No Risk, No Reward (Enzo Dragomir)
Posted: 13 Sep 2016, 01:34
Xerxes sat propped against a wall of clear glass. Behind him, gleaming columns stretched out like monoliths that captured the white and yellow city light on razor edges and spires that thrust into the dark emptiness above. Light twinkled from within silhouettes that faded into the black beyond the horizon and speckled the room with little spotlights that flashed over the pool of blood spilled out before him.
As much as it felt like the contribution was all his, it was a collaborative effort. Bodies littered the floor, collapsed in careless shapes as they lay, broken mannequins in bespoke suits stained red. Some had faces of slack, open wonder and Xerxes could only imagine it was the immensity of death that put that look on their faces. Everyone dies sooner or later, but it makes death no less of a shock upon its arrival. It's the sudden and clear realization that there would never be another breath, another day, another chance. It was the most finite of all feelings, stronger even than fear -- anticipation.
Xerxes had yet to succumb to it. He floated in the blood, thick like ink, cooling the fabric stuck to his legs and warming the fabric stretched over his belly. He could feel it seep into his crotch with every desperate beat of his heart. Only the cool glass at his back kept him from floating away and he focused only on what he would do next, forcing his will to be louder than the creeping anticipation of the curtain call. No, the show wasn't over just yet. He refused to let it end here and now. He'd only just begun.
"No risk, no reward," he uttered from lips as pale as his face and growing just as numb. These words were gospel -- the universal law of life itself. They formed an axiom of which Xerxes knew to be truer even than God. It was, of course, perfectly packaged into a generalization with the definite rhythm of a mantra. It was one thing to be reckless and risk everything on a whim with little cause or responsibility, but another to take a chance on something great because the conviction was too great to be ignored or not taken for the sign of possible glory and truth that it was. Life, after all, was one huge gamble. If one didn't play to win, he was going to lose. If one didn't play smart, he would surely lose. If one didn't play at all, he would never win.
Now, he could say all that, but it wasn't exactly pithy, was it? And Xerxes always had a knack for being both pithy and risky when it suited him. Even back at the age of ten, sitting on the floor of his mother's studio, legs bent and folded next to her's with knees touching between them. Large canvases loomed around them, gathered and clustered against the walls with faces of spring light through tree branches, deep and overlapping wrinkles where wisdom was held, the flight of the earthbound, and the endless stretch of civilization and sky that met as earth and heaven at the horizon.
"What do you think?" She asked about the large photograph sitting before them. It was her work, one of many pieces by Adeline Wakefield. Xerxes stared at New York from, what he could only assume to be, atop a building with the city spread out beneath him in the light of day. Skyscrapers stood boldly against the blue sky, skirted by streets where tiny people walked next to tiny cars caught in the act of living, like a mechanism that couldn't be stopped, because it was innate to go out to act and to be.
"I want to be there," he said, turning his sharp blue gaze to the woman when she laughed, pale hair cascading down her back by the tilt of her head. He saw light and an unrestrained merriment in her eyes as if his own restrained enthusiasm amused her most of all in the world.
"We were just there."
"I want to go back."
"What for? Broadway? The little cafe with the homemade brew? The pizza? The subway? The lights? The buildings? Lady Liberty?"
"All of it," he said, even for the things she didn't yet name.
Adeline nudged her son's thin shoulder with her own and asked, "What would you say if I asked you if you'd like to move there?" She always had this habit of shoving her questions into hypotheticals. It was almost teasing, but Xerxes knew when to take her seriously. So, he said:
"Yes."
That very day, they packed up their life in Toronto and crossed the Falls to the Big Apple. Xerxes took to the city like a fish to water. He went to a public school Adeline insisted on over a private school that was comfortably within their budget, because she believed variety gave life greater authenticity than silos that were little more than gilded echo-chambers. Xerxes would have preferred the award-winning professors and curriculum carefully crafted for success, but the chosen public school wasn't bad. He made friends with the staff before he managed to befriend anyone his own age because, for a while, he had become known as Xerx the Jerk. He assumed it had something to do with the number of times he'd brought another kid to tears for not doing what he instructed in group projects, or the time he told Olivia Sparks that she could only aspire to be married to someone smarter than her (if she was lucky), or maybe it was the time he dislocated Stanley Atcomb's shoulder on the monkey bars when he and his pack of goons tried to bully him. Whatever the case may be, the other kids avoided him and the adults seemed to understand him, or indulge his preferred grown-up disposition, at the very least. One thing they all learned fairly quickly upon meeting Xerxes was that he didn't like to be treated with kid gloves. He didn't like to be shoved into the child-locked box that denoted there were things he couldn't do because he wasn't of legal age yet. He didn't want to be buckled into the child's seat, he wanted to drive the car.
