#e.self para

and in the back of his mind, he recalls also dull ache in the back of his skull-- a sort of pulling apart of the flesh that sits there, and a familiar sensation of blood on his fingers. a sound of complete horror that wasn’t his own-- in fact, he doesn’t recall saying anything at all as smaller, thinner fingers than his own palpated and recoiled.

You just looked at me, her voice said, you just looked at me and you didn’t say anything. You just looked at me like you were dead.

before he speaks, eli brushes a hand against the back of his head, feeling the ridges of a scar at the crown of his head that will perhaps never fade.

“As you all know by now, I don’t often enact physical punishments on my employees. I don’t think it’s an effective way to go about things unless absolutely necessary, and thus-- I don’t.” the figure knelt in front of him is oddly despondent-- or perhaps he’s just grown tired from the stress of rope pulling his wrists back tightly to his ankles. the rounded angle of his chest, puffed out no doubt painfully, must be exhausting. “But on a rare occasion, my philosophy fails me."

eli’s hands are clasped behind his back and nestled into his left palm is a small, smooth object. upon further inspection, one would find an oblong handle decorated with white marbling. “I set these rules to keep you all safe. And when I see someone breaking these rules, I don’t simply view it as a failure of that person. I view it as a failure of my own, as well.”

“And if I were to allow someone to be a danger in this place that I’ve asked you all to call home, I would be failing every one of you every day.” leather gloved fingers unclasp and one hand rests on mathias attano’s shoulder. “Yesterday, it came to my attention that one of my men-- a boyevik, a trusted rank among us-- stabbed Igor Vasile through the hand, by his own admission, for no reason above mild annoyance. Is that right, Mathias?”

the yes is feeble.

“In return, two things will happen. First,” his other hand lifts to hold up one finger, the other four securing the object to his palm. “Mathias will be stripped of his rank. He’ll be among the Shestyorka and will be treated as such. This is the lowest rank that a man can fall to before he is excommunicated.”

“Secondly,” another finger raises and the object still stays firm, though one may be able to discern the distinct appearance of a hilt towards the top of it now, “Mathias will have to sacrifice a part of himself in order to account for the damage he’s done to Igor. If he can’t respect the words of the family he’s sworn to protect, then I don’t see it fit that his words should be respected.” 

“I’m going to cut his tongue out.” he adjusts his grip and a click cues the release of the switchblade. mathias doesn’t move underneath his other hand, but eli vaguely registers a quiet i’m sorry and a promise of loyalty-- though he doesn’t respond. his fingers clasp around mathias’ jaw, thumb and middle finger pressing at either side to force it open. 

he reaches between mathias’ parted lips, brushing against his teeth along the way to grasp at the writhing muscle. even through his gloves, eli can feel how dry mathias’ mouth is with anticipation. the cut is quick and easy-- like butter enriched with tough tendons. the leather soaks up the deep red blood and for a moment, so much of it spills out over the cusp of orange stained teeth that eli believes he’s cut too deeply into the floor of mathias’ mouth. a cold sweat drags down the length of his back in a split second instance of true fear.

and yet when he sees a yarn-thick vein holding the mound of flesh firm, he wonders how his audience would react if he kept cutting deeper and deeper until the traitor was left with nothing but a set of top teeth and a gaping hole for a throat.

with one final pulling apart of flesh, eli pulls the appendage away. his eyes catch mathias’-- empty in the dim, basement light. 

he doesn’t attempt to say anything.

and it feels so silly to ask himself something so obvious. he looks down at his hands, long fingers splayed out in every which-way, the tips of his nails ragged and wavy with the remnant memories of teeth baring down in a moment of stress. the veins encompassing tendons have begun to present themselves more and more prominently, spider-webbing up to those fingers and those nails-- eli thinks, sometimes, that they look like the roots of tree, going nowhere.

perhaps it’s the glass of scotch that’s got him so... out of his head as he says-- so mindless, so distracted, so all of those other words that he repeats to himself not in his own voice, but the voice of a man who, ironically, isn’t much older than eli is now. in the past, it’s always been the voice of an old man, an age so far away that a younger vogel couldn’t possible consider it, nor relate to the slight gravely tone that came along with years of screaming.

