Salome could tell her son was coming because the marble was rising and shooting out the pale stone floors and walls.

"Who did it?" He said, outside the doors. He collapsed them with a fling of his wrist, the doors compressed and shattered by the stone walls.

He was a storm. For each step he took seemed to shake and cause the marble floor to rise like sea waves. And Salome, the lone ship, a giant ferry in the middle of the white ocean. The marble all around her, rising and falling and crashing and snapping. She wondered if Floyd was even aware he was using his magic, if he even knew how much damage he was causing to the building with his simple tantrum. Maybe he just didn't care, his look sure showed it. There was nothing to him but fumes and the tightened muscles of a frown. He walked with his unsteady gait, with his shoulders low and leaned forward, with locked eyes. The green hue - glow - emanating from his tattoo and his eyes.

His eyes. Two piercing, wide eyes switching forth between their natural black to the more severe green, a sign of arcana.

Salome looked at him. She was knitting something that resembled tapestry. It was a blanket. She was fixing characters on its design, Junior and Jezebel. She knit it with finesse, even with her gaze stuck on Floyd. She did not cry, did not shake. Age hadn't killed her dexterity or her brutality.

"I know you, and I know you have an idea on who killed them. You have the know-how and the connections. That knowledge means one thing; that you're obliged to tell me, your son, who killed my sister. " He slammed his feet down.

"I'm not telling you anything, not a lick. Boy." She knit faster.

Floyd slammed his other foot down. A podium rose between her and him. It molded itself to a table with some time, one that Floyd put his hands down on. The surface was smooth. It didn't last long though, he broke it with one slap.

So he made another, and another, until he was just punching rocks of marble. There was no other furniture in the room, at least. He was creating his own. And destroying it. After a while he stopped, exhausted, with nostrils flared. His mouth was drooling, nearly, the wetness formed in the corner of his frown. His fingernails were worn down, like a jagged knife. He had been scratching himself, or something else. Judging by the grime, it must have been stone or marble or anything else with that kind of durability.

"I can't tell you who killed him." She said.

"Who not?" He screamed. There was a birdcage in the corner of the room, it chirped and flew inside its small prison. Further from the cage, a door leading to an elevator and to Salome's personal garden. Behind Salome, a king-sized bed. The purple sheets were neat and without ruffles. She hadn't slept in days, after all.

Purple satin window covers hid the light, allowing just enough to lend some visibility for the two. It was filtered, colored purple.

"I can't tell you because if I do, you'll send yourself off to fight an enemy that isn't worth fighting yet. We need to be more careful, we need to aim for the right targets and divide the right people" Salome said. "Jezebel's already messed the plan up, she's made them defensive -"

"Who cares?" He created a slender pole of stone, just to section each one with a punch. Each punch working at inches of marble, throwing stone every which way. His knuckles bled. The pebbles and stone fell to Salome's side, she felt the breeze they left as they disturbed the air, but she did not flinch. Maybe she even predicted this.

"Your sister did not care. And she paid for it." She said. "My daughter died because she did not listen, I won't have the same thing happen to you. I can't afford to lose you,"

"You already lost me," Floyd said.

"I'm beginning to believe that," She stopped knitting, only for a moment.

"Give me a name."

"Would you even believe me if I did? One look tells me you don't trust me, right?"

He was quiet.

his fool. This stupid boy of mine. She set down her pincers, two long needles. He doesn't even care anymore who he kills, as long as he kills someone. As long as it makes him feel good. Always emotional, weren't you? Do you even want revenge? Or is it just an excuse?

"You wouldn't believe me, would you? If I told you it was Aenea or Ritcher, if it was the Vicars or Turnus. If it was all of them or none of them."

"Stop bullshitting me. Just give me a name," He pleaded now. His voice softened, became dire with its low pitch. He leaned on his vowels, so as to speak with a whine. "Just tell me how to fix all this. Tell me what to make this feeling go away."

"Pain, sadness -"

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"Shame!" He said. "Help me get rid of this shame. Embarrassment. Let me fix this, please."

"I'm not going to give you anything," Salome stood. She walked over to Floyd and put her hand on his cheek. A hand he shrugged away. She tried again, he moved his face away, as if in avoidance of disease. An infection. The infection of compassion. He leaned back. "I won't give you anything but time. You need to focus yourself, get a grip on your mind before you lose it."

"Everyone here's lost it but me," He breathed hard, there was snot, the formation of tears stopping his steady breaths. He was straining for air. "I'm telling you, everyone's gone mad. You just don't know it. You're just hanging on too, pretending. Barely pretending,"

He couldn't even look at her then. As if all the anger in him had given way to some deeper sadness, something black, formless, a current of water that started in his heart and exited out of his eyes.

She was disgusted. She looked away too, in shame. Hissed, in shame. Put on a fake, empathetic gaze, in shame.

"This family is fucked, isn't it?" He asked. "I've thought about it. But nothing works, it's like trying to grip water. What's the point? It's just going to slip through - spill everywhere - stain you."

