Revenge [NYC] [solo]

[Milo Dakota Lark]

Day One

THE LIST
1. Mr. VZ

The plane touched down at LaGuardia at ten after eight in the morning, Eastern Standard Time. It was sort of early for Milo, but he’d slept the whole plane ride and the time difference made it easy enough. Even if that weren’t true, there was no way he could be tired. Not today. Not when all of his plans were so close to fruition that he could practically taste the tang of blood on the back of his tongue.

All he’d brought with him was a small duffel bag, which was well enough since he’d have to move around constantly. He wouldn’t even get a motel until later that night, after he’d finished the first step. Taking the subway out to Hunt’s Point, he stopped at a McDonalds and ate a burger in silence at a booth by the window. This first one would be easy, and satisfying enough. It was a warm-up, really.

Mr. VZ was a local pimp that specialized in underage kids with no way to defend themselves. He’d been connected to human trafficking as well. These were all details he’d learned long after his encounter with the man, from the detective he’d been paying these past months. Milo had only met VZ once, just a month after he left Satan’s Disciples and started selling himself, before he knew the rules of the game.

There were streets in Hunt’s Point, places that only the lowest of society knew about where young people stood around in too-tight clothing, tensing each time a car went past, some because they were eager for the money, others wary of the job. Milo had been among the prior, hungry and cold enough that he would do anything. The streets were dark, and in his naivety he decided it would be better to stand closer to the other kids – safety in numbers, right?

Wrong.

“Hey, kid, this ain’t your territory,” a girl told him from around a cigarette. “You better get your ass out of here if you know what’s good for you.”

And Milo was brash and ignorant and freezing his ass off, so he snapped back, "Free country, bitch."

From behind him, he heard a smooth but cold voice. “Not round here it ain’t, boy.” Milo turned and saw a man, tall and muscular with a cruel glint in his eyes. “This my country, and I the king. Now what the fuck you doin’ in my country?”

His blood went to ice at the tone. "Sorry, I didn’t know."

“He try’na sell his ass on our turf, Mr. VZ,” said the girl from before.

Mr. VZ walked up very close to Milo, so he was staring directly down at him. He grinned, and nearly half his teeth were gold.“Tell you what, boy. I take you on, you be my bitch.”

Milo shook his head frantically. “No way. I don’t belong to anyone.”

A harsh hand gripped him by the hair, picked him up so he had to stand on his tip-toes. . “Then you gonna make this little mistake up to me. You owe me, boy. So, tonight, you belong to me.”

It was one of the worst nights of Milo’s life, and the most pain he would ever experience until his transformation into a vampire. For weeks, he stumbled in and out of free clinics and youth hostels, too broken to work and too scared to sleep outside.

But now Milo was stronger, better. He wasn’t some weak little kid, and he knew how to take care of himself. Tonight, Mr. VZ was going to pay in full. He’d worked like crazy this past year, saving up for the tickets and the information on the people on his list. His detective told him that tonight’s target had been frequenting a strip club on the south end of the neighborhood.

After lunch, he went down to the club and hung around until he caught sight of the man. He looked smaller than Milo remembered, but then again, the boy had grown quite a bit since then. He followed VZ to his home, and then waited for him to leave. Vampire or not, he knew VZ would be armed, and getting shot would put off his whole schedule. He climbed the retracted fire escape – something most humans would have difficulty with – and broke in through the kitchen window.

When Mr. VZ got back that night, he turned on the light to find Milo seated in the armchair in the living room. He stared at the man solemnly. “It’s been a long time, VZ.”

“Who in the fuck are you? Get out my place!” He reached for his gun, but not before Milo’s new inhuman speed had him right at the man’s side, prying his hand away from it.

“No. We’re going to talk. You probably don’t remember me, do you?” VZ jerked in his grip, confused by the boy’s strength. “Must be hard to keep track, all the kids you go through.” He wrapped a hand around the man’s throat and sniffed at the blood just under his skin. His fangs came down. “But that’s the thing about kids, VZ. We grow up.”

