Neon is the Colour of Vengeance (Flappers and False Gods)

ALICE

Hugo felt like a ghost, consumed by misery, but he was almost there. Only two names remained on his list, and then he could finally rest. Choosing his next target had been tough; both betrayals stung, but one was predictable while the other had blindsided him.

He searched all night. He hunted. He lay in wait. He went to every place he could think of, but he couldn’t find her anywhere. He had found traces of her, however.

The words ‘HIS EYES WERE BEAUTIFUL BEFORE I PLUCKED THEM OUT’ were scrawled in red paint across the entrance to Charleston. A picture of Evan’s corpse posed on their bed was waiting for him on the bar at Nectar. Alice had handed in an envelope with his name on it. Hugo nearly lost it as he pulled out the picture. It was a grotesque, cruel, and morbid thing, just like his prey.

She was tormenting him, using him for sport. Playing a wicked game that she thought would ensure her survival, but in truth it was guaranteeing her death. There was nothing that could save her.

The pièce de résistance he found at Ward Eight. He’d slipped past Mary through the loading entrance and made his way to Steven’s room. He could smell it before he even opened the door. Blood.

Alice had painted quite the tableau. It was a recreation of what she had inflicted upon Evan on a smaller scale, but it was masterfully done. Everything from the heart on a pillow, to the bloody messages on the walls. Instead of a dumpster, Steven’s body was sprawled on the velvet couch. His eyes were gone, and his torso was mangled – she wasn’t as skilled at organ removal as Finch had been. It had happened a few hours if not a day ago; the maggots had already begun to fest on his flesh. The smell had Hugo clutching his mouth. He wondered how no one had noticed. Maybe she’d paid for the whole weekend. It should have worried him that the smell of decay wasn’t enough to arouse suspicions in the brothel, but he was long past caring.

Alice was an idiot if she thought this would reach him, if she thought that killing someone he had casually fucked would in any way shake him more than the death of the man he loved. It was a weak and desperate play, but still she escaped him.

The sun was starting to rise outside and looking as he did, still covered in his own blood in a torn suit, Hugo thought he would attract too much attention now.

He was tired. So damn tired. He needed it to be over.

The journey home was slow as he tried his best to keep out of sight. He had no idea when he had last slept or eaten, but it didn’t matter anymore. Those basic needs were lost on him now.

As if she had answered his pleas, when Hugo entered his apartment, she was there. Alice. Standing in the destruction she had wrought with a smile on her face. She seemed pleased with herself. In fact, she looked as if all her dreams had come true at once as she took in his diminished, hollowed form.

“Took you long enough. Did you like the gifts I left you?”

“Loved them,” Hugo said breathlessly. Rage and sorrow warred inside him both calling for her blood, but he knew if he wanted to kill Samuel next, he needed to be careful. Alice was more dangerous than anyone gave her credit for.

“Oh Hugo, you look awful. Are you missing someone?”

“I’m going to tear you apart.” He snarled but he didn’t move. “You will beg for death before the end.”

“Promises, promises.”

“You took everything from me.”

“You didn’t have anything in the first place. That’s the big lie. All we are to Samuel is property. Playthings. Soldiers, but not family. Not people.” It was the most straightforward she had ever been. “I used to hope you would protect me, like you used to protect Bobby, but I guess we’re long past that now. We missed our shot, killer.”

“You never did like to be told no.”

“No one ever listened when I said it.” She shrugged and moved to look out the huge windows. “We’re both victims of Samuel, just in different ways. He groomed us both. He was your dad, but he was never mine. Just like I was never your sister. I was always an outsider. Maligned. A sex toy and nothing more. I am what he made me, a pretty little princess with a heart of stone and you…you’re the perfect killer, or you were until you met?—”

“You don’t say his name,” Hugo hissed, clenching his fists.

She turned back with a smile. “He made you soft. Samuel might be a bastard, but it is because of him I know what I like and what I like is to cause pain.”

“God…we really are just broken little kids desperate for Daddy’s approval, aren’t we?”

“He’s not my father. I kill you and I’ll have his approval, I’ll finally be the favourite, finally be part of the inner circle, because, Hugo, my love, taking you out was the plan all along.”

“You should have just killed me, then we could have been spared all this.”

“I didn’t want to at first. I think I might have loved you once.” She looked him up and down as if trying to decide what emotions he elicited. “But I feel nothing for you now but hatred.”

