"Oh my fucking God, you asshole. You shitheel." I pressed my knuckles to my eyes in total exasperation. Tracy was full-on laughing- she hadn't left after I went to work. Carl actually had the shame to look embarrassed.

  I had come home from work and immediately tried out Danielle's suggestion. I first asked Carl if he had any money. Received a dismissive response. Touched my Implement and queried again. He admitted he had almost three grand saved up. When I asked why he groaned a bit and confessed that it was for a sex doll. Custom-made, of one of the Genshin girls he was so fond of doodling. I was incredibly incensed.

  "I've covered how many fucking bills so you can save up for this shit?” I clenched my fists. Unclenched them. I felt so much fire at my collar, nervous electricity in my hands. Rage reddened my entire being. My breathing was short and ragged, clipped with the fury I felt. Tracy halted her laughter down to fitful giggles, eying me with almost the same amount of mirth. I probably looked almost comical with how I was feeling. “I have sacrificed so fucking much. So much so I could cover all these bills. That’s it, we’re going to get some karmic retribution, starting now.”

  I gripped my Implement in a white knuckle grip, staring into Carl’s eyes. “You are going to get a job. You are going to make so much money. When you aren’t working a job, you’re going to be drawing. You will draw until your hands hurt. You are going to sell these. There will be no passion or joy in this- it’s a business transaction, not a hobby. You are going to pull your weight here, at long last.”

  Carl quailed. But he nodded. “I can try, Jeremy. I don’t have a resume.”

  “Trust me, retail doesn’t care,” I said, with a satisfied relish.

  Tracy guffawed again. “Oh God, this is gonna be hilarious.”

  “Oh and Carl, put that sex doll back in the cart, that money is going to the apartment fund.” I still wanted to strangle him, but that wouldn’t be productive. “As for you, Tracy, why the Hell are you still here?” Why would she be hanging around? Surely Carl wasn’t that good of company.

  “I don’t want to risk it,” Tracy said, simply.

  “Risk what?”

  “You summoning the woman and me missing it! Not gonna let you slip one past me.” Tracy leaned back in satisfaction.

  “And if I spoke to her at work?”

  “Nuh uh, you gotta kill a bunny.” Her smug face did not alter an iota.

  “Or any other animal,” I said. “I don’t know where I’m going to find a critter, and I really don’t know if I can do it.”

  “Pet shop?” Carl suggested.

  “Nope, gotta be a wild animal. Or a long protracted hurtful betrayal of some kind.”

  “Like forcing me to get a job and give you all my savings?” Carl asked with some bitterness.

  “You fuck, do you want me to command you to not whine?” I ground my teeth.

  “Whoa man, no no. I’ll do whatever, this already sucks enough.” Carl waved his hands in fending gestures. I felt some small measure of satisfaction seeing him so flustered.

  "I think Carl's on the right track," Tracy ventured. "You don’t seem into killing a squirrel or whatever. Do you have any close relationships you don’t mind cutting ties with?”

  “Most of my friends stopped keeping in touch after I left. All I have are Matt and Leon at work, and my family.” Wow, I felt sad and pathetic saying that.

  “Ouch,” Tracy said. “Well, how are things with your family?”

  “Well my dad’s dead for starters. Cancer from his job. My mom used to be super involved in the class action suit for it, and making sure the company suffered, but she kinda stopped after she met Daryl. Guess she moved on from doing that. My sister spends all day on TikTok or something. I barely know her husband- he spends most of his time networking, so someone who rings up groceries for a living isn’t really in his ‘social sphere.’ I’ve got aunts and uncles but I was never very close with them, and my dad’s side of the family has been cold since Daryl came into my mom’s life.”

  “Yikes dude, no wonder you go around stabbing people,” Carl added, thoroughly unhelpful.

  “So it sounds like you aren’t close with any of them,” Tracy said, disappointed.

  “Well my family kees in contact all the time. They send me updates on where they are and what they’re doing. Sister talks to me sometimes. It’s not nothing.” It sounded pathetic on the way out.

  “Well maybe it would still work,” Tracy suggested. “Who’s closer, your mom or your sister?”

  “Mom, for sure. She still checks in almost daily. Lizzie, my sister, is good about calling me a few times a year or just chatting on messenger but she’s too busy creating usually.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “So just, I dunno, break it off with her. I don’t know if it would bother you that much.” Tracy shrugged.

  “For real dude,” Carl added. “All she does is post her little Victorian bed and breakfasts at you. She just brags at you, dude. Just break it off. Does that do it?”

  “It had to be a painful betrayal, not a facebook beef. It’d need to be something substantial.” I shrugged. “I’m not sure if it would even feel that way. It’d have to hurt her.”

  “Beat her up then or something dude, I don’t know.” Carl went back to playing Genshin.

  I rolled my eyes. “Real useful, Carl. Listen, Tracy, go home. Eat something. Change your clothes. I'll make sure Danielle meets you."

  Tracy scowled. "Promise?"

