Page 12 of The Raven
Without warning, I launched for him. He didn’t have time to reactbefore I grabbed his head, my palms against his temples. The sudden movement caused my hood to fall, revealing my face.
“Ra…Raven?!” Ziggy choked out, his face twisted in disbelief.
“Hey, Ziggy. Good to see you again.”
I closed my eyes and summoned all the memories to the front of mymind, transferring every ounce of trauma and misery from my body into Ziggy’s as the memories swirled.
The fear.
The heartache.
The fight for survival when a plastic bag was tied around my head.
The deep burn in my lungs as my air slowly dwindled.
Ziggy writhed against my hold, doing his best to throw me off until theexcruciating agony began to consume him. Just like it had done when I poured mymemories into Boogie, Ziggy’s features contorted into horror as his body froze, and he stopped fighting against me.
Still, I didn’t let up.
I wanted him to feeleverythinghe and the rest of the Vipers did to me. Iwanted him to feel what it was like to be helpless. What it felt like to watch as the man you loved was slaughtered in front of you, and there wasn’t a single thing you could do to stop it.
When the anguish circling my body began to recede, I released Ziggy.His legs buckled, and he hit the concrete with a deafeningthudbefore sluggishly pushing himself on his ass until his back pressed against the dumpster Barry was hidden in.
“How…” Ziggy stuttered, barely able to hold his head up to look at me as Itowered over him.
“My good luck and your bad fortune?” I suggested, shrugging.
“I watched you die!” Ziggy roared, his voice reverberating along thelength of the alley.
“So you did. And now, I get to watch you die,” I replied, reaching intomy pocket and pulling out the two syringes filled with acid and a discarded dog collar I’d found while waiting for Ziggy.
His eyes widened in fear as I crouched in front of him, his breathingbecoming erratic. “Wait, Raven. What…what are you doing?”
He tried to raise his hands, but his body was failing him, just like mine hadfailed me.
I ignored him as I wrapped the dog collar around his bicep. He was onlywearing a t-shirt, giving me easy access to his arms. The shirt stunk of weed, telling me cannabis was already swimming through Ziggy’s veins, along with any other shit he’d consumed before his meeting.
He thrashed, trying to pull his arm out of my grasp as I tightened the collar,but like Boogie, the pain dominating him removed his strength. When a vein began to bulge in the crook of his elbow, I tore off the cap of one of the syringes with my teeth, careful not to get any of the contents on me.
The acid might not have killed me, but I didn’t need to experience thepain Ziggy was about to.
“I’m not an expert at this, Ziggy. You’ll have to forgive me if I fuck it up.”
“No, wait…Raven-”
His cries of protest were cut short as I jabbed the needle into the veinand pressed down on the plunger, pushing the acid directly into Ziggy’s bloodstream.
It took less than ten seconds for his limbs to start twitching. After another ten seconds, his entire body began to convulse. I watched in morbid fascination, imagining the acid burning through muscleand tissue as it traveled to Ziggy’s organs. Screams of distress tore from his mouth as he met my eyes, his shining in desperation.
“Help…me…please,” he moaned, spewing white foam from his mouth.
I smirked, narrowing my eyes at him. “Help you like you helped me?” Hisresponse was a garbled mess. Leaning forward so my face was inches away from his, my smirk grew wider. “You should have listened to Grim. Drugs will inevitably kill you.”
I shoved the second syringe into Ziggy’s stomach, having knocked the capoff without him seeing, and piercing his shirt. The contents disappeared into his stomach as I once again pressed the plunger.
Terror filled his bloodshot eyes as his breathing slowed and grew laboredfrom where the acid had reached his lungs. I leaned forward again, this time even closer.
“But what a fucking way to go, right?” I whispered, repeating the wordshe’d once said.