Milo drank until he felt swollen with blood, vampire-pale skin actually showing a flush. Mr. VZ lie limp on the floor, mouth slack and throat torn open. Milo’s face dripped with blood, the cheap felt gloves, too. The cops wouldn’t be able to trace his DNA since his vampire transformation had mutated it, but his fingerprints were on file. It wouldn’t do to get caught on the first day.

No, he had more work to do.

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Outfit: Clicky!
Tagged: none
Notes: to be continued
Lyrics: Pretty Vacant by Sex Pistols
Credit: Chloe!

[Milo Dakota Lark]

Day Two

THE LIST
1. Mr. VZ
2. Satan’s Disciples

The motel he stayed at the previous night was far enough out of Hunt’s Point that he didn’t have to worry about anyone tracking him down. Still, he’d barely slept. Mr. VZ was a cokehead, and his blood had been thick with the stuff. Milo was practically vibrating by the time he left the apartment building. He’d spent the majority of the night pacing restlessly across his motel room, muttering to himself and planning. Finally, around 4am, he grew too restless and decided to head off and track down today’s targets.

These ones would be satisfying and, like VZ, were low enough on the social food chain that no one would bat an eye over the deaths. His old gang still hung around the same territory, even kept to one of the same old buildings they used to haunt, a section of an abandoned strip mall. Of course, the gang as a whole was much larger than the small branch Milo had been affiliated with, but these were the ones that had hurt him, betrayed him. These were the ones that called him their brother then chased him out and beat him half to death with metal pipes at the first sign of trouble.

He reached the strip mall just before six, and the four of them lie asleep on a limp and stained mattress on the floor of an old video store. Before Milo really knew what he was doing, he stood, restless, in front of them, his eyes darting from body to body.

One woke. “What the hell, man!”The others followed, scrambling to their feet. Carlos, a former close friend, peered at him. He said, “Milo? What are you doing here, man?”

Milo grinned at them. “What? A guy can’t come visit his old buddies?”

”You ain’t our buddy no more.” Their leader, Javier, reached into the waist of his pants and pulled out a gun.

Holding up his hands nonthreateningly, Milo worked hard to keep his voice from quivering with nervous coked-up energy. “Hey, you think I came without something to make it up to you guys? What the hell do you take me for?”

”You ain’t got nada we want, carbon,” Javier snapped.

In a second, before their eyes could even catch up with them, Milo was at Javier’s side, his fangs down and bared. His voice was smooth, low. ”You sure about that?” The boys were spooked, demanding to know how he’d done that. More guns were out now, so Milo backed away with his hands up. ”A little gift I picked up. I’m stronger, faster, and you could shoot me in the head and I’d live. I thought that might be something you’d want. Something worth taking me back. I’m a vampire, guys. Bump in the night, drinking blood vampire.”

They were, of course, incredulous, but after a demonstration of strength and speed and inspecting his fangs, they bought the pitch, and they wanted in. ”So how’s this work, eh? You gonna bite us?” Carlos asked.

Milo nodded mildly. ”Yeah. It’ll take a day for the change to happen, but tomorrow you’ll wake up better than ever. What do you say? You gonna take me back?”

The Disciples exchanged uncertain glances, but finally nodded. Yeah, this was going to happen. He took the first one, Rob, into the back room because ”This might get messy.” Just before he fell to unconsciousness, Milo murmured in his ear. ”You really think I’m gonna let you live? You’re gonna die, asshole,” and relished the panicked look on his old friend’s face. He drained him and left him in the corner. Miguel was next, and then came Javier.

Javier looked uncertainly at the other two. ”So…they still alive, yeah?”

Milo shrugged. ”Well, technically no…but they’re on their way to undead.”

Javier started to look uncertain. ”Hey, I dunno about this, man…I’m gonna wait and see how they turn out, yeah?”

He sighed and grabbed Javier in one swift movement, baring his neck. He missed the movement of the other boy’s hand, though, and a shot rang out in the small room, setting his ears to ringing. It didn’t hit anything, just stuck in the wall, but now Milo was on the clock. Bad neighborhood or no, someone always called the cops over gunshots. Knocking the gun out of Javier’s hand, Milo sank his teeth into the other boy’s throat just as Carlos ran into the room, eyes wide.

He didn’t have time to put Javier down by drinking him. Milo was already too full to drink quickly, so instead he just ripped the front of his neck open so he would bleed out quickly. Then he jumped Carlos and pinned him to the wall.

