Page 30 of His Favorite Color is Blood
Misha’s blood was full of adrenaline. He hadn’t felt this alive in forever. It was as if he’d woken up from a long nightmare where he was pushed so far inside his mind that only the outer shell of his body wasleft.
“You think that just because you’re a big guy, you can tell a guy in a wheelchair what to do?” He took a swing and hit the side of Pat’s body with the bat. “I’m a fucking person, you asshole!”
Pat tensed, trying to cower, but the tape wouldn’t let him, and so he cried out into the makeshift gag. In the background, Grim returned to the shelves and stomped on the fallen miniature vehicles. “We’re gonna give you an actual reason to hate a gay man now,” he announced and kicked a tiny car against the wall.
Misha heaved, his hands sweaty around the bat in his hands, and all he could see in Pat’s eyes was a blur of all the abusers in his life. Maybe just not Zero. No one was as bad as Zero.
“I hate people like you,” Misha spat and pushed some dishes off the coffee table with his bat. The clang of breaking glass was like the sweetest of symphonies. “I don’t exist to comply with what you want.”
Grim sat on the sofa and scowled at the pizza. He picked up one piece and started pulling off the pepperoni slices. “That’s a hobby of mine, Pat. Some people don’t understand simple persuasion. You need to knock information into their bodies,” he said, calmly watching Misha slam the bat against Pat’s chest again.
The man thrashed in the chair, and at some point, Misha thought he’d fall over, but Grim stretched out his leg to prop the seat into an upright position.
“Birdie, you need to know how much damage you want to make. Do you want him to die? Break his spleen? Or just leave him bruised?” he asked before chewing on the pizza.
Misha froze and dropped the bat to the floor as if it burned him. The murderous lust was still clouding his brain, but Grim’s words were echoing the reason that seemed to have cowered somewhere in the back of his own mind. “N-no. This is enough,” he said with a grumble. After all, Pat was a bully, a homophobic motherfucker. He wasn’t Gary or any of the other men who’d physically hurt him.
Pat sobbed and slouched in the chair. There were tears staining his cheeks, and he seemed unable to control the rapid breaths that shook his body.
Grim swallowed the food. “Yeah, he does have some padding, but not nearly enough. I need to show you where to punch so you don’t kill them.”
Pat raised his head, wide-eyed, and shook his head abruptly. Misha squinted. “I think he’s had enough. I don’t seem sofaggynow, huh?”
Grim dropped the pizza to the floor. “This sucks ass. Pat. You really need someone to take care of you or you’ll die with this kind of shit clogging your arteries,” he said and got to his feet, stretching.
“Does he have anything better in the kitchen?” Misha wheeled over the pizza on his way to the coffee table. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this powerful. His heart drummed so fast he could cheat himself into thinking that he could conquer the world. Grim, him, a gun, and a baseball bat. That was all that was needed.
Grim smiled and kicked the chair over, sending their prisoner to fall on his side. “I’ll get something. You could see if he has some money or valuables stashed around here.”
Misha gave him a nod and rolled his wheelchair to a chest of drawers, pulling out paperwork and trinkets. Getting to wreck things was more therapeutic than he ever thought it could be. For such a long time he’d been a quiet, meek boy who followed every order, he’d forgotten how good it felt to do whatever he wanted.
Pat watched him from his pathetic spot on the floor and didn’t even protest anymore. He probably understood that at least one of them wouldn’t hesitate to smash his head in, and so he stayed silent with swelling growing at the side of his cheek. There were some sounds coming from the kitchen, the tapping of a knife and then the sound of the microwave doing its magic. Misha could sense tomatoes and some herbs, too.
“Is this a date?” Misha yelled as he got down to the floor when he couldn’t reach the last drawer from his wheelchair. His heart trembled with excitement. He’d never been on a date before he met his murderous Prince Charming.
Grim yelled back, “Obviously. I promised you an evening of surprises, didn’t I?”
“See, Pat?” Misha looked over his shoulder. “A gay date. In your house. I’m being spoiled.”
Pat groaned and pushed his face against the floor as Misha started looking through the drawer, which only held some DVDs. But he was reading through the backs and didn’t even notice Grim came back until his partner in crime spoke.
“Food’s ready. Will you come over, or should I help you?”
“I’m good.” Misha shifted to the table and sat on the floor. “He’s got no good movies.”
“You smashed his TV anyway. Now you need to look at my face all evening,” said Grim and patted the sofa next to where he sat. He picked up a lighter and nodded at an untouched red candle he must have placed on the far edge of the coffee table. “Wanna do the honors? I’m not good with fire but a date is a date.”
Misha sighed theatrically. “Your face is in a mask, honey.” He moved closer to the sofa and pulled himself into the seat, but in the end, Grim helped him as well. Misha took the lighter and leaned over the table to light the candle. “This is … nice.” He smiled up at Grim and picked up one of the steaming bowls of pasta with tomato sauce.
Grim smiled at him, like a half-man, half-insect with eyes so black it was impossible to read his thoughts, even with the mouth visible. “Honey? That sounds almost like a promise,” said Grim, digging in already.
“I mean, Pat would probably want to see us kiss again before we go. Since he liked it so much the first time.” Misha didn’t even realize how hungry he’d gotten before he filled his mouth with pasta. He felt so powerful for once, and he could already see why Grim got so high on it. Misha wished he could get his hands on all the men who had touched him against his will. But if that were to ever happen, he would definitely not stop at leaving bruises. They had all known he was locked up, and they had paid for access to him. There was no way they hadn’t known he had no say in the matter.
Grim licked some red sauce off his lip and looked at their prisoner. “Pat, I gotta say you need to clean up your act if you want to live here. I will be placing you on my list, and if you ever even anonymously pollute the Internet with your shithead homophobic comments, we are going to come back for you.”
Misha nodded. “I’m a hacker. I can do that,” he said despite still being too afraid to access the Internet. The visit here was cathartic already.
Pat moaned, and it sounded like an apology, but Grim ignored him, eating from the bowl. “To be honest, this place needs a revamp anyway. What do you think?” he asked Misha.
