The smoke danced off the edge of her cigarette which dangled between two long fingers tipped by HellFire red lacquer.  Her eyes were closed, oblivious to the rest of the world as she swayed back and forth. The men stood there in silence. She was thinking. And they knew better than to disturb her when she was like this. 

“I specifically said clear plastic,” her voice cut through the tension like a scalpel. 

“Y-yes ma’am but on short notice–”

Betty-Body Bag Betty as the world knew her-rose to her feet and lashed out with the box cutter. A thin red line appeared along the throat of the man who brought her excuses in lieu of her demands. 

“Every fucking time, Andy,” she said in a quiet, even tone, “Every fucking time I give you a task you screw it up.” 

Andy didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His hands were wrapped around his own throat in a futile attempt to stop it from bleeding. His eyes were wide and his lips were moving but all that came out were gurgles and coughs. The thin line of her initial attack opened up into a nasty laceration, severing his windpipe. Andy’s vision was growing dark and the last face he saw was hers as he fell to his knees. Bad idea. The momentum of his fall caused the wound to rip further and the pooling blood was creeping toward her brand new stilettos. 

Bringing her cigarette to her lips, neatly lined and painted in the same matching red as her nails, she sat back down in the chair in front of Andy his life pumped out. Her mouth embraced the soft butt of her cancer stick and she pulled in the toxic fumes deeply, letting her lungs fill with it before exhaling. 

The white tendrils rolled out, swirling and dancing upward into a halo around her head. 

“Clear plastic, Andy,” she repeated. “It helps to see the blood splatter patterns so we can clean, properly.”

Dropping the cigarette into the thick, coagulating puddle of blood, it let out a hiss before it snuffed out, “This is why you get caught. And this is why they sent me to kill you.”

(To be continued… stay tuned for more BODY BAG BETTY excerpts or sign up for my newsletter for the full novella chronicles starting January 2018. New chronicle will be released every month! http://www.unsaintly.com)