”You betrayed me,” he hissed.

”You stole from us, man! What did you expect!”

”I was going to pay you back! You didn’t give me a chance! You said we were brothers!”

”Come on, man, don’t do this!”

Milo didn’t have time. Not when the cops would be here within twenty minutes. He had to be sure they were all past saving by the time the paramedics arrived. He tore Carlos’s throat open in the same manner, the flesh hanging limply over the front of his shirt. He drank, but not much, before throwing the body to the ground.

As he looked at the gore around him, at what had been the closest thing to a family he ever had, Milo wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He could still feel his blood thrumming, but now it was more from adrenaline than drugs.

That day, he crashed and crashed hard. The Disciples' blood was flushing VZ's out of his system, thinning out the cocaine until he started to feel withdrawal. He'd been through this before, once. It was heroin then, so it was much worse. But he knew what the shivers were, the headache, the nausea. He sat curled up in the motel bathroom moaning to himself as he went in and out of consciousness.

Five days left.

Outfit: Clicky!
Tagged: Person!
Notes: blahblahblah
Lyrics: Pretty Vacant by Sex Pistols
Credit: Chloe!

[Milo Dakota Lark]

Day Three

THE LIST
1. Mr. VZ
2. Satan’s Disciples
3. Officer Thomas Collins

He slept for a long time once the coke was out of his system. In fact, he didn't wake until afternoon the next day, making it too late to stalk his next victim on his way to work. That was well enough, though, because Milo wasn't particularly keen on visiting that place again ever.

The Horizon Juvenile Center, a detention hall for adolescents that needed to be swept out from under the feet of good, upstanding citizens. Milo had spent a total of eight months of his life there, the longest stint lasting five months. That was when he had first met Officer Collins.

Milo was smaller than a lot of the kids there, at just thirteen years old. He'd been picked up for stealing and gang affiliation, and they had suspected him of selling drugs, which he had. He'd only joined Satan's Disciples the previous year, so he wasn't completely ingrained. Still, he had the tattoo and wore the colors. He was old enough now that they wouldn't ask him to kill anybody - thirteen was old enough to be charged as an adult. No, that sort of thing was left to ten-year-olds if at all possible.

Unfortunately for him, there had been a lull in Satan's Disciples incarceration when he went in that time. Even worse, Folks gangs, their side of the two rival gang nations, were in the minority there at the time. That coupled with his size and bad attitude spelled trouble for the boy. He'd gotten his ass handed to him the first day he was there.

On his way out of the medical facility, the guard escorting him gave him a sidelong glance. "You look like you're going to have a rough few months, kid."

Milo scowled at Officer Collins. "Yeah, what's it to you?"

The man shrugged as he strolled along, unhurried. "Oh, I was just thinking maybe we could help each other out. You know, having a guard on your shoulder makes a big difference. Might save that pretty face of yours a bruise or two."

He wasn't exactly sure what the officer wanted from him, but it was probably nothing good. He either wanted Milo to run drugs, to inform on other detainees, or to blow him. He wasn't surprised when it turned out to be the last option. No doubt Collins had seen the allegations of sexual abuse in Milo's files, figured he knew the drill when it came to these things.

As he weighed his options, Milo thought about the things his former foster parents had put him through. He'd been screwed by older men before, and he'd gotten nothing for it in return. This time...well, this time maybe he'd at least get some protection. He didn't doubt that Collins might take it anyway if he said no. In fact, in his experience, that was to be expected. So, as much as the thought made his stomach turn, he nodded his head slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, we can do that."

For his part, Officer Collins did mostly keep people off of Milo's back. In return, Milo found himself cornered in remote areas of the center - the showers or supply closets - being used like he had been for years. While he stood, face pressed to the wall, he would close his eyes and try to go someplace else in his mind. But there was nowhere else, not really. No one happy memory he could escape to. So his mind instead went blank, embracing vacancy. Sometimes he wouldn't even notice that Collins had finished, would just stay bent there until a rough hand tugged his shoulder, turned him around and pulled his pants back up. One time, the man ducked down to look in Milo's unfocused eyes and muttered, "Jesus, kid. You're pretty fucked up, aren't you?"