"My little man," Adeline called him with amusement and a pride that was understated, as if it were rude to brag about her child's appetite for achievement, success, and victory. Xerxes always found it strange that these things were desired and celebrated in society, and yet still considered bad form to personally take pride in. Just as quickly as Xerxes took another of life's trophies for his own, whether it be top marks in his class, landing his first job as the personal assistant for the first Assistant Director of a blockbuster film when he was seventeen, or buying his first designer suit with the cash, Adeline told him, "It isn't polite to brag."
What he does, he wouldn't exactly call 'bragging' per se. Whenever he openly stated his accomplishments and Adeline reprimanded him for it, he would tell her, "It's the truth. I did those things and I can do more." Most wrinkled their noses and dubbed him arrogant because of it, but he knew it for what it was: confidence. He never saw the logic in hiding it or apologizing for it. Why should he when things needed done and he knew he was the one to do them? Why wait around for someone to grant him the privilege of showing what he could do when he could just do it knowing full and well that he could?
The few people his age who understood that became his friends, one of which he met in middle school and would become his closest friend. His name was Marlowe Grimes. He was there the day Xerxes dislocated Stanley Atcomb's shoulder, and when staff asked him what happened, he said, with an all too casual air, "Stanley was gonna bust his teeth in. He said so. He 'n the rest of 'em were gonna beat him bloody. It's what they do, ya'know? So, he popped his shoulder clean out. You should'a seen their faces when Stanley was on the ground screamin' 'n cryin' like that. Don't think they'll try to beat him bloody ever again."
He told Xerxes, "Good job on sending those douchebags runnin'," and they've been friends ever since. They even attended the same high school. During that time of their lives, Marlowe grew large, which added an intimidating aspect to his otherwise laid-back demeanor, and Xerxes grew long and stayed relatively slim and intimidating in personality. They worked like a good recipe and built a network of diverse friends around them as they took on venture after venture in Xerxes' restless plight for accomplishment. When things got crazy, it was Marlowe who managed to drag Xerxes down into the grass from time to time to make him stop and smell the roses.
"Gotta learn to appreciate the little things in life, Xerx."
Just because Marlowe liked to kick back and watch the clouds go by didn't mean he wasn't up for knocking a few heads when needed. He took on the role of 'the muscle' in Xerxes' group of friends out of a sense of respect for the guy. It wasn't that Xerxes couldn't protect himself, but having an extra pair of eyes, arms, and legs was helpful when a deal went bad or someone got cocky, and in the early years, that happened too much for comfort. It started with small things, like dealing narcotics and stolen goods. Then, right when senior year of university began, the news broke:
VAMPIRES ARE REAL!
After getting his hands on twenty gallons of blood, Xerxes headed home to Canada -- apparent vampire capital of the world. He set up a meeting with a vampire by the name of Émile with Marlowe and Rebecca at his side. Rebecca was a plump redhead with a keen eye for detail and a near eidetic memory. Really, there was no better person to keep up with all the information thrown their way. In fact, she was the one who recognized that only half of Émile's posse were vampires. That bit of info, however, didn't make the fact that they were about to deal with a real life Penny Dreadful tale any less unnerving.
Xerxes stood at the head of a long, polished oval of dark wood surrounded by black, leather chairs. The rest of the decor was spars: a screen mounted on the opposite wall, a chair in the corner, framed photos of Harper Rock's cultural and industrial districts hanging on the walls on either side to remind the inhabitants of the conference room what mattered in life: industry and success. At the opposite end of the table sat the vampire Émile. He had a face made of sharp edges and gaunt indentations as if his skin was stretched tight over bone. His lips were thin slats of pale flesh that formed a line of contempt, his eyes were colorless half circles beneath heavy lids, and his ash blond hair swept over his skull in weightless waves. Xerxes felt that the slightest breeze would leave him bald. The men and women sitting at the table with him either didn't notice, or didn't care. They all had similar looks of contempt on their faces, and why shouldn't they? Up until recently, entertaining the whims of some strange human was preparation for a meal, not a serious endeavor.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Xerxes said to the room at large. His eyes, however, were anchored on the vampire of the hour. "Émile. Friends. We're on the edge of the biggest change in history. Bigger than anything that has come before it. Vampires have been introduced to the world, now out of hiding and on the global stage. I don't have to tell you that this changes everything. One thing in particular: feeding."
