan’s grip on the handle tightened and he threw a look over to Maileena, checking her reaction to the situation. Although she stood firm and wasn't looking away, her eyes slightly trembled, as she was unfamiliar to this type of scenario. She may have some balls, but she's still a long way from where she’d like to think she’s at.
Without giving too much further thought about it, Demilan focused back on Odis, who had tears streaming down his face at this point. You won’t get any mercy from me, Odis. I sure as hell didn't get any from you when you decided to take away the love of my life and put me in a fucking coma for 6 months. Feel my pain, Odis. Feel my pain. He punched his stomach once more, followed by another punch to his face, and then slashed his right upper arm with his knife, just below the shoulder. Odis shrieked in pain behind the rag. His nose was running and the tears kept flooding his face. “Where is my wife?” Demilan asked the burning question that had haunted him ever since he woke up in that hospital. This time, there was no cursing. Odis simply bowed his head down, refusing to let any words out.
Once more Demilan delivered a series of excruciating blows to the man. A punch to the stomach, a punch to the face, another cut, this time below the previous one, followed by another slashing of the knife on his left thigh. Odis once again writhed in agony, but this time, Demilan noticed that he was trying to say something other his usual cursing.
“Are you going to talk?” he asked. Odis nodded. “If you scream, I'm going to have to make this twice as bad, do you hear me?” Odis nodded again. Demilan pulled the rag from his mouth and heard the man’s irritating voice. “I gave her away to someone.”
"Who?!"
"Oh, fuck, what was his name? Fuck. Fuck," he struggled to remember. "K… Kl— Kleon! Kleon Hanford! That’s your guy!"
"Kleon Hanford?" Maileena asked, looking horrified.
"You know him?" Demilan turned to her.
“He's the guy that runs the Godly Succubi,” Maileena replied. "He's always there. That’s where you'll surely find him." Demilan noticed Maileena suddenly looked very upset. Her eyes refused to meet his, and she was giving a distant feeling for some reason. Demilan took her aside to the kitchen, leaving the bruised and bleeding drug dealer in the living room.
“Look, I get it, you ran away from that place, so I'm not going to make you go there with me."
“I have to go. My sister could be there as well.”
"Then I'll search for her as well and bring her back with me."
"Demilan, please—"
“Look, I want you to picture something. Remember what happened in that warehouse where I found you with those guys? There's a good chance the same thing might happen in that club. Those people will never let her go.” He grasped her revolver-wielding hand. “Do you even know how to shoot with this thing? Like, actual shooting. I'm talking about more than pulling the trigger. Aiming. Hitting people. You have to understand that—” He was interrupted by Maileena’s sudden shriek and the feeling of someone lunging at him from behind. Demilan lost his feet and fell to all fours. Before he had a chance to react he felt the needle driven into his arm. Suddenly he felt a strange, yet familiar feeling. One that filled him with rapture and dread at the same time. I know this feeling. I've been addicted to it for so long, I get tremors just from feeling it again. The syringe that was on the table… the purple liquid… Vex. The drug that was his undoing 6 months ago was back in his veins, thanks to Odis. As much as Demilan tried to ignore the feeling of ecstasy, it left him too unfocused and powerless to throw Odis off of him.
"I'm going to kill you, McCloud!" Odis roared like a beast. Dammit, I can't do much… that motherfucker… the Vex… suddenly a loud noise deafened his ears. It was a gun shot. He looked up and saw the smoke trail emitting from Maileena’s revolver barrel. "Fuck!" he heard Odis scream as he felt his weight lifted from him. Demilan turned and saw Odis holding his left ear with his hand, with blood oozing through his fingers. She missed him. She only hit his ear. "You fucking bitch!" Odis yelled.
With his hand still grabbing his bleeding ear, Odis moved towards Maileena. Demilan was still on all fours. I have to do something. I have to find my strength. With great effort, Demilan grabbed Odis's leg and pulled it towards him before the wounded drug dealer could be in arm's reach of Maileena. Demilan did his best to keep himself focused, as the Vex's effect weighed on his mind. He drew his knife from its chest holster, just as he had before, and plunged the dark blade into Odis's neck. As he pulled it out, a spray of blood gushed out with it. With his eyes fixed on Demilan, Odis choked on his own blood. Maileena stood by in horror. Even though her face didn’t show any sign of fear, her hands were trembling. Demilan, on the other hand, was cold as ice. He remained composed and silent as the man slowly died before him. Odis's death wasn’t quick. It took him several seconds of choking before he finally became still.
After that, Demilan strapped his duffel bag on his back once more and left the apartment along with Maileena. As much as he hoped his sins could die along with Odis, there could be none of that in Alataria. Instead, his sins returned to haunt him, as the euphoric sensation of Vex running through his veins slowly took over him, clouding him mind and sending him back into a dark place that he was too familiar with.