That night, Milo found himself weeping silently into his pillow.

On another occasion, Milo got beaten up pretty badly in the yard. Collins hadn't been on duty that day, and the boy ended up with a broken nose and a split lip. The next day when Collins brought Milo to the showers to collect his end of the bargain, Milo lost it, screaming that he wasn't doing his job, that he wouldn't be bending over for him anymore if he couldn't do his damn job. In the heat of his tirade, he was cut off by the rough backside of the officer's hand, connecting sharply with his cheek. Milo stared up at him, stunned into silence. He realized just how small he was compared to the man. Emotion caught in his throat and, for a moment, he felt real terror, overtaken by a dizzying revelation that he had no control over this, over anything at all.


But now Milo was in control, and Collins was going to be the frightened one. He waited until later that night, and he sat outside his house, waiting until the lights shut off one by one. Twenty minutes later, he broke in through the back door, crushing the lock in an inhuman show of strength. He didn't want to make much noise.

Soon enough, he was seated on the vacant side of the officer's bed, staring down at him. He was young, really, maybe in his early thirties. Just three years ago, though, he had seemed so much older. Reaching over, he brushed the backs of his fingers over Collins's cheek, hummed softly. The man stirred, then jumped in surprise. Milo held him down with one hand on his chest.

"What-what in the hell are you doing here! Who are you? I'll call the police!"

Milo slid over on the bed so he was straddling the man's waist as he looked down at him. "You're going to hurt my feelings, Officer Collins," he murmured. "You really don't remember me?" He reached over to switch on the bedside light, gloved fingers slipping clumsily on the switch.

Collins stared up at him in a dazed sort of confusion as the memory came back. "Lark?"

He grinned. Nodded. Brushed his fingers over the man's throat. "I thought you might want to see how your old charge turned out. After all, isn't that what you're in the business for? Changing troubled young people for the better?" He leaned down so their noses were nearly touching. "Or were you just in it to fuck us?"

"You agreed to the deal. You got protection, and you gave it up. Don't you make me out to be some sort of-sort of-"

Milo raised an eyebrow. "What? Some sort of creep who screws little kids? Kids who aren't in any position to turn you down? Don't you act like you're so damn noble. You did what you did because you were in charge. You were in control of me. Well guess what? Not anymore."

He bared his fangs and watched the wide-eyed disbelief on the officer's face for a gleeful moment. And then he descended on his throat ravenously. He was barely hungry from two days of gorging himself on blood. He had no idea how he would get through three bodies tomorrow. In the end, he only got halfway through before he felt sick, so he flayed his throat open like he had to the others. He staggered to the bathroom and vomited blood into the sink.

The next morning, police would puzzle over what exactly had happened, why the killer would have brought the blood over there when clearly the killing had happened in the bedroom. A faerie lab tech would have to cover up the fact that the blood had been mixed with vampire stomach bile. A call would be made to the council.

Time was running out.

Outfit: Clicky!
Tagged: None!
Notes: blahblahblah
Lyrics: Pretty Vacant by Sex Pistols
Credit: Chloe!

[Milo Dakota Lark]

Day Four

THE LIST
1. Mr. VZ
2. Satan’s Disciples
3. Officer Thomas Collins
4. Mark Dobbin, Josh Elwood, and Brian Samuels

Officer Collins's death made the local papers. A public servant slain in his own home - what a tragedy! They had connected the dots to the murder of Mr. VZ and the Disciples. So far, the running theory was drug activity. Perhaps Collins had pissed off the wrong juvenile detainee. The way their throats were torn open, the police posited, was probably a crude imitation of Columbian cartel executions.

All of that worked out well enough for Milo, kept people off of his trail at least for now. He had no doubt that he would be caught, but his hope was that they wouldn't be able to catch him before he got back to Northvale. Once he was there, the council could do what they wanted. He'd have finished what he needed to do.

Today was probably going to be the most difficult, logistically. He wanted to do Mark, Josh, and Brian all in one day because they were, in his mind, all one unit of awfulness. But it had been four years now since he lived in the group home with them, and they had pretty well gone their separate ways.

