Taken
Peter Forthright had seen better days.
Ever since Acheus and Nero had come into his life, everything had gone downhill.
Sierra Sena wasn’t interested in him, his department became a sea of corruption, another department was killed trying to raid a mob wedding, and now, Forthright was unemployed and about to break.
One morning, he received a call from an unknown number and divine providence shone upon him. The same woman who had given him information about the wedding of Alto Feardorcha now had information on the whereabouts of the naked pyromaniac terrorizing Atlaan.
It was Forthright’s only way to prove that he had been right all along.
Forthright made the call that morning, relaying information Rosaline had given him to his former employers...and was promptly laughed at.
So he decided to take matters into his own hands.
In the afternoon, he shaved, got a haircut, a fade he felt made him look quite handsome. He returned home, dressed in some brown moccasin, red jean shorts, and a white shirt, and put on a hat because suddenly, he wasn’t so sure about the haircut.
He arrived around five PM at Rosealine’s residence, and she was more than pleased to see him. She didn’t get many visitors who weren’t other moms , and her parents didn’t visit often, embarrassed by her little accident.
The little accident was wide awake, wearing a pale onesie, and he had little mittens disguised as bear claws on his hands because he kept scratching at his face all day. His onesie matched his mother’s summer dress, and Forthright found it endearing.
Forthright thought all babies were cute but hated that it had the same face as Nero.
Rosaline was a good host, she made iced tea, with little fruits on the bottom, and they sat in her backyard, on the green painted wooden table, the cool breeze making the day finally bearable.
Amos was held in his mother’s arms, staring hard at Forthright, trying to soak in every pore on his face, every hair and cell, furiously, as if his life depended on it.
“Do you want to hold him," asked Rosaline. “He’s very friendly."
Forthright silently walked over and sat next to Rosaline, held out his arms, and plastered a smile on his face, nervous to hold the child as if it were to open its mouth and reveal razor-sharp teeth.
He nodded yes, and she reminded him to hold his head up, and Forthright picked him up as gently as he could, surprised at how soft he was, that he smelled like lotion and milk.
“Do they always stare at people like that," Forthright asked.
“Of course they do," laughed Rosaline. “Babies are always trying to learn. If he looks at you he must be warming up to you, trying to learn from you."
Amos let out a little yawn, made himself comfortable, and tried to grab onto him, but it was impossible with his tiny safety mitts on.
“He really must like you," said Rosaline. “That makes me so happy.”
Forthright, for a moment, started to feel guilty about using Rosaline to get closer to his goal, but he knew it was for the better. He had assumed, the entire time, that Rosealine’s baby was the child of Alto, not Nero, and seeing the baby now, his entire view of her changed.
Yet he was a baby, still, time to be molded and changed, and Forthright thought that maybe Amos wasn’t so bad.
But his mother was still a whore.
“I’m going to the bathroom real quick, I’ll be right back,” Rosaline said.
“Wait. Don’t forget what to do first,” Forthright replied.
Rosaline let out a soft, oh, got out her phone, and sent a quick text message, and then got up to use the bathroom, but Forthright held her wrist.
He smiled, flashed his eyes a glimmering deep mauve, and the long spoon in her tall drink of ice tea floated in the air. She scrunched her face, looked at it, and it turned to face her, the handle portion towards her face.
It spun, it twirled, dove and it went straight through her arm, slowly, like a drill, while Forthright gripped her wrist, and she struggled, she screamed, but she didn’t scream for long. She let out short, audible gasps, her fingers twitched as blood streamed down her arm, and her baby watched, silent, unaware of what happened in front of him.
Her body went limp, she fainted, and Forthright let go as she fell onto the lawn, her nice summer dress ruined.
Exactly as planned, Forthright got the note from his pocket, set it down on the table, and placed a rock on it so it wouldn’t be blown away in the wind.
He laid the baby on the table, and positioned Rosaline’s body, slumped over on the picnic table, to make sure it was obvious someone had done something. Satisfied, he looked at the baby and decided that he needed to add a personal touch.
He didn’t want the baby, he only wanted to take, who he assumed, was Nero’s mistress’s life to hurt him the way he had ruined his life.
He decided to take the baby anyway because he believed taking it was a blessing compared to leaving him with Nero.
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Nero was pestering Adonis, asking him what he should wear for their finale , the icing on the cake of the week of killing and burning. Originally they were saving the last night of the week, The Night of Sin, for a night of drinking and debauchery as everyone else in town did, but there was still unfinished business.
Alabaster Almuz.
Nero slid out of his walk-in closet, wearing his ridiculously large white fur coat, and Adonis groaned.
“Why wear white!? Blood will ruin it!”
“That's the point! It’s like, they know I already got someone, ” Nero scoffed.
Adonis started to come around to the color scheme of another of their hair-brained schemes, and then he paused, for one moment to realize what he was doing.
“Why am I helping you pick out clothes to murder people in? I’ve been around you and Alto too long,” Adonis mumbled.
“‘Cuz ya love me, that’s why,” Nero said mockingly, wiggling his fingers and walking back into the closet, slamming it shut, and yelling out that he needed time to process the magic.
He then swung the walk-in closet door wide open, his left eye twitching, remembering something important.
“Hey. After we kill Almuz we gotta kill my mom.”
“You said she’s dead.”
“No, no, not yet.”
Adonis listened to another hair-brained scheme, shook his head, and nodded along with him every now and then, concerned about his own sanity. He was now considering the validity of his ridiculous tale, and that worried him more than Nero’s fleeting lucidity.
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“So, you think the creepy dream stalker is lying or what,” Nero asked.