And just like that, there was a sudden tension in the air as keen eyes pinned Xerxes where he stood. He tipped his head forward and leveled them all with a gaze as hard and piercing as shards of ice before continuing.
"For as long as mankind has existed, vampires have moved like shadows in the night, maiming and murdering like ghosts. Human laws meant nothing because the dead could not be judged. But now, the dawn has come and the truth has been revealed in the light of day. How long before vampires are dragged to court for their crimes? How long before there are maximum security prisons built to keep vampires inside? How long before every citizen on the street is armed with UV weapons to protect themselves? How long before blood is regulated and there's a blood tax?"
A chorus of hisses rippled around the table and was silenced when Marlowe dropped a long, black box onto the surface. Xerxes placed his hand onto it and smiled, though it was a cold, impersonal thing sitting on his face like a door sign rather than crafted from any emotion like joy or pleasure. Instead, it was simply polite.
"Once blood is distributed by major corporations that cater to your kind, there will be a price for life with a sales tax included. The government regulations alone will make it difficult for easy dining. Your Golden Age has come to an end. But that doesn't mean you have to empty your coffers into registered blood distributors."
He pressed a series of numbers on the keypad over the center front split of the box. It beeped, then hissed as he lifted the lid. A soft, cool, white mist drifted over the edge and onto the table and inside were vacuumed-sealed packs of blood stacked like bricks of cocaine.
"There's more," he said as the vampires leaned forward for a better look. "Twenty gallons, in fact."
"And your price?" Émile's soft French voice still managed to crack like a whip through the conference room and his people sat back in their chairs to resumed their act of staring Xerxes down.
"Three hundred and twenty thousand."
A rat faced woman sneered at him from Émile's left. "That's two thousand per pint."
Xerxes looked at her, but he addressed the entire room. "Do you really think human blood will be cheap when there are slaughter houses on every corner of the planet pouring reserves down the drain? When those shops open, you'll have your pick of cow, pig, and chicken just like the rest of us. If you're planning to take human blood away from hospital patients who need it more, you'd better be ready to cough up enough for a Lamborghini just for a single pint. Shifting the vampire population's appetite from human blood to animal blood will be the first step in domesticating you. If you have no qualms with sucking down a nice cold glass of goat blood, then I can take these twenty gallons of pure, human blood to someone with a more refined pallet."
In that moment, Xerxes had them. They knew, just as well as he did, that he was right. Everything about the existence of vampires had changed the moment the world became aware of them. They were looking at mass assimilation, possible detainment, and a fleet of government regulation the likes of which they've never seen before. The days of pleasantly plucking a meal off the street without notice or repercussion were over.
He had them. And then they got greedy. One moment, Xerxes had a blood deal in his pocket, and the next, Rebecca was on the floor with her neck torn open, her single word a shrill echo in the air, "Abort!"
The seats around the conference room were suddenly empty, vampires blurs in the periphery and humans having shot up with guns drawn. Marlowe stepped in front of Xerxes and took a bullet to the chest, catching it on teflon as he drew his gun and fired. Each shot exploded in a burst of searing light upon impact, dropping mortals and blowing immortals to a crumbling pile of ash, burning them from the inside out. Xerxes pulled his weapon from the waist of his trousers and cursed himself for not wearing a vest himself in a vain attempt to show a bit of trust. He should've known better to trust anyone, least of all a vampire.
And so, he sat propped against the glass after the echos of gunshots, hissing, and screams had dissipated into the cold and uncaring night. What was left of Émile and his goons lay in piles of ash covered with suits. The case of blood lay at the foot of the table, the packets littered with holes and emptied out onto the floor. And Xerxes was trying to keep pressure on the hole in his stomach while his eyes were pinned on Marlowe who lay next to him, staring up at the ceiling with slack, open wonder and a hole in the center of his forehead.