According to his private detective, Mark Dobbins entered the foster system at ten years old when his mother, sole care provider, died of a drug overdose. Josh Elwood's parents both died in a boating accident when he was eleven, and his only living relatives were grandparents too old and infirm to care for him. And then there was Brian Samuels, voluntarily given up by his family at age 9 after he intentionally broke his little brother's arm, killed the family cat, and tried to burn their house down. None of this surprised Milo. Brian had always been the worst and the ringleader.

These were boys who had made his life a living hell for a year and a half while he lived in the group home. He had been ten when he transferred in, and they were all around fifteen. They heard somehow about how he'd accused his former foster parents of sexual abuse, how he'd been labeled a pathological liar and a problem child. He would never forget that first day he'd met them. They cornered him after lunch and Brian fixed him with this sick, gleeful leer. "So, you're the little faggot, huh? You wanna suck me off, faggot?"

They never actually touched Milo, not like that. But in some ways, what they did was worse. They tormented and humiliated him almost every day, and if he tried to stand up to them, to talk back, they beat him until he couldn't see straight. Of course, no one believed his side of the story. The older boys were actually good students, and they schmoozed the adults as easily as breathing. No, it was always, "Milo snuck out and got in a fight," "Milo tried to attack us," "Milo jumped out of a tree. He's crazy."

Sometimes, they would sneak into his room at night, wake him up and drag him into the bathroom. They made him strip down and stand under an ice-cold shower, insisting they were trying to keep him from having any "faggot dreams" about them. They used to lock him in the outdoor shed in the middle of winter. They stole his clothes and trapped him on the roof at noon in the summer sun, leaving him with painful blisters all over his body.

They were all still in the group home when he was placed in another home. He stayed there for all of two days before running away, terrified that he would end up in the group home again. Brian had ended up in juvie just before he turned seventeen, for arson. He never graduated, and ended up working for a tow company in the Bronx. Josh ended up with a nice set of foster parents for his last two years in the system. He graduated and got a job as an office assistant. Mark got a girl pregnant when he was seventeen and got his GED instead of graduating so he could start work early and pay child support. They all had nice, normal lives. It pissed him off to no end.

Despite having started their own lives, the three of them were still in touch, so Milo ended up having to lure them all into one place. He waited at Brian's apartment until he got home, then tied him to a kitchen chair. He used Brian's phone to text the other two, emergency. get to my place NOW. Then he sat across from Brian and stared him down.

"You remember me, don't you, Brian?" he asked. Brian was gagged, so he couldn't respond. "You're a fucking psychopath, you know that? Like, a legitimate psychotic person. I'm doing the world a favor here. Killing a future serial killer...that sort of makes me a hero, doesn't it?" He leaned forward, placing a hand on the man's groin and squeezing. "You remember the first thing you ever said to me, Brian? You asked if I wanted to blow you. Were you teasing or were you just that hard up, huh?" He felt a reaction stirring under his palm despite the terror on his prisoner's face. Milo laughed. "I guess that answers that."

An hour later, Josh showed up. Milo forced him into another chair and tied him in the same fashion. The two of them were exchanging horrified glances. Josh pleaded around the wadded up sock in his mouth, so Milo took it out for a moment. "-money!" he blurted. "I can give you money! Anything you want! Jesus, please!"

Milo smiled mildly at him. "How about a year and a half of my life back, asshole? How about my fucking dignity?"

Mark was the last to show up, ragged and still in his work clothes. Milo caught him by his arms and grinned at the other two. He breathed against the man's neck. "We were just talking, Mark, about the price of tormenting people smaller than you. Wanna give them a demonstration?" His teeth tore into the man's throat and he drained a good pint from him while the other two screamed around their gags, thrashed. He tore open the throat and dropped Mark's limp body to the ground. "Who's next?"

The deaths of the three former foster children provided a serious challenge to the police's drug theory. They had no reason to believe these three were affiliated with drug trade. The best they could come up with was that Brian had gotten in with the wrong people in juvie, and his friends got caught in the crossfire. It wasn't a satisfying theory. The news articles had been reported to the Council, and the proverbial shit was about to hit the fan.

But the best was yet to come.

