SCALPEL LIPSTICK GEL ACTION CAMERA LIGHTS VIOLENCE IN YOUR HEART MEMORIES OF LOVE

[Applesintime]

His hands were shaking, clutching a wooden board with a few cracks, and a lot of blood on the hitting end of it. Holy shit. He had done it.

He had killed a player.

((Anthony Golden continued from It Means Everything))

Of course he had been listening in on Pippi and Luanne's conversation. He hadn't been meaning to, strictly speaking, but that's just what happens when you get stuck in the loo because there are two people outside and you don't wanna go out because you know, they might bloody kill you! And he heard some very interesting things in there, too. Things about Mateo Ormeño's death at the hands of Pippi.

Ben had told him that Pippi had done something, and of course he suspected that she was a player, but it stung just a little to hear that it was true. He had fucking trusted her last night, told her his plans that he would kill killers and get justice. And she had done it, listened to him, encouraged his talk of Characters and righteous justice, all while knowing that she had fucking murdered someone. Like a snake in the garden. He knew then, that he had to kill her, before she murdered more people. She was a player, a killer, and she couldn't be allowed to live. Fortunately, she seemed to feel the same way. She felt that she had to pay for what she did, and he would oblige.

So, Anthony stepped out when Luanne left, and asked her. Why? Why? Why had she killed him, why had she murdered him? Why did she lie to him so fucking brazenly, acting all sympathetic to his player hunting ideology when she was a player herself? And then she fucking ad hominemed him, asking him if he was doing this for himself of the world, implying he was just doing it as a way to play without sacrificing his morals, which was entirely fucking wrong. She played herself down, she played himself up as a big fucking villain, all the works of someone who knew their time was up and was desperately trying to stall. He argued back, of course - it was the right thing to do, to kill a killer. He was doing it for the world. She said he was falling into his Character, she was wrong. She told him he had bigger targets to go after? Well, there was one right in front of him. You don't just ignore the appetiser because there's a big meal maybe coming your way soon, right?

And then, she brought up Beau. Why kill him if you're not playing, she asked? And then red filled his eyes and his mind and his arms and he swung the board at her head and she stumbled and fell back against the counter and he hit her again and again and again andagainandagainandagainandagainandagain and again until her head cracked like an egg and her shrieks and gurgles ceased and she was dead and he had avenged Mateo Ormeño and she wouldn't kill anyone ever again

Looking down at his handiwork, he couldn't say he particularly felt anything at the sight of Pippi, blood streaming from her nose, ears, mouth and that part of her head where he had caved it in. To be honest, he felt a sort of satisfaction, the way one might when looking at a collapsed building that they blew up or a particularly good match of Battlegrounds where you got a few kills.

SB03: PINEAPPLE "PIPPI" BLOODWORTH - DECEASED

Well, no matter how he felt about it, what's done was done. He couldn't exactly unfracture her skull after all.

"Fuck." Anthony said to nobody in particular. He had no bag of hers to loot, as she had given it to Luanne. Maybe he could, like, chase her up for it, but at this moment, he needed to process this before he could do anything else. Two kills in what, maybe 6, 7, 8 hours? Beau Lively and Pippi Bloodworth. Two lives taken. One with the shiv, one with the board. His hands were even more bloodstained. Well, not just his hands - there were flecks of blood on his shirt, his shorts, quite a lot on his shoes. He really needed to change. But that was for later. He had one killer down, he needed more. He couldn't wait. Getting down on one knee, Anthony carefully avoided the pool of blood that was beginning to form, and reached up to Pippi's collar, carefully undoing the bandana tied around it. It was a little bloodstained - the sound of Pippi's blood, less crimson than Beau's, dribbling down from the caved in part of her head was going to haunt him. But that didn't matter. He had another bandana. He could blend in with more people. Find more killers, sneak in and end them.

He nearly left her like that. Sitting there with her head caved in. But he wasn't like whoever had left Abel there. No, he had morals. So, gingerly lifting her up, at first trying to avoid the bloodstains on her clothes and then abandoning the pretense that he wouldn't get dirty altogether, he carried her to the outside of the shop boat, to the jetty. There was still a hole there, where Anthony had ripped the wooden plank from two days ago. And now the first victim of that wooden plank was to rest where he had ripped it from. It was a bookend. Oddly fitting.

"I'm no expert at funerals. Or speaking, really. But, uhm... Fuck, I dunno what I'm going to say. But... we never really hung out, Pippi and I. We ran in different ends. But I- she wouldn't have done this if not for this game. She was to become her Character, because she played. But I put an end to that. She's Pippi Bloodworth. And maybe she's not on the same level as Fisk or Seo-yun, but that's why I'm affording her this small act of respect. She wasn't a full player, but she could have become one. Perhaps she'll redeem herself in the eyes of God. May you rest in peace, I guess." He gently dropped her corpse into the water, giving her leg a gentle little push. For a little, a few dozen seconds, she floated, and then slowly sunk into the depths of the ocean. The Vikings liked burial at sea, didn't they? Or was it the boat fire? The pyres? Either way, it was a sort of burial. A small iota of respect.

Watching where her corpse had sunk, Anthony sighed. He wasn't sure how to feel. She had been a classmate, but now she was a carcass. Mateo was a carcass. A lot of people were a carcass. The sun bore into him, reminding that God, Beau, Giselle, they were all watching. Would they approve? Surely they would.

It was justice, after all.

((Anthony Golden continued in Go for Broke))