What fuckin’ now?
Ace sat on the familiar bed in the familiar Leadership House. In spite of the familiarity—it still felt foreign. Ace blamed that on the drugs. Beats then blamed the drugs on Lori. That was wrong. Lori wasn’t here to defend herself—Ace had seen to that. Personally. He had set her up and shot her down. Killing was supposed to take a piece of you—it was supposed to shatter your soul and tear up your insides. That wasn’t really true. Ace hadn’t really thought about Lori. He wasn't so torn up about the death of the short-time cheer captain.
Ace stopped thinking about the people he had killed before as soon as he killed somebody new. He put shit behind him. Sometimes he was surprised by how easily.
If his spirit was shattered Ace still found ways to feel like himself. He thought of and sang rap songs, because, y'know, of course he did. Beats tried to decipher wisdom within lyrics. Ace tried to predict the actions of others. Ace figured that eighty-five percent of the people left on the island weren’t much to worry about. Just regular kids. Nobody remained who could physically make him sweat. Only Blaise and Erika had killed more. Ace was battle tested. Ace was ready. Fighting to live, ready to die.
Eighty-five percent of the people left on the island weren’t much to worry about. Ten percent were give or take. The other five? In the Justin Greene category. Though that did Justin a disservice. Justin had been a unique case. He had been a monster all on his own.
His bag next to him on the mattress. The BR18 atop it. One pistol in his right pocket, one pistol in his left. The Wildey .45 stayed in his palm and Ace stared at the metal of it. In that same house Ivy had gotten beaten down in. In that same house he had kissed her for the first time. The place where he had begun his journey and the place where he had declared his war. It was a safe spot. A familiar place. The smart thing to do was wait. The only thing left to do was stay alive and make it to the end.
“I sit alone in my four-cornered room starin’ at hammers,” he whispered, “Waitin’ to go bananas…”