Outfit: Clicky!
Tagged: None!
Notes: blahblahblah
Lyrics: Pretty Vacant by Sex Pistols
Credit: Chloe!

[Milo Dakota Lark]

Day Five

THE LIST
1. Mr. VZ
2. Satan’s Disciples
3. Officer Thomas Collins
4. Mark Dobbin, Josh Elwood, and Brian Samuels
5. Robert Celeski

By the time the papers hit the pavement the next day, the words on everyone's lips were 'serial killer.' All indications that the killer was not human had hastily been swept under the carpet, but not without effort. Milo hadn't done a very good job at hiding it, having drained blood from all the bodies, left traces of his mutated DNA, and breaking into houses with more force and ease than a mere human could have managed. The local council branch was getting uneasy, but the pattern of victims had left them just as confused as local police.

Time was running out with just three days left, each leading more obviously to Milo's identity. They were also the ones he most wanted dead. He had saved the best for last.

Today's mark, Robert Celeski, was in his early sixties, a retired police officer that had been hosting troubled foster children for more than ten years. He was a godsend to the local care system because he gladly took on their most problematic children - the delinquents, the liars, the angry ones. Milo had been all three.

He was moved out of his first foster home when he was nine, promptly labeled as a pathological liar making destructive cries for attention, plagued with delusions and projecting his past abuse onto his current caregivers. He had accused his previous foster father of sexual abuse, unaware that the man was close friends with some very important people - people much more important than Milo. It looked like he was due to stay in group homes for quite some time when Mr. Celeski volunteered a place in his home for the troubled young man.

The first night at Mr. Celeski's house was tense with uncertainty. The man made pasta and they sat side-by-side at the kitchen table as they ate. After a long period of silence, Celeski turned and looked down at the boy. "I hear you had some trouble with your last foster parent," he said.

Milo stared at his plate and mumbled, "I wasn't lying."

"Oh, I believe you, Milo." The boy's eyes went wide in hope and disbelief. Celeski smiled at him softly. "One look at you, and I can see why he wouldn't have been able to keep his hands to himself." Milo felt a large hand on his thigh, and started to shake.

No. No, not again.

"I assume he taught you a few things. You know what to do already." And that's what he'd been after when he took Milo in: a kid he wouldn't have to break in.

Milo lived with him for six months before he ran away the first time. In return, Celeski had made sure he wouldn't be able to run for a few days after the police brought him back. The second time he ran, the police had to physically drag him out of the squad car toward the apartment. Milo was so frantic, so fearful, that he bit the officer's arm as hard as he could. That was how he ended up in juvie for the first time, but it was also how he had gotten away. And juvie had been where he met the Disciples. He considered it a win.

By now, he had the routine down pretty well. He had to wake up fairly early, watch as he left to walk his two current foster children - a boy and a girl, siblings - to summer school. Once they were out of sight, he climbed the back fire escape and went in through a bedroom window.

When Celeski came home, Milo tried to say something, anything. But his throat dried up at the mere sight of him. Even years later, even with his vampire strength and speed, he was filled with fear. His eyes teared up and he let out a howl of rage, running at the man and pinning him against a wall. He didn't even give the man a chance to speak before tearing into his throat. He sobbed while he drank him, his motions so erratic and rage-driven that he did a better job of pulverizing the flesh under his teeth than he did drinking blood, like a rabid dog.

He backed off and collapsed on the ground, watching as the man's overweight body slid down as well. "You fucker," he whispered. And he knew that people would count this as a tragedy, that they would mourn the loss of a community figure like Robert Celeski. They wouldn't know, they wouldn't ever know the things he did when they weren't looking.

No. Milo couldn't stand for that.


When the police found his body that afternoon - they had been alerted when he failed to pick his kids up from school - they had a new baffling factor in their serial killer's pattern. Extensive genital mutilation, the report read, inflicted post-mortem, presumably with the kitchen knife found at the scene. 'PEDO' carved into the flesh of the abdomen, probably with the same weapon.'

Outfit: Clicky!
Tagged: None!
Notes: blahblahblah
Lyrics: Pretty Vacant by Sex Pistols
Credit: Chloe!

