Chapter 54: Deadlock.
Vincent was no ordinary man.
Back when he was still on Earth, he spent much of his time watching documentaries about serial killers. He admired them to a certain extent, though never enough to imitate their craft.
Naturally, that made him antisocial. As the years passed, even his own family gradually began keeping their distance from him. Being alone never truly bothered Vincent, except on the days when the silence refused to stay silent. He often dreamed of killing people he had met, spoken to, or even admired.
He wasn’t insane, not yet, at least.
But everything changed the day hell descended upon the Earth.
A black nebulous gate appeared before him, and from its endless darkness, he swore he heard a whisper calling out to him. It wasn’t the same voice that occasionally echoed inside his head.
This one was far worse. It hated everything, it wanted everything to die, and somehow, It had chosen him to carry out that glorious purpose.
"You knew Naomi’s sister, Leslie?"
Damien was momentarily taken aback by Vincent’s question. He couldn’t understand why a man like Vincent would care about Leslie’s death, but he wanted nothing to do with this neatly dressed madman, so he answered indifferently.
"We went on the scouting mission together. We barely spoke throughout the journey."
Vincent hummed softly.
"What if I don’t believe you? What if I think you know more than you’re letting on? What if... I decided I wanted to make you talk? What then?"
Damien’s face remained completely expressionless.
"He knows nothing. Does he seriously think probing me like this will help him with whatever misguided scheme he’s plotting? He’s probably targeting Andrea... or perhaps Naomi herself. Either way, I don’t have the time or the energy to deal with him".
"Whatever, man. You can think whatever you want. It is your head after all."
Vincent stared directly into Damien’s icy blue eyes for several long moments before quietly releasing the handles of the wheelchair and taking a step back.
"Right. I can think whatever I want." His smile widened. "It wouldn’t change a thing... would it?"
Damien didn’t answer.
He merely snorted coldly before turning the wheelchair around, he was leaving. Then Vincent suddenly spoke again.
"Hmm... You killed Naomi’s sister, and probably her friend Paige as well. I imagine Naomi would enjoy taking something from you in return. Perhaps your manhood, you can never really tell with her. Or perhaps a few friends instead. That pretty little lass, Seris. So innocent, so pure. Then there’s Yuri. Naomi could probably deal with her in... let’s say... one move."
He paused deliberately.
"And of course there’s..."
"What do you want?". Damien’s voice turned ice cold as he spun the wheelchair back around to face Vincent.
The threat itself wasn’t what truly angered him.
"I can’t let this bastard go around spreading bullshit about me killing Leslie or Paige. He’s far too unpredictable. Should I just kill him and be done with it?".
...No.
If Vincent dies, Andrea gains far too much freedom. Besides, I’m not even certain I can kill him in my current condition".
Damien didn’t let the silence settle in, the best option now was just to deny.
"Vincent, threatening me won’t do you any good. You can’t prove I hurt anybody."
Vincent merely shrugged.
"What makes you think I want to prove anything?"
His smile remained perfectly composed.
"I think you’re guilty... therefore you’re guilty, I’m simply thinking whatever I want... Isn’t that right, Damien?"
A suffocating killing intent quietly spread between them. For the first time since meeting Vincent, Damien seriously considered killing him where he stood.
Then a thought crossed his mind, Vincent truly had no reason to care about Leslie, unless he was sleeping with her, which Damien was pretty he wasn’t, he followed him around doing his first few days at camp, Leslie definitely wasn’t one of his sluts.
"Who put you up to this?"
Damien narrowed his eyes.
"I never would’ve imagined the prideful Vincent taking orders from someone else like a dog... a neutered dog."
He watched Vincent carefully.
"Was it Andrea? No... she looks down on you far too much to waste her time ordering you around."
A faint grin appeared on Damien’s face.
"So it had to be Naomi."
"You became her dog... and she sent you here to bark at me after she failed to keep her baby sister alive."
Vincent froze.
For the briefest of moments, an unreadable expression crossed his face. Then, the whites of his eyes were devoured by absolute darkness.
His pupils vanished entirely, leaving behind two endless pools of black.
Damien frowned and instinctively tried to move, but his entire body had become completely motionless.
A tremendous pressure descended without warning, Damien couldn’t tell whether it was crushing him from the outside or forcing its way out of him from within.
Either way, every instinct screamed the same thing.
Death.
Almost automatically, thick black miasma erupted from every pore across Damien’s body, rapidly swallowing the wheelchair and spreading across the frozen ground.
Vincent paused for the briefest of moments, slightly surprised. Then he calmly stepped into the darkness.
Ignoring the miasma entirely, he grabbed Damien by the collar and pulled him close until only inches separated their faces.
"I don’t know where you found this confidence, Damien... But I have a habit of putting weaklings back in their place."
Damien couldn’t answer.
His eyeballs darted frantically from side to side while the rest of his body remained frozen.
Whoosh!
A grotesque claw suddenly burst from the black miasma, tearing toward Vincent’s head.
Vincent released Damien’s collar and slipped backward with effortless precision, the claw narrowly missing his face.
Without the slightest hesitation, Vincent swung his black walking stick.
The polished cane sliced straight through the miasma as though striking ordinary smoke.
It hit nothing. Instead, the silver hilt crashed squarely into Damien’s chest.
The impact hurled Damien and his wheelchair several feet across the snow before they crashed heavily onto the frozen ground together.
Damien felt sensation in his body again, but he couldn’t stand up, instead. He clutched his chest in pain.
"So this is what his ability Deadlock can do... Anyone else would’ve surely died from that pressure."