Mary’s lungs quivered in the exposed air, as if cold and shivering. Her bloody back opened for something Robbie called “blood eagle” style execution dripped all over the stage. He’d been eager to try it, but if practicality were the goal he might have been too hasty. She was dying quickly, and it was hard to interrogate someone whose lungs had been pulled out. Even if all that was dribbling out of her mouth was likely some desperate denial or plea, it was difficult to tell for sure with her voice so wrecked. Robbie’d tried his best to interrogate her regardless, and Mary had been a good sport, it really seemed like she’d at least been trying to answer and play along near the beginning, but it was quiet now, the screaming stopped as her ruined throat gave in. There was no noise aside from her ragged breathing and Robbie Farelli’s whisper into Mary’s ear.

Robbie geeking out over everything Viking was one of the few things Garfield had originally found even slightly endearing about him, but this latest experiment with Viking traditions proved that even his most innocent-seeming hobbies had a cruel bent, the monstrous sonofabitch. Reading his lips from where he stood Garfield could make out Robbie saying, “It hurts, don’t it? I can do it, now, if you’d just tell me where the money is. Where’s the rest of our money. If you tell me I’ll put a bullet in your brain and end it quick-like. Come on…”. On and on it went like that, Mary trying and failing to reciprocate and give him an answer, any answer, until she finally took her last breath. Then it really was silent, Robbie silently seething at the audacity of his victim to die without telling him what he’d wanted, and the audience of hundreds of employees forced to watch as the entire demonstration played out too terrified to even pass gas.

It ended quickly after that, everyone filing out. Filled with a sense of pride at escaping what was coming to him and at condemning an innocent woman to death in his place based on a bad first impression, Garfield let the crowd carry him. He felt slightly sorry about what happened to Mary, but mostly was glad it was an unpleasant bint like her instead of an upstanding gentleman like himself. But even as he drifted along the flow of people in an un-self-aware haze, he spotted the blunt man staring right at him.

Garfield’d suspected the blunt man might have known it was him. He’d made it a point to let it be known he was suspicious, harping on about smelling this or that, and with Mary executed he might have recalled seeing Garfield doing something with her purse. Even so, Garfield had hoped that, by some miracle, the blunt man would be tricked and move on. A vain hope it seemed. Finally peeling off from the crowd, he began walking the last leg of his usual route home to his apartment, trying to stay cool. Just as he was about to reach it, he took a sudden corner into a back alley and ducked out of sight.

Straining his ears, he heard the stumping gait of the blunt man, unnaturally fast, start to slow as he broke line of sight. Soon it had slowed all the way to a halt, and Garfield debated making a break for it. Then the huffing started, the blunt man breathing in heavily as he snuffed around. It only lasted a second or two, but it was massively disturbing. After he finished, Garfield heard the blunt man call out in a voice he could almost hear the smile in, saying, “Are you wondering why I didn’t rat you out? Why I let your bosses believe that Mary bitch was their thief? I kept it quiet for a few reasons. The first was so that no one else would get wind you were still out here, make sure I didn’t have any competition for the bounty. Stops this from being a whole lot messier. The second was to maybe recover what you stole and keep it for myself without your bosses any the wiser, convinced they’d lost it forever after failing to torture it out of Mary. That of course would require some cooperation on your part. Either you pay me to let you go, or if you aren’t cooperative enough quick enough you’ll pay me to kill you quick. The third and final reason, and it’s my favorite, is that this way you have some hope of getting away scot-free if you can kill me, free of any suspicion. If you kill me here no one else knows you have the money, and no one else will come looking for you. That false hope of killing me will pull you right into my arms. Right into my arms so I can twist your little head off.” The glee with which he said all this disturbed Garfield, but he was right. If Garfield ran away now it would be giving up a perfect chance to run away with the money with none of the Farelli Dynasty any the wiser. He’d be hunted to the ends of the earth. Much as he hated to admit it, he’d have to fight the freak, and kill him at that, even with as unlikely as it seemed that he’d accomplish anything in the attempt. So he stepped out with his hands above his head.