Life was a gamble, and sometimes one came up short. It hurt to lose, but Xerxes wasn't out of the game just yet. So, when he heard hinges whine from the weighty swing of the door, he wrapped his finger around the trigger of the gun propped on his knee and tried to focus his bleary eyes on the person standing in the doorway. The line of his mouth was grim, and his voice was low, but steady as he said, "This is loaded with UV rounds. Take another step and you're dust."
As much as it felt like the contribution was all his, it was a collaborative effort. Bodies littered the floor, collapsed in careless shapes as they lay, broken mannequins in bespoke suits stained red. Some had faces of slack, open wonder and Xerxes could only imagine it was the immensity of death that put that look on their faces. Everyone dies sooner or later, but it makes death no less of a shock upon its arrival. It's the sudden and clear realization that there would never be another breath, another day, another chance. It was the most finite of all feelings, stronger even than fear -- anticipation.
Xerxes had yet to succumb to it. He floated in the blood, thick like ink, cooling the fabric stuck to his legs and warming the fabric stretched over his belly. He could feel it seep into his crotch with every desperate beat of his heart. Only the cool glass at his back kept him from floating away and he focused only on what he would do next, forcing his will to be louder than the creeping anticipation of the curtain call. No, the show wasn't over just yet. He refused to let it end here and now. He'd only just begun.
"No risk, no reward," he uttered from lips as pale as his face and growing just as numb. These words were gospel -- the universal law of life itself. They formed an axiom of which Xerxes knew to be truer even than God. It was, of course, perfectly packaged into a generalization with the definite rhythm of a mantra. It was one thing to be reckless and risk everything on a whim with little cause or responsibility, but another to take a chance on something great because the conviction was too great to be ignored or not taken for the sign of possible glory and truth that it was. Life, after all, was one huge gamble. If one didn't play to win, he was going to lose. If one didn't play smart, he would surely lose. If one didn't play at all, he would never win.
Now, he could say all that, but it wasn't exactly pithy, was it? And Xerxes always had a knack for being both pithy and risky when it suited him. Even back at the age of ten, sitting on the floor of his mother's studio, legs bent and folded next to her's with knees touching between them. Large canvases loomed around them, gathered and clustered against the walls with faces of spring light through tree branches, deep and overlapping wrinkles where wisdom was held, the flight of the earthbound, and the endless stretch of civilization and sky that met as earth and heaven at the horizon.
"What do you think?" She asked about the large photograph sitting before them. It was her work, one of many pieces by Adeline Wakefield. Xerxes stared at New York from, what he could only assume to be, atop a building with the city spread out beneath him in the light of day. Skyscrapers stood boldly against the blue sky, skirted by streets where tiny people walked next to tiny cars caught in the act of living, like a mechanism that couldn't be stopped, because it was innate to go out to act and to be.
"I want to be there," he said, turning his sharp blue gaze to the woman when she laughed, pale hair cascading down her back by the tilt of her head. He saw light and an unrestrained merriment in her eyes as if his own restrained enthusiasm amused her most of all in the world.
"We were just there."
"I want to go back."
"What for? Broadway? The little cafe with the homemade brew? The pizza? The subway? The lights? The buildings? Lady Liberty?"
"All of it," he said, even for the things she didn't yet name.
Adeline nudged her son's thin shoulder with her own and asked, "What would you say if I asked you if you'd like to move there?" She always had this habit of shoving her questions into hypotheticals. It was almost teasing, but Xerxes knew when to take her seriously. So, he said:
"Yes."
That very day, they packed up their life in Toronto and crossed the Falls to the Big Apple. Xerxes took to the city like a fish to water. He went to a public school Adeline insisted on over a private school that was comfortably within their budget, because she believed variety gave life greater authenticity than silos that were little more than gilded echo-chambers. Xerxes would have preferred the award-winning professors and curriculum carefully crafted for success, but the chosen public school wasn't bad. He made friends with the staff before he managed to befriend anyone his own age because, for a while, he had become known as Xerx the Jerk. He assumed it had something to do with the number of times he'd brought another kid to tears for not doing what he instructed in group projects, or the time he told Olivia Sparks that she could only aspire to be married to someone smarter than her (if she was lucky), or maybe it was the time he dislocated Stanley Atcomb's shoulder on the monkey bars when he and his pack of goons tried to bully him. Whatever the case may be, the other kids avoided him and the adults seemed to understand him, or indulge his preferred grown-up disposition, at the very least. One thing they all learned fairly quickly upon meeting Xerxes was that he didn't like to be treated with kid gloves. He didn't like to be shoved into the child-locked box that denoted there were things he couldn't do because he wasn't of legal age yet. He didn't want to be buckled into the child's seat, he wanted to drive the car.
