Bleeding On Your Blade

1 My name is Dean. Down at the harbor, they just call me "The Butcher." Not because I’m a violent man by nature, but because whether it was the local loan sharks, drunks looking for a fight, or deadbeats trying to skip out on their tabs—every single one of them had met the dull edge of my heavy gutting knife. I used that blade to carve out a life for my younger brother, Sam. I bought a roof over his head, paid his tuition, and built a safety net so thick he wouldn't have to worry about a thing for the rest of his natural life. He just got into a good college. I was immensely proud. I had raised him right. I hadn't let her down. But right now, he was pacing the living room, threatening to throw it all away to meet some girl he fell in love with on the internet. My mind immediately flashed to the true-crime podcasts, the catfishing schemes, the kids who vanished into the ether. Panic spiked hot and fast in my chest. I grabbed my gutting knife from the kitchen counter and slammed it into the cutting board. "Break it off. Right now. You hear me?" Sam jumped out of his skin. The phone slipped from his hands, clattering onto the hardwood floor. I bent down, intending to block and delete the girl myself. But then the screen lit up. A notification popped over a lock-screen photo of a woman. She had striking, vibrant features—the kind of devastating beauty you usually only see on movie posters. It was Audrey Hayes. The same Audrey Hayes who, ten years ago, told me she couldn't stand the reek of fish guts on my skin anymore, packed her bags, and walked out of my life for good. I went very still. I ran my thumb over the scarred, wooden handle of my knife, and let out a low, hollow laugh. "Get your coat," I said. "I'm driving you to meet her." Sam was huddled in the corner, sniffling, totally missing the shift in the room. "Okay, okay... I won't talk to her anymore... but Dean, she’s so pretty..." I yanked the knife from the board and tossed it into the sink with a loud metallic clatter. He flinched. A little bubble of snot formed at his nose as he stared at me, dumbfounded. "I said, I'm taking you to meet her." He scrambled up from the floor, throwing his arms around me like I was his savior. "Oh my god, Dean, you're the best! I've never felt this way about anyone, I swear. Thank you!" I rolled my eyes. Yeah, right. There wasn't a pretty girl in this entire coastal town he hadn't claimed to "truly love." The next day at 4:30 PM, I finished hosing down my stall. I had sold out early. I climbed into my rusted, paint-peeling Chevy truck, Sam riding shotgun, and we headed toward the upscale café she had picked. With the windows rolled down, the hot summer wind blew through the cab, carrying the unmistakable, metallic scent of fish scales that clung to my clothes. Suddenly, I was eighteen again. Standing in the heavy shade of the oak trees at the edge of the harbor. The afternoon sun was backlighting her, making her look ethereal, like a girl stepping out of a dream. But the words slipping from her mouth had frozen the blood in my veins. She was facing her rich new friends, her back to me. "I can't stomach the smell of fish on him anymore. It's disgusting. But I don't have to pretend anymore. My mother and I are finally moving back to the city for a better life." The sunlight today felt exactly like it did back then. Harsh and unforgiving. When we pulled up to the café, I caught my reflection in the tinted glass of the front door. Unruly hair, sun-weathered skin, my mouth set in a grim, rigid line. I looked down at my hands as I pushed the door open. Thick, calloused knuckles. Faded scars crisscrossing my skin. Exactly what she hated. I told Sam to wait outside in the truck. I needed to "test her character" first. The person waiting at the corner booth had arrived early. They were hiding their face behind a massive, obnoxious bouquet of red roses. I assumed it was Audrey. The thought of this grown woman manipulating my eighteen-year-old brother made my fingers twitch for the knife I’d left in the truck. I slammed my fist down on the table. The bouquet crushed inward, splitting down the middle. I finally saw the face behind the flowers. It was a man. Balding, beady eyes, trembling as he stared up at me. "W-who are you? What do you want?" Damn it. Wrong table. I was just opening my mouth to apologize when someone tapped lightly on my shoulder. I turned around, and Audrey’s beautiful face was mere inches from mine. 2 High