“You don’t know the first thing about love.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“We had the same life. I don’t feel any sorrier for you than I do for myself. The fact we’re both victims of Sam won’t stop me from destroying you.”

“You really loved him, huh?”

“Love, not loved,” he corrected in a low growl.

“That must have been nice. I loved killing him, it made me feel alive. The memory got me off so many times in the last month. There is an ecstasy in pain that you’re not ready for, but I’ll show you…if you like.”

Hugo couldn’t hold back anymore. The anger, the betrayal, the crushing loss of the person who meant the world to him spurred him on. He ran to close the distance between them and realised he had made a mistake at once.

As soon as he passed the middle of the room, there was a flicker of light and then four walls of energy burst into life, trapping him in a tiny cage. He gently reached out to touch the orangish light and withdrew his hand as it shocked him. Alice had distracted him, kept him talking, kept him mad so he didn’t notice the four tiny devices she had placed in a square on the floor. He noticed them now.

“You like? It’s a thing Bobby was working on before you killed them. Better than rope and a chair, right?”

“You’re just delaying the inevitable. I will kill you.”

“G’head. Try.”

Hugo threw his shoulder into the barrier before him. The thin veil of light seemed insubstantial, but the shock was so powerful he nearly blacked out as he slumped to the ground.

“Kill me if that’s what you have planned, because I will get free and I will draw it out.”

“Don’t tease me.” She bit her lower lip with exaggerated flair.

Hugo got to his feet and paced the small enclosure, testing it gently. There had to be a way out and when he found it, he was going to eviscerate Alice. The thought had his blood rushing in his ears and his heart clattering against his ribs. He was going to get the revenge Evan deserved, and he craved.

“I started with words.”

“What?”

“With Evan. I started with words. I told him all about every single person you’d killed while you were together. I told him your favourite ways to kill and how much you enjoy it. He called me a monster, but we both know who the real monster is.”

“Shut up!” Hugo snarled. He pounded his fist against the light-cage and was rewarded with a painful jolt, but it was nothing to the aching void in his chest.

“Don’t worry, I did. That was just foreplay. I moved on to the fun stuff.”

“Stop.” He thought he wanted to know, but as he listens to her gleeful recollections it was stunningly clear how wrong he’d been. It was like being stabbed in the chest.

“I started basic.” She paced around the light-cage watching him like an animal at a Zoo. “Just the fingernails. He was so brave. Barely even cried out,” she picked at her own as she spoke.

“I will kill you!” Hugo roared. He hammered his fists against the thin barrier again entirely oblivious to the electricity that struck his body.

“You know what he said to me?” She ignored his shouts. “Hugo will come for me. Over and over and over again. He thought, he really thought, that you were going to burst in and save the day. I had to slice off some skin to get him to stop saying it?—”

“I will destroy you. I will tear you apart!”

“—but he always came back to it. Hugo will save me. It was touching, if you’re into that sort of thing. I got bored so, I went back to breaking his fingers.” She laughed. “Then he really started to scream.”

Hugo screamed. He had no words he just wanted to drown hers out. He punched and kicked at the barrier between them, and it flickered ever so slightly.

“Quiet down, you’re being rude. I’m not done telling my story,” she snapped.

“I will kill you.” It was a strangled whisper as tears soaked his face.

“I was trying to get him to say that he didn’t love you, but he wouldn’t. So, I cut him and sliced him and beat him and burned him—that one was fun—but still nothing. He just wouldn’t say it. Then I realised how beautiful he was to you, so I carved up his pretty face, but I think you saw that when you found him. There isn’t a plastic surgeon in the world that could’ve fixed that mess.” Her glee was nauseating.

Hugo let out a bellow that was more of a howl. He couldn’t take it anymore.

“Please stop. Please.”

“This is fun. Who knew words could hurt so much? I’ve been wasting my time with steel. Well, after I’d cut him up, I remembered, it was his eyes you loved so I gouged one out with my thumb. You should have heard the noise he made. I’ve never heard anything like it. I didn’t take the other one though, not until after he was dead, so he got to watch as I crushed it under my heel. If you were wondering what that goopy little patch on your carpet is…now you know.”

Hugo crumpled to the ground in a heap, all fight left his body. He could barely breathe between wracking sobs. He could picture everything she had done to Evan and he knew it was his fault. It was all his fault.

“Now you’re just being dramatic. Anyway, he was in really bad shape, so I thought I’d end things. I wanted to see how loudly he would scream if I cut out his heart. I did it slowly and he knew what was happening to him, but I couldn’t get through the breastbone. He died while I was still trying. Doesn’t matter, Finch managed it for me.”

