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I’m here in this shitty apartment, pretending to shoot up.

If you’ve ever tried to fake putting heroin into your veins, you’ll realize it’s much easier than you first think it will be. For starters, no one’s really watching you do it. They’re all to concerned about kissing the face of God, or something. Secondly, its pretty simple to pull the needle out, and spill it into your lap or the couch or the floor.

So I wasn’t worried about that.

You can’t worry much, and you especially can’t show it, not when you’re undercover. They tell you the rules; Always Cool, Always Calm, Always Covered. Carpenter told me that, Jesus, four months ago. This job is supposed to be pretty easy, as far as sheepskin jobs go. Just keeps tabs on William Blix, find out who his supplier is, find out why he’s connected to Alex Abel.

Carpenter told me later, in the paneled hallway, that this was a Delta Green operation, that I need to keep an eye out for Delta Green interests, that I’ll be protected; and that when (not if, but when) Blix does something telling, that I need to ensure his termination.

Whatever the Christ that means. I nodded my head, clipped off the “Yes sirs” as they need be said. I didn’t ask questions. I assumed I would be briefed later, which never happened, and it doesn’t look like it will, since Carpenter apparently died in upstate New York last month. Shot in the head.

It could be that since I replaced Andy Groven, some of the details got lost in the shuffle. After Groven checked himself into a mental hospital, they snatched me out up out of Detroit, ready and willing to start acting again. My guess is that Carpenter just thought that I was Groven or something. Or maybe he just wanted to fuck with my head, I don’t know.

So now I’m here, in this shitty apartment, pretending to shoot up, listening to those scary groans coming from Bobby’s room. It’s not him having sex, I don’t think. I tell myself it’s probably him exercising, but that’s the closest thing I can come to. It’s this way every morning. Bobby gives me a needle, and he goes and does whatever he does, comes out looking brand new. More than that. He looks different, like he’s got a plastic surgeon in his bedroom.

“Paul! Paul, come in here, I got something to show you”

“Uh, okay. You alright in there, Billy?”

“Oh yeah. Doing great! Get in here.”

Billy’s standing in the middle of the room. He’s totally naked, and he’s smiling at me like a like a preacher on Sunday.

“Paul. Come here.”

“Billy, what, Jesus, what did you do to your body?”

His stomach, up to underneath his pecs, looks like a shotgun wound. The skin has been torn open, leaving little shreds to curl out. Billy is still smiling, and I can see that his hands are covered, and caked in blood. I think he did this to himself with his fingernails.

“Billy, what is going on here?”

“It’s time to show you, Paul. Give me your arm.”

“What? I’m not&”

With a speed I can hardly imagine, Billy launches himself onto me. He grabs my arm, holding it tight between his bloodied fingers. He stares at me; he looks like he’s a father about to tell his son something important about life.

“Be calm, Paul, be calm.”

He places his fingernails against the inner joint of my elbow. He looks me dead in the eye, studying me, and he presses in. His fingernails, and his blood, worm their way into my arm, and he starts to drag. The pain is unbelievable. As he slowly twists his way down my arm, I can feel silvery pain start to leak out. It feels like he’s touching my bones, slicing through the meat of my arm. My face is getting cold, and my vision starts to turn patchy and gray.

When he reaches my wrist, he lifts his finger out and steps back. My arm, elbow to hand, looks like a hot dog that bursts open after you’ve cooked it for too long, and its bleeding so much. So loud it’s obscene, I can hear the blood dripping onto the floor.

“Paul, Paul, listen to me. You need to think here, you need to concentrate. Think about what I did to your body.”

“Jus-jesus, think, Billy, look what you did, nnnnnnnn-this is, this hurts”

“I know it does Paul. Think about how much it hurts, think about how its going to scar, how you’ll never look the same again.”

I’m thinking about ending this whole thing and killing him right here in this shitty apartment, but I can feel something happening. I imagine myself as an old man, looking at this lighting bolt scar I have on my arm, and I can feel something inside of me start to happen.

Billy’s still staring at me, talking fast. He says something about Play-Doh. The wound, the pain, it doesn’t seem to bad suddenly. My body feels calm, like I’m made of wet clay.

“You feel that, Paul, you feel that? Think about what you can do with it.”

And I think, and I do. Everything in my body, everything from my skin to the marrow in my bones, I’m suddenly aware of it, and how what I can do with it. I can feel my teeth start to move around, flow through my gums. I can feel hair creep out, getting darker.

“You know what you’re doing Paul, can you feel what you’re capable of? Why do you think they put you here? They put you here because you need to know. They need you to know, do you understand that?”

Something inside of me tells me he’s making sense. Something else tells me what I already know, what I can do with my body now, that I’m the one in control.