my dad’s like a drill sergeant the kids at school would say. and eli, a frail boy, smaller and more feminine than your average ( that’s that word the old man’s voice would always boom ), with no more than whatever amount of hair a clipper guard, worn well from use and marked zero, would allow laughed every time.

there was a moment, a memory that always burrowed itself just next to the question, that surfaced from time to time, maneuvering similarly to the words that eli had just uttered to himself, of a man sat in a chair-- his chair-- a big leather thing with comically large, plushy armrests and big handle on the side that would unleash the springs of the fold-out leg rest. the sound was so distinct that the childlike eli--that smaller than your average eli-- could hear from across the room. it signaled dad is asleep.

and it was only twenty short minutes after that creak of a sound echoed its way through the old, mobile home that that younger eli-- that more feminine than your average eli-- tip toed his way through the living room and to the kitchen. his sweet tooth, an unstoppable thing, whispered to him about a plate of cookies left untouched by a woman with a sweet, but sad sort of face. tired, that younger eli always thought.

it was only on his way back past the sleeping figure in the comically large chair with its comically plushy armrests that he heard the question uttered for the first time:

“Are you even human anymore?” and they were spat out with a vehemence unmatched by angry teachers, by sunday school assistants, by a mother so angry at her child that she reached out to grip him hard by the back of his neck--

and that younger eli-- that frail eli-- turned to face a man slumped in his chair, lit only by a dim TV so old that it seemed to belong in a museum, and held his tongue when the question rose to his mind:

are you?

eli’s father was thirty-seven that day.

There is no do no harm equivalent for the police force-- at least not one respected by any man in blue. It’s a dog eat dog world out there and Eli has always preferred being the leader of the pack to the man getting the scraps. So what if a few Fausts and O’Sheas get thrown to the pack in the process? In truth, Eli gets a bit of a thrill in the pit of his stomach whenever he sees one of their names pop up in the recently deceased column. It’s a delight. Scum ridding itself of other scum and at no expense to the city? What more could a chief ask for. So, if a little sacreligious imagery is the way to get him one step closer to eviscerating that scum once and for all, he’ll be smiling while the hammer thuds against the nails.

He stands dead center in the basement, surrounded by sardine-like Vasiles, new recruits, and whatever category Mikhail can squeeze into, Eli realizes that this moment would only be sweeter with one addition: Dimitri. With what little time the man spends at home, it’s expected, but the pang of disappointment still burrows itself deep, pressing against the outer layer of the void that’s still slowly welling like a bubble in the chief’s abdomen. This is true excitement, threatened. Eli shoves the feeling down with a clearing of his throat. Hands rest firmly on his hips, veins prominent on his forearms, knuckles white with a tense grip. 

“Your father put me in charge for a reason, but---” his voice is firm, towing that line of aggression with the utmost care, “---I understand. I’m an outsider. I haven’t done anything to earn your respect.” Besides, of course, shield the family from the truth of the law for the last four years. Risked his life, devoted his time, done everything he could possibly do to benefit them. That’s all. Nothing special. Vogel isn’t close enough to Vasile, he supposes. When he speaks again, his tone has lifted, lightened, like a man at a podium detailing his journey to Christ. “I realized last night that I never had a proper initiation ceremony and I thought what better place to go through with it than right here?.” 

It’s with these words that he reaches out a hand to the night’s entertainment: a woman, maybe twenty-five, wrists cuffed to a wide, metal support beam. Her knees are pulled up as far as they can be, though her torso is forced to adhere uncomfortably to the cold metal. The concrete floor does nothing to help the shiver running up and down her spine. If Eli looks closely, he might be able to see a little puff of her breath every time her trembling body allows her one. And across from her, a large crucifix lying on the floor-- but there’s something odd about it.

“This is Trinity Green. I don’t think it can get much more Irish than this one.” It’s a strange attempt at a joke, “She’s been with the O’Sheas for awhile now. If my files are accurate--they are--about six years. She’s even killed a cop or two in her time.” 

The quiet whine that emits from her is entirely ignored.