He flopped onto his large bed, and laid on his back, playing with the idea of sleep but not wanting to meet his other half again.
“I...don’t know. I thought you were lying about that sword and it's real.”
Adonis shrugged and glanced warily at the sword on the floor, which was complaining about being left on the floor, wedged between several pairs of Timmi Foo shoes.
“Even if this is true, don’t you think it’s time to move on. I have,” Adonis said gently.
He sat on the bed next to Nero, who was still laying down, face-up, pouting, refusing to admit he had done anything wrong.
“I need to kill more people,” he mumbled.
“No! Alto has made you crazy!”
“Alto hasn’t done anything. I was always like this, and there's no other way to solve this problem.”
“Whoever lied and told you this is wrong. We can still do something else.”
Nero snorted and sighed because they had crossed the River Styx long ago. Murder, robbery, kidnapping, assault, bribery. It would be easier and shorter to list the things they haven’t done than the things they had.
“If you don’t want to come I understand, but that hurts,” Nero said.
“I’ll come.”
“I don’t want you to,” he mumbled. “Wherever I go, you go. So stay.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the angry, male, computer text messaging system on his phone that read them all aloud.
FROM, ROSIE: Come over. Amos is asleep and I think we need to discuss something important.
He sat up, squatted on the floor, and debated if he should go. He wanted to go, but he was worried again, Alto would argue with him, and again a fight over something inane would occur.
He looked like a chimpanzee, grumbling, whispering to himself, squatting on the floor, and Adonis was the nature historian watching it all, trying to understand what he would do next.
Nero remembered how he and Alto talked about being honest, and called him, who picked up immediately.
“Uhhh… can I go over to Rosie’s,” Nero asked.
“You’re a grown man, go to her house. Don’t bring back another magic sword or baby and it’s fine,” Alto replied.
Nero laughed and asked Alto if he would polish his sword that night, and Alto promptly hung up, telling him to grow up.
“Why does he act like this? We’re married,” Nero whispered to himself.
He jumped up, became slightly dizzy from lack of iron and sleep, then announced that he was going to visit his son. Adonis made a show of it, clapping, whistling, and Nero rolled his eyes. Kicking aside another Wamazon box of a purchase he never needed, he ran around looking for matching shoes while talking.
“Can you come with me,” he asked.
“No. It feels kind of a thing between you and her,” Adonis replied.
“I’m a little afraid of her, to be honest.”
“ You have killed so many people. ”
“Everyone’s afraid of something.”
Adonis still refused to go, and Nero grumbled, but put on a brave face and was genuinely excited to see his son.
He called the driver, Mr.Mata, and he picked him up, always chit-chatting with him, scolding him if he’s still bothering Mr.Feardorcha, and Nero declared that he was still doing it, with no intentions to stop.
Mr.Mata dropped him off in front of Rosaline’s house, the quiet neighborhood, a little brick house with a blue roof, the grass a little high because she hadn’t found time to mow the lawn.
Nero tried not to seem too excited and knocked on the red front door, and waited.
He knocked again, patiently, and didn’t want to seem rude, because he didn’t want to upset her, he wanted to do so well, but he didn’t try very hard. He twisted the door handle and was surprised to find the door unlocked.
“Hello?”
The house was silent.
“Hello?”
Nero walked past the front entrance, with the blue umbrella rack and many shoes she owned, and into the living room, with only minimal decorations, two leather couches, and a small brown coffee table with a succulent.
From the living room was the exit to the backyard, and he could see Rosaline through the glass sliding doors, at the table, lying slumped, taking a very long nap.
Annoyed that he was invited and ignored, he slammed the door open and accidentally broke the door’s net frame.
“Ah, sorry Rosie.”
She said nothing, didn’t make a sound, and Nero noticed that she was very still, very quiet, and then was upset because he didn’t see the baby. He jogged across the yard, ready to feel superior that he was a super parent, and grabbed her shoulder.
“How could you leave him-”
She was wide awake, blood pooling out of her arm, in shock and mumbling. Her arm was at an awkward angle and drool was dribbling out of her mouth, snot down her nose.
“Took the baby,” she mumbled.
Nero sat on the bench next to her and tried to help her sit up, supporting her neck as if she were a baby herself. He kept smacking her, gently in the face, trying to keep her awake but all he did was make her complain incoherently.
“Police,” she said quietly.
“Call the police?”
“No. Police.”
Her head rolled to the side and a new, fresh panic grew inside of him.
There was a note on the table, and he knew it was meant for him, but he couldn’t do a thing.
He couldn’t read it.
He picked up the note, the clear and crisp letters mocking his pain, and he didn’t care what it said, because it didn’t change that he knew that his son was gone, possibly forever.
He stuffed the note in his pocket, propped up Rosaline, and tried to talk out loud to calm himself.
“Let’s go to the hospital, okay?”
She said nothing back, and he kept talking out loud to calm himself.
“You’re going to be okay.”
He gripped her hand, cleared his mind, grit his teeth, and cried as the watch strained against him, taking them to the hospital.
His stay at the hospital was not long, as immediately he was recognized as the naked pyromaniac, and Rosaline was assumed to be another victim of his.
In a sense, she was.
Nero left as quickly as he arrived at the hospital, his mind abuzz, and returned home, teleporting onto the patio deck.
He went inside, and he tried to think, who would take a baby, who would try to kill Rosaline, but it was a long list, a very long list of people he had killed that week, but his mind went to who at the very top of the list hated her the most.
He told himself he was being paranoid.
You’re not paranoid. You should have killed him long ago, Unas said.
Nero unsheathed his sword, and it let out a deep throaty laugh, pleased that it would be of use, egging him on, suggesting many ways to dice his body up.