cheekbones, deep-set eyes, and those familiar dark brown curls. Except, her signature icy blue eyes were gone, replaced by deep brown irises. Contacts. The scent of her—something expensive, floral, yet impossibly familiar—instantly wrapped around me, suffocating me. She calmly pulled a sleek black credit card from her designer bag and handed it to the trembling man at the table. "I apologize. My boy... my friend has mistaken you for someone else. There's thirty thousand dollars on this card. Consider it compensation for your emotional distress." The man took the card, his terror instantly melting into a greedy, uncontrollable smirk. "Uh, hey, no problem at all." Watching that exchange, I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached. How the hell did this heartless woman get so rich? As soon as we sat down in an empty booth, my hands balled into fists. I wanted to hit her. The only reason I hadn't grabbed a weapon was because the café manager had a strict 'no outside tools' policy. My fist flew forward, cutting through the air, aimed straight for her face. She didn't even flinch. My knuckles connected with her left eye, instantly bruising the pale skin. A few women at the adjacent tables screamed. The manager came running over, panicking. Audrey simply covered her bruised eye with one hand, picked up her phone with the other, and started playing Santa Claus. She Venmoed the manager and the screaming customers a few thousand dollars each for the "disturbance," politely asking them to mind their own business. That only made me angrier. She pressed a bag of ice the manager brought her against her face, using her good eye to stare at me without blinking. "Dean. It's been a long time." "Fuck your 'long time,'" I spat. Smack. I threw a left hook, catching her right eye this time. She stumbled, caught herself on the table, and slowly sat back up. She covered her other eye, which was already swelling shut. And then, impossibly, she smiled. She actually cracked a joke. "Well, at least it's symmetrical now. Better?" The entire café was staring at us in stunned silence. Is this guy insane? How could he hit a woman that gorgeous? And why the hell is she paying people off to let him do it? But beneath my boiling rage, my heart gave a violent, involuntary lurch. Because this was exactly how she used to be. When I first met Audrey, she was a scrawny ten-year-old brat shadowing my every move around the docks. Calling me Dean, Dean, Dean, flashing that shameless, gap-toothed grin as she tried to help me haul nets that were twice her weight. She did it all just so I would agree to let her mother learn how to gut fish at my stall. Too bad her mother was a lost cause. The woman didn't care about the lifeline her daughter had bled to secure for them. She was an outsider in our insular fishing town, a woman who drowned her isolation in cheap vodka, bought with the crumpled dollar bills Audrey scavenged for her. "How is your mother?" The words slipped out before I could stop them. Audrey's breath hitched. Her eyes instantly welled with tears. Realizing I had stepped into territory I no longer had the right to tread, I hardened my voice and cut to the chase. "You play dirty, Audrey." "What? Can't find a man your own age? You had to come back and mess with my little brother?" Her pupils dilated in sheer panic. The muscles in her jaw jumped, and her manicured fingertips began to tremble violently. "Sam... is your brother?" "Same father, same mother. My flesh and blood." I leaned back against the leather booth, crossing my arms, staring her down. "So, what is it? Is catfishing eighteen-year-old boys a fun little hobby for you? Or did you just think our family was easy prey, and you wanted to ruin the rest of us?" She lunged across the table, desperately grabbing my hands. "Dean, it's not what you think—" "Then what is it?" I sneered, ripping my hands away. I didn't give her a chance to weave another lie. I snatched her phone off the table. The screen lit up, demanding a passcode. I froze. Her voice was entirely hoarse as she whispered, "The passcode hasn't changed." The old numbers—the date we first kissed behind the harbor crates—flashed in my memory. I almost typed them in. But then I looked up. I saw the desperate, hungry hope burning in Audrey's eyes. Her hands were shaking so hard she had to grip the edge of the table. I slowly set the phone back down and slid it across the table toward her. "Unlock it yourself. I'm going to sit right