The Price of Survival

The air in the brick room was thick, a cloying mixture of stale sweat and something metallic, something I couldn’t quite place but felt in the back of my throat. It clung to me, to my clothes, to the very marrow of my bones. I could feel it seeping in, staining whatever remnants of my old life I’d managed to cling to. William’s screams, choked off by the muffled thuds that followed, still echoed in the confines of my skull, a phantom symphony of terror. Each shot had been a hammer blow, not just to him, but to me, chipping away at the last vestiges of my humanity.

Stephon’s voice, when he spoke again, was unnervingly calm, a stark counterpoint to the violence that had just erupted. It was the voice of a man who dealt in death and despair as casually as others might discuss the weather. He stood before me, a hulking silhouette against the weak, flickering bulb overhead, his shadow stretching and contorting like a grotesque dancer.

“Look, homie,” he’d said, his tone even, almost conversational, as if he were explaining a minor inconvenience. “If neither of you would have said anything, I would have had you bother working for me. But he ratted you out to save his own hide. I can’t have that.”