“When I found Trinity, I asked her something. I asked her if she’d ever heard of old Saint Peter.” If he had a bible, this would be the moment in which he lovingly turned the pages to a fitting verse and recited it, “I was hoping, as a Catholic, that she would be able to tell me the story of how he died, but--” shoulders shrug as he watches her, wondering somewhere in the back of his mind if he would be this bold were her name Juliet and her eyes that beautiful hazel, “I guess over in the O’Shea camp, they don’t teach the good word anymore. I guess I’ll have to step in as Priest until they find a replacement for that old church of theirs.” 

He’s lucky the basement boasts high ceilings just like the floors above, and even more so that the surrounding property is so large that no neighbor could possibly hear the commotion. She’s begun that desperate, low sort of whine that animals get when they know they’re dying. It’s a sound of acceptance, of some innate knowledge that fate is catching up to them. Like a cat on its ninth life, Trinity knows there is no saving grace in the godforsaken Vasile home. The thing about this crucifix, Trinity can see out of the corner of her eye, is that it’s inverted. 

“Lev, if you’ll do the honors of holding her down.” As he speaks, Eli kneels down to unlock the handcuffs, allowing the girl mobility for only a moment as deftly tosses her body over, pulling her wrists up behind her back. The boy-- one of the few that Eli feels he can sink any semblance of trust into, at this point-- is snappy about it, holding the girl down as she thrashes weakly. It’s amazing what a few valium will do to control an animal not typically so easily subdued. Call it dirty, but Eli calls it smart. “Lay her down.”

It’s when he reaches into his pocket, feeling the long nails, seeing the girl laid down against the wooden beams, that it all becomes real for the chief. Once again, he imagines Juliet’s eyes, the way she’ll look when she inevitably finds this out. When she wanders into his office with such genuine sadness in her eyes, informing him that yet another crucifixion has been discovered. He wonders how long she’ll believe his empty words. She’s a smart one, after all, maybe even smarter than him when it comes down to it. Or maybe mercy will fall, and she’ll be murdered before every grain of justice left in the city slides between her fingers, like sand at the beach. That oceanic massive void has begun to climb its way into the beginnings of his throat, clamping hard against his windpipe. There is a light glaze of red over the whites of his eyes, just enough for Lev to see it when Eli leans down. The hammer, held firmly in his fingers, is now slick with sweat. 

“You see,” he holds her left hand down with his knee, though there is a new determination in her eyes and a limpness to her limbs. He’s seen it before. Soldiers don’t like to die crying. The nail hovers over her palm until Eli manages to center it, hammer resting atop it as he prepares his swing. “Old Saint Peter was sentenced to death, just like Trinity here.” 

The hammer goes up.

And when it falls, Trinity betrays herself. Her body convulses, chest pushing up off of the beam in one jolt. That low growl emits from the depths of her chest again.

“Peter said, I don’t feel worthy of dying like Jesus died.” Another fall, another metallic clang in the air as the nail is dug deeper into the wood. The rhythm soon follows, controlled like the seconds of a clock, ticking down until that overwhelmingly loud gong that strikes midnight. “Peter said, God’s done all of this amazing stuff, and what have I done?” The right hand follows suit, a new trickle of blood dripping in tandem with each strike. It takes ten in all to dig that deep into the beam, and an extra tap from Eli for good measure follows in a gesture so airy that it almost seems joking. It’s only when he kneels down beside her long, pale legs that she begins to thrash once more. His hands, now adorned with a tremble of their own, grip her ankles tightly, crossing one over the other so that her feet stack. With another gesture, Lev quickly takes his place holding her down, “So, Peter said…”

And he swears, in this moment, that if Juliet were in this girl’s place… he would do the exact same thing to her. 

“...Crucify me upside down.” The nail sinks through flesh with shocking ease, pinning her feet together. The whine has turned into a moan, which is quickly transitioning into a lazy scream. He’s heard the scream before. 

Soldiers don’t like to die crying.  But they always do.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

It only takes another minute of air thickened by the agonized wailing of the girl before Eli drops the hammer to the floor. It was in his childhood church that he saw his first stained glass window. It was a daunting thing, of poor Jesus dragging the cross that would soon be his fate on his back. It’s when he feels the splintering wood digging into the flesh of his own back that he begins to realize that, perhaps, this is a work of art in his own right. A man sacrificing his own morality for the greater good, bearing a cross on his back adorned with a victim of a city riddled with sin.