[Milo Dakota Lark]

Day Six

THE LIST
1. Mr. VZ
2. Satan’s Disciples
3. Officer Collins
4. Mark Dobbin, Josh Elwood, and Brian Samuels
5. Robert Celeski
6. John Keller


That night, Milo had a nightmare. He'd had it many times before and knew it by heart, but this was the first time in a few months.


He lie in bed in a dark room, silent but for the faint hum of a fan perched on the windowsill. He knew at once where he was and what was coming, and pushed his face into the pillows, tried to stay silent, to will himself away. But soon enough, floorboards creaked at the other end of the room. A sliver of light slid from the doorway to the bedpost, then shrank away again with the click of a lock.

Back then, he still believed in God, and he prayed. He prayed for God to take him away, to save him from what was about to happen. God stayed silent. John didn't.

"Wake up, my angel." A heavy hand rested on the curve of his lower back, pressing his shirt up. Milo shook as the hands stripped the sleep shirt from him. "Such a beautiful boy."

In the dream, his memories were exaggerated, more hands on him than could possibly have been at once. They were everywhere. And then that heavy weight was on top of him, pressing him into the sheets while he choked and sobbed. The weight grew heavier, impossibly so, until Milo couldn't breathe, until he was sure it would crush him to death. The weight pushed him into the mattress, deeper and deeper until he was surrounded by pressure and darkness and stifling silence broken only by low panting breaths against his neck. And he was shrinking, growing smaller and smaller beneath the massive body above him, smaller until he was lost amid the sheets and skin, and he was sure he would shrink until he disappeared, until there was nothing left.

Please God, he thought, let there be nothing left.


Milo woke in a cold sweat, his face and pillow wet with tears. He wiped at them furiously and curled in on himself, clutching his knees to his chest and focusing on breathing steadily. He could still feel that weight, just in his chest, though. This was the last time he would have that dream, he told himself. John couldn't scare him once he was dead. At least he hoped so.


When John Keller got home from work that day, Milo was sitting in his old room, on his old bed, the one he had disappeared into so many nights. The man looked in to see why the light was on and he froze. "Who are you?"

The boy looked up at him, his expression desolate and eyes red from crying. "I'm Milo Lark," he said.

Recognition flashed across John's face. "Jesus Christ, kid. What are you doing here? I'll call the cops."

"I was so little," Milo whispered. "How could you do that to someone so little? I was eight. I was eight, and you ruined me. You took everything." His voice broke.

The uncertainty in the man's gaze stung. This wasn't a cruel man, and that's what hurt the most. He called Milo his angel, his beautiful boy. The first time he ever raped Milo, he bathed him after, washed him with the loving care of a real parent, and whispered how good he had been, what a good boy he was.

Milo pointed to a chair in the corner of the room. "Sit down," he said. And something in his tone must have been convincing, because John listened. He sat. Milo looked him in the eyes. "I'm here to kill you."

John started to weep. "I never meant to hurt you. I cared about you, Milo," he pleaded. But he didn't run. He didn't beg for his life. And Milo thought, hoped, that it was because deep down, John knew how wrong he had been, how sick.

Milo knelt in the man's lap, held down his arms, and drank slowly. John wept until he fell unconscious; Milo, until after he had carved him up, just like Mr. Celeski. His hands covered in blood, he sat and stared at his mutilated corpse for a long time. A fan sat on the windowsill, humming softly in the silence of the room. He lost track of more than two hours, waiting to feel like something had changed inside of him, to feel all of that old fear dissipate. To feel that maybe the world was just.

And he prayed, for the first time since he was eight years old. He prayed for God to forgive him, to comfort him, to tell him why he'd been dealt these cards. What had he done to deserve this life, this pain?

God stayed silent.

And John stayed silent.

And Milo didn't.

"I was so little."

Outfit: Clicky!
Tagged: none
Notes: to be continued
Lyrics: Pretty Vacant by Sex Pistols
Credit: Chloe!

[Milo Dakota Lark]

Day Seven

THE LIST
1. Mr. VZ
2. Satan’s Disciples
3. Officer Collins
4. Mark Dobbin, Josh Elwood, and Brian Samuels
5. Robert Celeski
6. John Keller
7. Marion and Nicholas Lark

The three of them sat in silence for a long time. Well, Milo sat in silence. His parents didn't have much of a choice, gagged with dishtowels from the kitchen. They were on kitchen chairs, wrists bound with duct tape to the wooden arms and ankles to the chair legs, another strip of tape around each of their middles. His father had given up his furious jerking and attempts at escape a few minutes earlier. His mother was crying.