"My little man," Adeline called him with amusement and a pride that was understated, as if it were rude to brag about her child's appetite for achievement, success, and victory. Xerxes always found it strange that these things were desired and celebrated in society, and yet still considered bad form to personally take pride in. Just as quickly as Xerxes took another of life's trophies for his own, whether it be top marks in his class, landing his first job as the personal assistant for the first Assistant Director of a blockbuster film when he was seventeen, or buying his first designer suit with the cash, Adeline told him, "It isn't polite to brag."
What he does, he wouldn't exactly call 'bragging' per se. Whenever he openly stated his accomplishments and Adeline reprimanded him for it, he would tell her, "It's the truth. I did those things and I can do more." Most wrinkled their noses and dubbed him arrogant because of it, but he knew it for what it was: confidence. He never saw the logic in hiding it or apologizing for it. Why should he when things needed done and he knew he was the one to do them? Why wait around for someone to grant him the privilege of showing what he could do when he could just do it knowing full and well that he could?
The few people his age who understood that became his friends, one of which he met in middle school and would become his closest friend. His name was Marlowe Grimes. He was there the day Xerxes dislocated Stanley Atcomb's shoulder, and when staff asked him what happened, he said, with an all too casual air, "Stanley was gonna bust his teeth in. He said so. He 'n the rest of 'em were gonna beat him bloody. It's what they do, ya'know? So, he popped his shoulder clean out. You should'a seen their faces when Stanley was on the ground screamin' 'n cryin' like that. Don't think they'll try to beat him bloody ever again."
He told Xerxes, "Good job on sending those douchebags runnin'," and they've been friends ever since. They even attended the same high school. During that time of their lives, Marlowe grew large, which added an intimidating aspect to his otherwise laid-back demeanor, and Xerxes grew long and stayed relatively slim and intimidating in personality. They worked like a good recipe and built a network of diverse friends around them as they took on venture after venture in Xerxes' restless plight for accomplishment. When things got crazy, it was Marlowe who managed to drag Xerxes down into the grass from time to time to make him stop and smell the roses.
"Gotta learn to appreciate the little things in life, Xerx."
Just because Marlowe liked to kick back and watch the clouds go by didn't mean he wasn't up for knocking a few heads when needed. He took on the role of 'the muscle' in Xerxes' group of friends out of a sense of respect for the guy. It wasn't that Xerxes couldn't protect himself, but having an extra pair of eyes, arms, and legs was helpful when a deal went bad or someone got cocky, and in the early years, that happened too much for comfort. It started with small things, like dealing narcotics and stolen goods. Then, right when senior year of university began, the news broke:
VAMPIRES ARE REAL!
After getting his hands on twenty gallons of blood, Xerxes headed home to Canada -- apparent vampire capital of the world. He set up a meeting with a vampire by the name of Émile with Marlowe and Rebecca at his side. Rebecca was a plump redhead with a keen eye for detail and a near eidetic memory. Really, there was no better person to keep up with all the information thrown their way. In fact, she was the one who recognized that only half of Émile's posse were vampires. That bit of info, however, didn't make the fact that they were about to deal with a real life Penny Dreadful tale any less unnerving.
Xerxes stood at the head of a long, polished oval of dark wood surrounded by black, leather chairs. The rest of the decor was spars: a screen mounted on the opposite wall, a chair in the corner, framed photos of Harper Rock's cultural and industrial districts hanging on the walls on either side to remind the inhabitants of the conference room what mattered in life: industry and success. At the opposite end of the table sat the vampire Émile. He had a face made of sharp edges and gaunt indentations as if his skin was stretched tight over bone. His lips were thin slats of pale flesh that formed a line of contempt, his eyes were colorless half circles beneath heavy lids, and his ash blond hair swept over his skull in weightless waves. Xerxes felt that the slightest breeze would leave him bald. The men and women sitting at the table with him either didn't notice, or didn't care. They all had similar looks of contempt on their faces, and why shouldn't they? Up until recently, entertaining the whims of some strange human was preparation for a meal, not a serious endeavor.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Xerxes said to the room at large. His eyes, however, were anchored on the vampire of the hour. "Émile. Friends. We're on the edge of the biggest change in history. Bigger than anything that has come before it. Vampires have been introduced to the world, now out of hiding and on the global stage. I don't have to tell you that this changes everything. One thing in particular: feeding."