Hugo didn’t move, he didn’t sit up, he didn’t look at her, he just cried. He had thought losing Evan was the worst feeling in the world, but he was wrong. Knowing how much Evan had suffered for him was so much worse. Alice had finally succeeded in finding a new hell for Hugo. He wondered absently how something so painful could be non-fatal, but his heart beat on regardless.

“Do you want to know what his last words were?”

Hugo stilled. Even his shaking stopped.

“Tell me,” Hugo pleaded with red eyes.

Alice laughed. “I didn’t know you were so broken.”

Hugo rose to his feet and attacked the barrier. He ignored the pain that shot through him, it was nothing to the turmoil within. Again and again, he kicked and punched at the barrier all the while Alice laughed. The barrier flickered and her smile faltered. Hugo continued his onslaught, and the barrier cracked and began to schism, almost like glass. With burned hands, Hugo pressed his full weight against the veil of light, and it started to bend and bow.

Alice stepped back, fear clouding her triumphant expression.

With one final push, the forcefield shattered and Hugo was free. He dove at Alice, bowling her over and clambering on top of her where she fell on the hard wooden floor. She tried to buck him off, but he was far too strong for her. Alice’s deadly skill was not in fighting, it was with trickery; she had no chance against Hugo.

He ran his hand up her leg, searching under her dress near the knee, and quickly found what he was looking for: her knife. She screamed and clawed at him as he pulled it from the sheath. He raised it high in the air with one hand as the other continued to hold Alice in place. Her eyes went wide as she realised what was about to happen.

Alice screamed in pain as Hugo thrust the knife into her shoulder just below the collar bone, pinning her down as the blade went all the way through her to lodge in the wood below.

“What did he say? What were his words?”

She replied by spitting in his face.

Hugo pulled his own knife from his jacket. The one Alice had used to torture and kill Evan and the one he used to take his revenge.

“I will do everything you did to him and worse. Tell me what he said.” A sort of madness had overtaken Hugo, the kind that allowed him to commit unspeakable acts.

“I’ll take it to my grave,” she snarled.

“But not anytime soon.”

Hugo grabbed her hand and forced it flat against the floor. “We’ve moved past words, it was fingers next, right?”

Before Alice could reply, Hugo slammed the long sharp edge of the blade over her outstretched fingers, severing them below the second knuckle. Alice let out a shriek that turned into a sob of her own.

“What did he say!?”

“Do whatever you want to me. His words are mine and mine alone.” She grinned through the agony.

“Fine. We’ve already covered beating, so I guess we’re onto burning.”

Hugo quickly looked around and spotted a pulse weapon sitting on what was left of coffee table. It was Alice’s. He grabbed it and fired at the couch over and over until the muzzle glowed a dark orange then he pressed the red-hot metal to her neck. She cried and fought him, but he didn’t relent.

Real tears streaked her face, but she didn’t speak.

“Tell me what he said.”

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Her voice was rough and ragged. “Hurting instead of being hurt.”

“I’ll start on your face next.” He pressed the cold blade threateningly to her cheek. “There is no world where you leave here alive, but there is one where the pain stops. Tell me what he said.”

“Good or bad, it will haunt you.”

“I don’t plan on being around that long.”

“I could lie.”

“I’d know and then we’d be back to carving.”

“Promise you’ll kill me?”

“I promise I’ll set you free.”

They stared at each other long and hard and then finally something settled between them. Understanding.

“He was worth the pain. Those were his last words. He whispered it as I tore into his chest. He was worth the pain.”

Hugo stifled a cry; he leant forward, his forehead touching Alice’s. “Thank you.”

“No one has ever loved me like that,” she whispered. She looked so innocent for a moment and Hugo got a glimpse of the woman she could have been without him and without Samuel and all the darkness that came with them.

“And now no one ever will.”

He carefully placed the knife under her ribcage and slowly drove it up into her chest. The cold metal robbed her of breath. She didn’t flinch or cry or seem to feel any pain. She just smiled faintly and whispered, “It was fun while it lasted.”

Hugo withdrew the blade as the light left her eyes. He got to his feet and staggered away from the mess he’d made. He let out a roar of anguish mixed with triumph. It rattled the windows. Dropping back to his knees, he crawled the distance back to Alice and dipped the tip of his finger in the blood on her chest. He used it to scratch her name off the list.

Eight down, one to go.