"We can still win this, you know that? We have the numbers and the strategy. We have home base too." She tried her hands on his shoulders. That didn't work either. "Ritcher and Turnus left. Aenea and her dogs are gone too. We've got the castle. We have it protected, and it's ours. We just need to wait now. Just be patient, we'll get 'em one by one."

“Fuck, one by one.” Floyd stepped forward, now facing her with mere inches of space between them. His tears dried, his eyes sharp. She respected those more. His breath smelled of something rancid, vomit? The crows feet on his eyes, deeper, more pronounced. He almost looked the same age as his mother. His forehead had three long cracks horizontal and deep. “No more plans. No more pretending this is anything but a game to you. No more. I don't care for the family name or the home-fucking-base. I'm here to protect Luanne and - and -"

"Your son."

He went quiet. He did not answer. He didn't need to. They both knew what it was, that forbiddenness. And at this point, it didn't seem like they cared.

It was desperation for him and leverage for her.

“You’ll run and die, is what you’ll do.” She felt herself lose breath. “Like Jezebel.”

“I am not my sister,” He said. “And as far as I'm concerned, you're not my mother. You're something else, something vile."

"I want revenge as much as you. I just want it the right way,"

"There's nothing right or wrong about the ways to get revenge, all that matters is that it's done." He approached her. "Even if that means getting rid of people close to you."

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I’d do anything for a fucking name,” He said. “I’ll squeeze it out of you if I have to.”

“Shut your mouth, boy.” She slapped him. His coarse, unshaven face. He felt like a cactus. His eyes did not change expression, the insanity in him had not changed to anything reasonable at all.

“You think you're hard, don't you? You think you're made of that concrete shit? That tough shit?” He said. “I'm sure you think that of yourself. You've always had that vanity, that inability to see that you're just be an old bitch glued to a shitty, wooden, rocking chair."

“Shut up Floyd.” She slapped him again. “Shut the fuck up and listen -"

“No, you listen.” He put both hands on her shoulders. “Give me a fucking name! Who killed her! Who!”

“Get off me,” She protested, light, without heat. But as she felt her neck shake and her bones ache, she got louder. She pushed him back. “Get back!”

He approached her again, hand to her neck.

“I will snap your neck,” He said. "Because you mean less to me than Luanne, do you understand? You're nothing to me. Nothing."

The grip tightened. Fear and anger both, she felt them grip her. It felt cold, the touch. As if his hand had no blood, certainly no Wolfe blood running through it.

Next to her, all around her, pillars of marble rose from the ground.

“A name!” He screamed. The pillars shattered, the dagger-like crystalline stones scattered about the floor, pointed towards her.

“Dion,” She wheezed. “The Vicar boy, Dion. The Asian one.”

He let go of her.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Even I don’t have that kind of knowledge. A few cities away? Still in here, who knows?” She rubbed her neck. “But I'm telling you - I'm telling you! Stay cool.”

Her neck still felt hot. She coughed.

"You stupid brat,"

“Stupid? No, just annoyed.”

"You'll mess everything up if you don't do this in the order that it should be done. Turnus first, then Richter - then!"

"Don't lecture me, not when you're half dead."

"Arrogant shit!"

"It's not arrogance, just anger," He left for the door. “Anger for all of them. And for you, too.”

He started his way out.

"Be careful. If you kill him, if you so much as mess one thing up, I'm abandoning you. You hear me, Floyd?"

He turned to her.

“I'm glad we're both coming to terms with all of this. I was just beginning to think about what I want from you.” His eyes glared down at her, still holding her neck and kneeling in front of her rocking chair. "If I see you ever again, I'm taking you out too, mother."

The blanket fell on her legs. Jezebel and Junior, their caricatures at least, were face down.

“You’re playing a man’s game,” She said. “And you're just a boy without the brain to survive. But you don’t care, do you? You don’t care about the big picture. You don't understand the importance of your actions, you stupid boy, stupid. Stupid. Stupid!”

"The only thing I understand," He said, looking at her. "Is an old southern, poor bitch who got too attached to the high life she never deserved. Right, mother? You've always been ashamed of being poor. Haven't you? You've always tried desperately to hold on to it, haven't you?"

She screamed at him. Profanities, mostly. But he wasn’t there to listen. He wasn’t there to do much of anything but walk out, walk into the elevator and down. The day had left them both into night.

There were no lights to lead him, all electricity was routed to only the most important features of the casino. But he knew how to navigate the darkness. The rotting ‘castle’ as it was.

And she was stuck there, holding her neck, composing herself with an unsteady hand. She looked up, trees of marble had grown from the floor, extended upwards by some simple flick of the wrist by Floyd's behalf.

It was just a flick of the wrist for him. Everything always had been. He'd leave a storm all right, but he'd never clean up after it.

"You've always been messy," She said at the destroyed doors and the empty halls where the noise of falling debris came from. "And you've always slipped up on your messes too. Right, Floyd?"