"I think I look more like Dad, don't you think, Mom? I've got his eyes. Your hair, though, so hopefully I don't have the bald gene." He gestured to his father's thinning hair. And then he barked a laugh as he remembered: "Not that it even matters. See, I can't get any older now." They said nothing, so he went on to explain. "See, since I was all on my own, I never really had anyone to take care of me. Someone hurt me, made a monster out of me." He paused thoughtfully. "And then, later, someone turned me into a vampire."

He stood and walked over to Mr. Lark slowly, his fangs coming out, bared for the man to see. "Someone once asked me what my earliest memory was. You know what I said? I said getting my ass beat with a leather belt. How old was I then, Daddy? How old was I when you first slapped me across the face? Kicked me?" Milo raised his arm and the backside of his hand cracked across his father's face.

Marion let out a fearful shout around the gag, and the boy spun to look at her. "Oh, so this you'll say something about? You have a problem when I hit him? Where were you when he was beating the shit out of me, Mom? Where were you?" He couldn't keep the rage from his voice. "No, you watched back then, you can watch now. You can watch while I do to him everything he did to me." And he turned back and swung a fist into the man's stomach, drawing out a grunt of pain.

He continued with fists for a while, letting them fly haphazardly into flesh while he snarled, "I was your son! You were supposed to take care of me! You were supposed to love me! You were all that I had!" Finally, his arms dropped and he panted with exertion.

He pulled out a cigarette, lighted it and smoked quietly for a moment. Then he rolled up his left sleeve, looking over the pattern of little round scars underneath. "I want to get this right," he said. And despite the muffled screams and spasms, he managed a pretty close duplicate to the marks on his arm. His father was nearing unconsciousness from the pain. But that wouldn't do. Milo supposed he ought to finish this up, then.

"You see all this, Dad?" He gestured to his broken and bloodied face, the already blossoming bruises all over him, the still-hot burns on his arm. "That's for everything you ever did to me. Every time you laid a hand on me." He pulled a knife from his pocket, unfolded it, and stared at it. His father's eyes went wide. "But this? This is for what everyone else did to me. This is for every time someone broke me and used me. Every time I got hurt because you weren't there to protect me." He drove the knife into his father's chest and left it there, watching as the blood dribbled around it.

Milo never undid the man's gag. If Nick Lark had anything to say to him, he didn't want to hear it. It was too little, too late. Right now, all he could do for his son was die in front of his eyes. And he did, the life slowly fading from his face.

A faint whimper came from behind him. Milo turned and smiled at his mother. "Was that a good show, Mommy?" he asked. "Was it as good as all of those times you sat by and let him hurt me? And you know what gets me? I looked up the old foster records. They offered you custody if you would leave him. You could have kept me, but you chose him instead of your own son. What kind of mother does that? What kind of person does that?"

Shaking his head sadly, Milo pulled a chair up next to hers and pushed her hair away from her neck. "But I'm going to give you one last chance to take care of me, Mom. I'm going to let you feed me." She screamed when he bit in, the sound fading as she grew faint with the blood loss. Milo drank until his head swam with the rush of life and energy. It was a different sort of high, something he was sure he would never achieve again. It licked through every fiber of his being, filling him with power.

Milo pulled back once she was empty, giggling with the blood high. It was done. A year of planning, and it was finally all done with. The monsters from under his bed were gone, and he'd done it with his own hands. He felt...God, he felt good. He felt like he could do anything, face anything. And at the same time, he felt as if there was nothing he had to do now. The council could arrest him. They could kill him. He didn't care.

Because his whole life, all anyone had ever done was betray him and abandon him. Everyone that was supposed to watch out for him had hurt him. And he'd been angry at them all for so, so long, but there was no one left to be angry at. He'd had his revenge.

And it was good.

Outfit: Clicky!
Tagged: none
Notes: last one
Lyrics: Pretty Vacant by Sex Pistols
Credit: Chloe!

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