  “Yeah, hold on.” I pulled out the Implement. “I swear on this dumb Hell dagger that when I next talk to Danielle, you'll be there."

  The Implement immediately began to grow hot. The black metal took on a reddish tinge, brighter along the edge. I tried to fling it away but my hand would not open. I was worried it would burn my hand but it finally ceased heating and slowly began to cool. It hadn't taken that long but it felt like hours had passed, draining me. I dropped the Implement from nerveless fingers.

  "Holy fuck bro," Tracy breathed in awe.

  "Shit dude, are you a wizard?" Carl gawked from the couch.

  “I uhh… wasn’t expecting that.” Or maybe I was. It was hard to say, I certainly had no reason to use the Implement like that. “In uhh… any case, does that assure you that I mean it?”

  Tracy nodded, a bit pale. In short order she had gathered her things and departed, and the apartment felt a little more normal, back to status quo.

  “Dude, you suck,” Carl griped from the couch.

  “Ugh, what?”

  “Cute girl wants to do anything for a knife like that, and you don’t get some kind of blowie or something out of it. Dude, she let me fuck her, you think she wouldn’t give it up for you?” Carl gave the greasiest smirk as he turned back to his gaming. “The blanket still smells like her,” he added.

  “Dude, what the fuck. You could not sound sleazier right now. . You shouldn't be gaming anyhow. You're supposed to get started on drawing.” I waved in a dismissive gesture at Carl and stomped off to my room. “Have fun at work!” I called with faux cheer as I went into my room.

  I looked at my Facebook. My mom was still staying in the same B&B, showing some large wet flakes falling in a video as well as pictures of the hearty stew she was eating with Daryl.

  Just below that was a video from the Justice for Rhea page my mom invited me to. It was a group for those who lost friends or family from the same exposures that gave my dad cancer. Rhea was the first person to have her cancer linked to that plant, but she wasn't the last. The video was of someone lambasting city council over continued regulatory failures, the same ones that allowed for unsafe working conditions that killed my dad.

  I was briefly saddened when I remembered my mom's zeal initially on the page. She spent a lot of time there and tried her best to spread the word. I wasn't ever as invested in it but I was glad to see her doing something. The loss of my dad had at first left her rudderless. That page and the causes it had led her to champion had invigorated her. Now she just posted banal pictures of stew.

  Hmm.

  ***

  Dear Mom,

  You were constantly at Dad's side as the cancer consumed him. You took "in sickness and in health" to be your sworn duty. You did as much as you could with two kids needing attention as well. You still managed to keep Pasta Night going even when you took Dad to chemo appointments and hospital visits. I remember you recording Lizzie's recitals, the JV games I played, just to show him on that ancient television in the corner of his hospital room. The only thing we held against you was not that you were gone, but that we couldn’t also be there with Dad like you were.

  We were left to raise ourselves but it made us stronger and better for it. When I got the call in class, there was no doubt in my mind what had happened. At that point, everyone else knew too. Knowing it was coming made it no easier. I don’t actually remember much of that day after I walked out of the school doors. It was all a numb vacancy.

  What I did remember was your grief, the sorrow that wracked and consumed you. You had been so strong, and for so long, seeing you like that is what truly made it real. Everything else felt stiff and distant- a perfunctory set of tasks to perform. It was all just a set of instructions we followed. Except for you breaking down over him. That was the only thing that comes through, clarion mourning emblazoned in my mind’s eye.

  The next few months were painful for all of us. But Lizzie and I had school and friends to distract us. Your job wasn’t enough- you simply sleepwalked through it. You drifted away from friends and barely went out. In some ways it felt like you died with Dad. Until you found Justice for Rhea.

  It rejuvenated you. It lent a vitality to you that had been absent. You pursued things with such ardor it was like a switch had been flipped. I know I joked about you becoming a lawyer, but I was seriously impressed with the effort you put into dissecting dockets and regulatory reports. You and your unpaid posse of seekers of justice put in an unfathomable amount of labor to try to save others from the fate that befell those you loved. That carried you through to retirement and beyond.

  And to those goddamned countertops. When you were shopping at Luxury Stone, I didn’t think it was going to be as life-altering as it turned out to be. When you first met Daryl, I thought it was just some older employee set on helping you. I never dreamed he'd end up marrying you.

  At first I was happy you'd found someone. But then he slowly began to pull you away. First it wasn’t participating as much in Justice for Rhea. Then you decided (after stating otherwise) that it’d be okay to marry Daryl. Then you decided to sell everything, including the house Dad bought for us. You left us to travel and never looked back.

  I never wanted you hung up on Dad forever. But it feels like you ran away from him. You ran away from us. If you didn't want to keep this family, keep Dad's legacy, you should have at least had the courage to say so. Fleeing to each little rustic bed and breakfast, so you never have to visit the grave of the man who gave his life for his family.

  He gave us his all.

  You gave it all away.

  I sighed, staring at the screen. "God, I hope this works. I do this in the name of Hell.” I held the Implement firmly with one hand, and pressed Post. If it worked, it was done.