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He stepped out and shouted, “Alright. You caught me. I’ll give you the money, just please don’t hurt me,” . At this the blunt man chuckled his avalanche-y chuckle and gestured for Garfield to lead the way. As he went he kept his hands in the air, as if in compliance. Really, the purpose was anything but. He knew where the Farelli often wandered in this city. Where they liked to keep an eye on things. There were a few alleys which lead to drug labs and trafficking rings that the Farellis would rather stay quiet, alleys with cameras and the occasional patrol group. And he knew that a man with his hands in the air being paraded through one of these allies by a suspicious figure would prompt a response. And he was soon vindicated. As they turned a corner an Armored Patrol Carrier cut off the entrance onto the main street from the maze of alleys they were in. “Stop right there! We’re taking you in for questioning,”. Garfield knew the blunt man was a ruthless sort, a proud sort, so he also knew that he wouldn’t let anyone take his prize away from him. He was right.

The blunt man charged directly into the car, startling a spray of gunfire out of the men inside, and began tearing chunks out of it with his bare hands and, from what Garfield could see out of the corner of his eye as he fled from whence they’d come, with his teeth as well. Garfield didn’t get away unscathed though. As he fled he tripped over his still-healing ankle and, from what he could feel before he quickly scrambled back to his feet and kept running, shattered his fucking shoulder. What an embarrassment, to be so thoroughly fucked-up for what was sure to be months not because the blunt man or one of the thousands of stray bullets flying about clipped him, but because he fucking tripped. Despite Garfield’s embarrassing display the blunt man’s impossible savagery prompted the guards to turn their attention entirely onto him and away from Garfield’s clownery, directing a spray of hot lead directly at the impossible man’s face. This was the last direct view of the battle he’d arranged that Garfield got before ducking around a corner and stopping to gather his breath. Blasting out from behind him came the sounds of screaming and tearing metal, even tearing flesh, as nonstop gunfire shook the air. One scream. A second. A third. A fourth. And then it stopped.

Desperately counting in his head, Garfield tried to recall how many guards there had been. Six. There had been six. Peeking around the corner, Garfield was met with a glimpse of true carnage. The car was a twisted wreck, and it was drenched in the blood of two-thirds of the guards, either pummeled flat or messily torn in half. The remaining two were busy silently heaving their guts out amid the gore. And looming over it all, despite an incongruously short stature Garfield had never noticed in life, was the blunt man. Still like a statue. Surrounded by hundreds of bullets pancaked upon impacting his skin, and with hands so soaked in blood and gore it looked like he was wearing boxing gloves. And dripping down his cheek was blood. This wouldn’t be that noteworthy, considering the mess he’d just waded through, were it not for the source. It dripped from his empty eye socket, where a lucky stray bullet had caught him directly in the eye and plunged into his brain, killing him instantly and leaving his inhuman corpse standing tall like a statue. Garfield had done it. He’d lured the monster into a trap, and he was home free.

Garfield sat outside the office on a little bench that seemed designed to make those in it feel worthless and small. Every place he’d ever had a job interview seemed to have a similar make and model. He’d just blown through the last of the Farelli cash gambling, enough cash that it should have lasted him a lifetime. He tried to console himself by telling himself he was a modern-day hero, a real Robinhood, helping the poor by redistributing wealth throughout the local economy. The fact that he’s spent most of it at casinos owned by crime families and corporate overlords did a lot to undermine the sentiment, but Garfield figured it was the thought that counted. Now he needed to get a new job. He just hoped his new employers were as nice as the new town was, much nicer than the Farelli’s place had been. He wasn’t confident though. The Mellon Famiglia would probably be just as bad as the Farellis and the groups before them had been. He’d been in this business since he was thirteen, and every group he’d liberated funds from were very much akin to each other. It was part of why he targeted them in the first place. And it was only getting harder as he got older. He kept getting injured, and he didn’t heal as well as he used to, as his ankle and shoulder attested.