His failures with his former friends had been disappointing and they'd cost him quite dearly. The beating from Mitchell had only been the beginning. Hannibal had crawled back to New York, sore and angry, hoping that Danica and her friends would see his side of things.
Unfortunately, he’d been wrong. Furious that he’d proven so soft (her words, not his), she’d taken it upon herself to harden him up, so to speak. Former connections, she’d said, were to be forgotten. They weren't important and remembering that would keep him alive.
If it had ended with just the lecture, Hannibal would have been all right. It hadn't, though. She'd had two of her toughs hold him while she kicked his already blooming bruises into a grotesque color of purple. She rammed the sharpest stiletto she had into open wounds and twisted, making him curse her name, curse the world and nearly cry. The tears never came though.
The salt? That did come. He'd been on the verge of blacking out when she’d rubbed salt into those now oozing wounds and he'd heard her laughter in his ears when he had blacked out. He was pretty sure he didn’t wake up again for two days.
Eventually, he did wake up. He was still on the ground, on his side and he could taste dried blood on his lips. The floor was cold and the room was dark. He could hear the vague thumping of a bass coming from somewhere around him and guessed he was in Club Chaos. Maybe the basement.
It hurt to sit up but he did and that led to getting to his feet and leaning back against the wall to keep his balance. He'd heal, he knew that, but some things took time. He didn't know what he was supposed to do now.
There was something lumpy in his pocket and he reached in, pulled out a folded of piece of paper. It hadn’t been there before. Hannibal unfolded it and read the short note three times.
You are not to go back to that island. Instead, you will find and you will kill Abigail Whistler. Don’t fuck this up, Hannibal.
His eyes burned and he put the piece of paper away. Hannibal idly wondered how Danica known about Abigail but he was sure his wallet and cell phone had given that away. He straightened up, let the pain come and felt his injuries start to heal.
In the dark, he smiled.
[NFB, NFI, OOC welcome and warnings for violence against my boy and Danica Talos. She deserves a warning of her own.]