Fear Itself

League Plaza wasn’t a problem the next day. Nobody bothered us. Even against all orders, the security guards allowed us entrance into the main building. Most turned their heads and pretended they didn’t see us at all. They were content to turn a blind eye, even though many of us were hobbling our way inside. Maybe it was the fact that we were armed. Maybe the security guards were tired of the League. Maybe it all just chalked up to the fact that we had wiped out entire waves of militia just a day earlier and the streets were still stained red with blood.

Entry was simple. Once through the doors, Larson and Garrett held the employees at gunpoint, threatening to shoot every last one while I took jumped behind the security station and proceeded to dismantle it entirely. The guards didn’t have any problems letting me get to work when Avery, Dean, Cas, and Gabe pointed guns in their faces.

We climbed the stairs until we got to the fifth floor and proceeded as planned. Dean, Cas, and Gabe all went in first. As the door swung closed, all that was left was the sound of muffled threats and screaming. A few shots were fired—warning shots, from the sounds of it. At least I hoped they didn’t have to kill anyone already.

Avery stood at my side, waiting patiently, his eyes fixed on the tiny rectangular window stuck square in the center of the door. Smiling, I asked, “How do you feel?”

He looked at me inquisitively, gave me a quirked eyebrows but no words.

“You’re about to get revenge on the man who tried to kill you,” I elaborated. “Aren’t you excited, or nervous, or happy? Anything?”

“No,” he grumbled.

“Not even a little?”

“No,” he said again.

“Really?”

“Answer’s still no, Princess. That’s not changin’.”

I sighed a little, and before I could utter a word, Gabe pulled the door open for us. “In you go,” he ushered, and as a group, Avery, Larson, Garrett, Alex, Shane, and I marched in, guns in hands. We filed into the boardroom, where Cas and Dean already had the Board sitting still and silent around their table: a smooth, black rectangle resembling a touch screen tablet computer. There were members missing; some must have known. Maybe some were mourning the loss friends and loved ones. There were only nine of them here, out of fourteen. No matter. It would have to do.

We each stood behind one of the Board Members. I took my place behind my father. The barrels of our guns were pressed firmly into our respective targets’ heads. Cas threatened, “If any’a you try to get wise, you’re dead. You hear?” Nobody said a word. Nobody even made a noise, until one poor man opened his mouth to protest. It was Gabe’s target, Nicholas Elliot, and Gabe did not hesitate to lay a bullet in the man’s head. Blood splashed across the table and all over his younger sister’s face. Violet nearly shrieked, but she held her tongue and merely whimpered when she seemed to remember that Alex was standing behind her. She didn’t even move to wipe the blood off of her face. Her face tightened up like she simply tried to pretend it wasn’t there, like there weren’t tiny bits of her brother’s skull resting in her blonde hair.

“Cassidy,” Clint scowled from the head of the table, glaring up at Dean.

“Clint,” Dean returned rather nonchalantly.

“You’ll address me as Commander,” Clinton hissed. “You good-for-nothing rebel scum—“ In one motion, Avery grabbed Clint by the back of his neck and slammed his face into the table. His skull collided against it’s surface with a loud thud. Clint’s agonized pierced the air like a blade: pointed and sharp.

I winced and looked away. I couldn’t bare to watch as another thud sounded against the table. “You ain’t Commander for long,” Avery muttered. Thud. Somebody spat on the table, probably Clint spitting out blood. Thud. “Ain’t there somethin’ you wanna tell ‘em, Clint?” Avery pressed, taunting him.

“Get your hands off me, Plebeian,” Clint snarled.

Thud. “Not quite what I’m lookin’ for.” More spit. Another thud. “Somethin’ ‘bout your dear old dad, innit, Kennedy? Somethin’ you been tryin’ to cover up.”

“You’re deluded,” Clint insisted. “You don’t know anything about my father.”

“Think I do.” Thud. Clint groaned in pain. “You wanna tell ‘em?” Kennedy whispered something so quiet nobody could hear him. So quiet I opened my eyes to see his bloody face. His brown hair fell out of it’s usually perfect style to hang over his forehead, which was marked red from impact on the table. Red dripped over his lips from between his teeth. Specks of blood littered the table. “Louder, Kennedy,” Avery commanded, gripping the back of Clinton’s neck so hard that he grimaced. “So they can all hear what you did.”

“I killed him,” Clint laughed. Laughed like somebody told a hilarious joke, like he had heard something really funny. Blood oozed from his grin. “I killed him!” he exclaimed again, laughing harder, grinning wider, bleeding profusely from the mouth before his expression snapped into narrowed and focused rage, screaming, “I killed Conor Kennedy!”

“How dare you,” Violet snapped from the end of the table, no longer caring about the guns. Her blue eyes were wide but narrowed all at one: a look of pure betrayal. “We were friends—“

“I don’t have friends,” Clinton spat. “You’re all beneath me—you aren’t my friends.”

“Your father was right about you,” Dean laughed. Clint looked up at him, scowling crimson once more. “A failure. A complete and utter failure.”

“Couldn’t even get into the Navy without Conor’s help,” Faust chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. “Failed that too. Crashed your boat, didn’t you, Clint?”

“Shut up,” Clint growled. “I’m sick. They wouldn’t let me in. How is that my fault? Shut your mouths, all of you.”

“What will you do if we don’t?” Raleigh Kennedy asked, sneering at her own brother. “Looks like you’re in no position to threaten us. We’ve all got guns to our heads, Clint.”

“You let the Brotherhood win,” Dominic Kennedy sighed. He shook his head a little. “How disappointed he’d be in you.”

“I wasn’t trying to win his approval,” Clint huffed. “Why the hell do you think I killed him, you morons?”

Dominic shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe because you spent your whole life trying to live up to a man you could never be.”

Clinton’s face flushed, and his arms shook on the table. Spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth as his lips forced downward, scowling harder and deeper than he had before. “Shut up!” he screamed a fierce, guttural roar. “All of you! I’m better than my father ever was!”

“That’ll be enough,” Avery murmured, grabbing a fistful of Kennedy’s scalp and pulling his head backward. He pointed the tip of switchblade to Kennedy’s exposed throat. “Funny, ain’t it?” he chuckled under his breath. A simple pull of the blade was all it took for Clinton’s neck to spill open into a crimson waterfall. His black eyes faded under the lights as he croaked. When Avery let go of his head, Clint’s entire body slumped forward and fell against the table, dripping blood all over the carpet.

“Time to finish the job, gang,” Cas jested, and on his count, the group fired, all of them except for me. The rest of the board joined him to rest against the table, except for my father. He sat unwavering in his seat, alive: a choice I fought with Dean to make.

“Right then,” Dean piped up. “Giroux can take care of the bodies,” he said with a smirk aimed directly at my father. “We’ve got places to be, namely the Globe Theater. Gotta announce our hostile take-over,” he joked.

We left just as quickly and quietly as we’d entered. I didn’t even glance back at my father on the way out. He was lucky I let him live in the first place.