And just like that, there was a sudden tension in the air as keen eyes pinned Xerxes where he stood. He tipped his head forward and leveled them all with a gaze as hard and piercing as shards of ice before continuing.
"For as long as mankind has existed, vampires have moved like shadows in the night, maiming and murdering like ghosts. Human laws meant nothing because the dead could not be judged. But now, the dawn has come and the truth has been revealed in the light of day. How long before vampires are dragged to court for their crimes? How long before there are maximum security prisons built to keep vampires inside? How long before every citizen on the street is armed with UV weapons to protect themselves? How long before blood is regulated and there's a blood tax?"
A chorus of hisses rippled around the table and was silenced when Marlowe dropped a long, black box onto the surface. Xerxes placed his hand onto it and smiled, though it was a cold, impersonal thing sitting on his face like a door sign rather than crafted from any emotion like joy or pleasure. Instead, it was simply polite.
"Once blood is distributed by major corporations that cater to your kind, there will be a price for life with a sales tax included. The government regulations alone will make it difficult for easy dining. Your Golden Age has come to an end. But that doesn't mean you have to empty your coffers into registered blood distributors."
He pressed a series of numbers on the keypad over the center front split of the box. It beeped, then hissed as he lifted the lid. A soft, cool, white mist drifted over the edge and onto the table and inside were vacuumed-sealed packs of blood stacked like bricks of cocaine.
"There's more," he said as the vampires leaned forward for a better look. "Twenty gallons, in fact."
"And your price?" Émile's soft French voice still managed to crack like a whip through the conference room and his people sat back in their chairs to resumed their act of staring Xerxes down.
"Three hundred and twenty thousand."
A rat faced woman sneered at him from Émile's left. "That's two thousand per pint."
Xerxes looked at her, but he addressed the entire room. "Do you really think human blood will be cheap when there are slaughter houses on every corner of the planet pouring reserves down the drain? When those shops open, you'll have your pick of cow, pig, and chicken just like the rest of us. If you're planning to take human blood away from hospital patients who need it more, you'd better be ready to cough up enough for a Lamborghini just for a single pint. Shifting the vampire population's appetite from human blood to animal blood will be the first step in domesticating you. If you have no qualms with sucking down a nice cold glass of goat blood, then I can take these twenty gallons of pure, human blood to someone with a more refined pallet."
In that moment, Xerxes had them. They knew, just as well as he did, that he was right. Everything about the existence of vampires had changed the moment the world became aware of them. They were looking at mass assimilation, possible detainment, and a fleet of government regulation the likes of which they've never seen before. The days of pleasantly plucking a meal off the street without notice or repercussion were over.
He had them. And then they got greedy. One moment, Xerxes had a blood deal in his pocket, and the next, Rebecca was on the floor with her neck torn open, her single word a shrill echo in the air, "Abort!"
The seats around the conference room were suddenly empty, vampires blurs in the periphery and humans having shot up with guns drawn. Marlowe stepped in front of Xerxes and took a bullet to the chest, catching it on teflon as he drew his gun and fired. Each shot exploded in a burst of searing light upon impact, dropping mortals and blowing immortals to a crumbling pile of ash, burning them from the inside out. Xerxes pulled his weapon from the waist of his trousers and cursed himself for not wearing a vest himself in a vain attempt to show a bit of trust. He should've known better to trust anyone, least of all a vampire.
And so, he sat propped against the glass after the echos of gunshots, hissing, and screams had dissipated into the cold and uncaring night. What was left of Émile and his goons lay in piles of ash covered with suits. The case of blood lay at the foot of the table, the packets littered with holes and emptied out onto the floor. And Xerxes was trying to keep pressure on the hole in his stomach while his eyes were pinned on Marlowe who lay next to him, staring up at the ceiling with slack, open wonder and a hole in the center of his forehead.
Life was a gamble, and sometimes one came up short. It hurt to lose, but Xerxes wasn't out of the game just yet. So, when he heard hinges whine from the weighty swing of the door, he wrapped his finger around the trigger of the gun propped on his knee and tried to focus his bleary eyes on the person standing in the doorway. The line of his mouth was grim, and his voice was low, but steady as he said, "This is loaded with UV rounds. Take another step and you're dust."