My Soul’s Worn Thin

“How old were you?”

“What?”

“When you first killed someone.” Trent pops his neck. “How old were you.”

“Why.”

“Nosy.”

The car is silent, at first. But hell, they’re all in this crazy ride now whether they like it or not, and it’s not like anybody’s some sort of homicide-virgin. They wouldn’t be here if they were.

“Eighteen,” Antoine says at last. “Army. He came outta nowhere, I was quicker on the trigger.”

He doesn’t say the guy had been his age, or that he’d about puked all over his boots. It’s not the messiest kill he’s ever done, just…seconds, that’s all that had been between Z.Z. going, ‘fuck, I didn’t even see him–you okay?’ and him being the one staring into the void with three bullets in his chest.

Jimmy swallows, clearly a little uncomfortable, and mumbles, “Twenty-one. This. We were at a bar, this guy came up to us-turned out to be a guerrilla fighter-, shot the friend I was with. I got off a lucky shot before he could get to me. Friend lived that time, but. Didn’t see him coming.”

Antoine doesn’t correct that story. It’s true, it’s not that, but Jimmy’s leaving out that their attacker was another friend that turned traitor. It happens, but it can’t be easy to look a friend in the eyes and blow their head off.

“Nineteen,” Trent finally supplies. “Fucker turned on me, I just. Grabbed at him, you know, to not get shot, and, uh. Managed to twist his head backwards.” He shrugs. “Gun didn’t go off, so that worked out.”

Riley nods.

Him or me, he explains, hands just this side of hesitant. Gun jammed, but I had a knife, got it through his eye. Not bad for nineteen, huh?

“Twenty,” Frank says shortly. “I’d been out to fix a jeep, you know? We got ambushed, and this guy came up on me. His gun jammed, mine didn’t.” He laughs, a little. “I got the guts up after that to ask Daisy to marry me. Figured that had to be less scary than some guy trying to kill me.”

Mark shrugs.

“Thirty-three. I was trying to stabilize this guy who’d gotten his arm blown half off, and this guy just comes out of nowhere, screaming bloody murder. I got grazed, because I moved, but I got him in the stomach. He bled out while I was working on the guy I was there for.” He flicks a piece of lint off his pants. “That whole day was a mess.”

The car falls silent, barring the radio, and Antoine looks at the mountains in the distance. Nobody here, he guesses, ever had much of a shot at doing anything else. He certainly doesn’t feel like it. You get used to it-or that’s what you tell yourself-but it changes you, puts you on a different course.

“Sixteen,” the Knight says suddenly. Antoine doesn’t look over there, but. Mm. “Thought it was someone else, but he did try to kill me, so.” He shifts a bit. “Strangled him.”

Yeah. Nobody here ever had much of a chance, did they.

THE END