here and watch you block and delete his number." The light in her eyes died instantly. "You know what, forget it. I'm leaving," I said, sliding out of the booth. "Just stay the hell away from him. We're just poor, foul-smelling fishmongers. We stink of the docks. We don't deserve to breathe the same air as a VIP like you." 3 I turned and walked out. She scrambled out of the booth, chasing me down the sidewalk, begging me to listen. I reached into the bed of my truck, grabbed my heavy gutting knife, and spun around, pointing the tip directly at her chest. "Don't take another step." She froze for exactly one second. Then, she smiled. It was a smile that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Without a word of hesitation, she stepped forward, driving herself right into the blade. The steel pierced her silk blouse, sinking a half-inch into her collarbone. Crimson blood immediately bloomed, dripping down the cold metal onto the pavement. It took three pedestrians rushing over and physically dragging her back to stop her from impaling herself further. She didn't look at the blood. She just stared at me, her brown contacts slipping, her real blue eyes flashing underneath, bloodshot and unhinged. "Dean, it took everything I had to finally get out." "Just look at me, please? I've been going crazy missing you." "Just pity me, okay? Just like you did when we were kids. Please, Dean..." I turned my back on her and walked to where her luxury sedan was parked. Ten years of repressed humiliation, bitterness, and grief erupted all at once. I crouched down and took my knife to all four of her tires, slashing them until the car hissed and sank onto its expensive rims. Staring at the ruined rubber, I felt a vicious, fleeting sense of satisfaction. Serves you right. When I finally got back to our dingy apartment, Sam was zoning out on the couch. He didn't even notice the bag of his favorite chips had spilled all over the rug. Seeing me, he shot up, his eyes wide with anxiety. "Dean, how did it go? Did you guys..." I walked over, ruffled his hair, and shoved every ounce of my chaotic emotions down into a dark box. "Don't talk to her anymore. She's not a good person, Sammy." "You just focus on your books. Get your degree. Let me worry about the rest of the world, okay?" "Huh?" I turned toward the cramped kitchen to start dinner, but he grabbed my arm, puffing out his chest defiantly. "I'm eighteen now, Dean. I'm an adult. I can take care of you, too." He pulled my hand away from the stove and dragged me to the small dining table. With a theatrical flourish, he pulled off the plastic covers. A massive feast. Fried chicken, spicy noodles, boba tea, a small cake... "You cooked this?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. He shrank back, looking guiltily at the floor. "I mean... me, the restaurant, and the DoorDash driver teamed up. But I did the plating!" A laugh punched its way out of my chest. In that instant, the crushing weight of the afternoon temporarily lifted. Later that night, after Sam had finally gone to sleep, I quietly took his phone from his nightstand. I opened his social media app and clicked on his chat with Audrey. The screen was a wall of bright green transaction notifications. Wire transfers. She had sent him close to eighty thousand dollars over the last few months. And Sam, like an idiot, had been happily accepting it. Honestly? I felt a grim sense of vindication. She owes us. I wired every single cent from his account into mine, deleted the transaction history, and finally went to bed. At 4:00 AM, I rode my bike down to the docks. Rows of harsh fluorescent lights buzzed beneath the corrugated tin roofs, casting a sickly pale glow over the wet concrete. The shadows of the early-morning vendors stretched long and thin. I was running late today. The market was already bustling with produce haulers and meat vendors. Charlie, the butcher at the stall next to mine, leaned over the ice bins and gave me a knowing smirk. I frowned, thoroughly confused. But when I stepped into my stall, I stopped dead in my tracks. The cutting boards were scrubbed raw. The water tanks were full and crystal clear. Everything was spotless. Even my old, rusted gutting knife had been replaced with a brand-new, high-end blade. And in the plastic crates beside the ice? Every single fish I was supposed to sell today had already been scaled, gutted, and perfectly organized by size. Bass in one crate, cod in another, flounder carefully stacked in a third. I crouched down. The gills were still bright red. They were fresh off the boats. Charlie popped his head over the partition. "You're late to your own party, Dean. Your haul came in around 3 AM. Someone was already here, netting them and cleaning them for you." "Who?" "Didn't catch a face. Wore a hoodie pulled low. Definitely a woman, though. You lucky bastard." 