Always About Him

A fist to the ribs. Carolyn could feel the ribs breaking beneath her knuckles. She followed her victim as he staggered back, spun into a roundhouse kick that probably broke his jaw. He hit the floor like a sack of potatoes, and then Carolyn had to pause, assess.

No breathing, no voices, no footsteps within hearing distance. She spun, scanned her surroundings, listening to her victim’s weak gasps all the while. No witnesses, then.

Carolyn knelt, flipped open her switchblade. Sometimes it was just easier to make it look like a mugging. Too professional a hit and local cops started asking questions, started running into bureaucratic walls. If she made this look like a proper wet job, it would be one too many in a string of hits - the Orphaneers were getting damned persistent - and some idiot with Mulder-doggedness would come sticking his nose where it wasn’t wanted.

The Orphaneer was young, Carolyn’s age, but far less experienced. She was beyond caring at this point.

“You tried to kill Robbie, you bastard,” she whispered, and plunged the knife into him once, twice, three times. Covered his mouth with her other hand while he gasped and gurgled as blood pooled into his lungs. When she stood up, she kicked the corpse for good measure.

She was halfway back to the stage door when she realized her vision was blurry from tears and her hands were still covered in blood. Carolyn stumbled into the nearest bathroom to wash her face and hands. It took a good drubbing in ice-cold water before she looked presentable again.

John’s words ricocheted through her brain.


“This is about him, Carolyn, not you.”

The blood all over her hands was always about him.

She wanted to cry some more.

And then the shrill screams of teenage fangirls broke the sound barrier.

The show had just begun.

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