Hyeonverse: Kissed By Darkness

Bam! Bam!

Her Glock sang louder.

STARRY EYED

I always go back to that kid.

MY child, born from the only woman I have ever loved. She will be telling him about the waste my life was. God, I fucked up so badly.

I wish Cormac had snapped my neck in those woods when he had the chance, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. I guess that's why he needed VALERIA to take the shot on that balcony. I'm still one of his boys. Even after I torched his whole life.

I am so sorry.

HOW do I even begin to fix all my fuck ups? PETTIFORD? How do I give that prick back the twenty years I stole from him? Or BRICE 's eye? How do I heal the chasm that I helped create between Cormac and his kids?

I'm powerless, the world has moved on without me.

The days bleed into months, into seasons, and into years while I float here in the black. On occasion, I'll catch glimpses, smells, and sounds from the land of the living, but most of the time it's just me and the void.

I used to be SO afraid of the dark. Of being forgotten, buried and left behind, all alone. Now? This is not so bad.

Caspian is here all the time, the boy is HOPELESS.

I spend HOURS teaching him the difference between an excellent pair of shoes and a mere great one, you want the one made out of full grain leather. With experience, you'll learn to recognize thick, genuine vellum.

My knowledge is WASTED on this kid, he just sits there starry eyed, smiling and nodding at me. Forever young.

Still, he's a great sounding board. I can bounce my ideas off him, PLAN how I'm gonna unfuck all the people I ruined. I've gotta do right by them, my kid is looking up to me now.

"Come with me, and you'll see

In a world of pure imagination."

Carl's wife is humming in the next room again.

I LOVE Carl, my neighbor here in the Coma Ward. He's quiet like me. Doesn't bother, doesn't talk much. Heh.

I love Carl's WIFE even more, she always has such juicy stories.

Carl is a good old fashioned cuck, he loves to SHARE and his wife plays along because she adores him.

A while back, she realized Carl's PLUMBING still works, so she started cooking up the raunchiest stories.

Sadly for her, even in his sleep Carl can read her like a book and his joystick doesn't react to FICTION.

No, she has to go out and actually ride some sweaty stevedores to get her comatose cuck's cock crowing. Now THAT'S true love.

I HAD that once and I let it slip right through my fingers, like an utter imbecile.

Amber. She never visits me. I love you, my ginger Tinker Bell.

IRINA came by once.

"Hercule is dead," she whispered to my ear. "The idiot didn't know the Stervyatnik operated in PAIRS. While he was busy blackmailing me, my former teammate tracked HIM down."

One more friend I failed. A BROTHER I never knew I had.

She loomed over me holding a pillow to my face, trying to decide if she wanted me in her nightmares.

I wonder if VALERIA has a nightmare troupe of her own, haunting her sleepless nights. I'm pretty sure CORMAC has and I'm in it.

I am so sorry. I need to FIX my fuckups. My boy, he needs to know his Dad wasn't a complete monster. JUNIOR managed to get out of the life, he torched Song's whole business in the process. He did it for Amber and I can do it too, for my boy.

Yes, one day I WILL be with my friends again. We will walk together down Roosevelt Park, laughing and joking. No, not Roosevelt Park. I'll have to rethink that bit. That's one shit ass place for our reunion.

You know what's going to be my favorite part?

Watching Valeria's Ice Queen mask melt into tears of joy while Cormac tries to process WHAT just happened. THAT is going to be so funny!

Will my boy be there?

I'm not sure, Caspian and I haven't gotten to that part yet.

I have to do this JUST right, no room for screw ups!

My Bratva money is still out there in Switzerland. It will come in handy. And I will need to get out of this bed, of course.

Sometimes I hear doctors. It sounds like Brooklyn by the way everybody TAWKS.

They don't seem hopeful I will ever wake up, but they're wrong. Oh, SO very wrong!

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Ask me how I know.