4 I stared at the new knife in my hands, completely silent. It was a Wüsthof. The exact professional fillet knife I’d been staring at in a catalog for years. It was razor-sharp. You could scale and gut a hundred fish with this and never catch a blister. It was also incredibly expensive. It cost more than I made in a month. A ghost of a silhouette drifted into my mind, but I ruthlessly shook it away. No way. She hated the smell of fish more than anything. Why would she be out here at 3 AM elbow-deep in fish guts? Because the prep was done, I sold out by 10 AM. On my way home, I stopped by Mrs. Higgins' fruit stand and bought a bag of green grapes. Big and sweet—Sam’s favorite. I also bought a bag of Asian pears. I figured I'd drop them off for Arthur, the older gentleman who recently moved in next door. Pears are good for the lungs, and Arthur was getting on in years. Arthur was a good neighbor. A bit eccentric, but excessively kind. He was constantly bringing over Tupperware full of home-cooked meals for me and Sam. He’d even started showing up at my stall every afternoon, just standing by the ice bins, watching me prep the fish. He’d praise my knife work, buy two of the best cuts, take them home, cook them, and then bring them straight back to our apartment for dinner. And honestly? The man could cook. Better than most restaurants in town. But life at the harbor wasn't all friendly neighbors. There was a wholesale distributor named Mick—everyone called him "The Bull." Because he controlled most of the local supply chain, he constantly bullied the independent vendors, squeezing our margins to nothing. I refused to buy from him. I took my own skiff out every evening, set my nets, and hauled my own product in the morning. Mick hated me for it. He’d come by regularly just to flex his muscle. That afternoon, he showed up with three of his guys. Without a word, he kicked over my primary display tank. Gallons of ice water and live fish spilled across the concrete, flapping wildly at our feet. "Listen to me, pretty boy," Mick snarled. "From now on, you buy your stock from me. Or I come down here and smash your stall every single time you set up." I calmly knelt down, picked up a flapping flounder, and gently placed it back into a surviving bucket. I stood up. I wiped my wet hands on my rubber apron. Then, I reached back, grabbed the heavy Wüsthof knife off the board, and swung it directly at his throat. The blade stopped a millimeter from his carotid artery. Before I could push it further, Arthur burst through the crowd, dragging two harbor patrol officers with him. They broke it up and chased Mick and his goons off the pier. As the adrenaline faded, a cold sweat broke out over my neck. I realized how recklessly I had just acted. Things weren't like they were when I was a teenager. Sam was in college now. If he wanted to work a government job or get a high-security clearance later, me catching a felony assault charge would ruin his life. The next morning, the fish market was buzzing with gossip. A few of the vendors who usually suffered under Mick's thumb were huddled in a tight circle, whispering furiously. Turns out, Mick got jumped last night. Someone beat him half to death, stripped him naked, and left him tied to a buoy out by the breakwater. The early morning trawlers found him. He was a laughingstock. Charlie nudged me in the ribs. "Hey, you think that older guy next door—the one who saved you yesterday—arranged that?" I elbowed Charlie hard in the chest. "Keep your mouth shut, Charlie. You're gonna get someone killed talking like that." I hadn't known Arthur long, but I could tell he was a man of restraint. A civilized man. This kind of vicious, theatrical retribution... that was someone else’s signature. When I was a scrawny, quiet kid, the dock brats used to torment me. And every time they did, Audrey would wait for them after school. She’d either beat them bloody with a piece of driftwood, scatter rusted nails on the path to pop their bike tires, or throw dead water snakes at them in the dark. But that was impossible now. Just a few days ago, she threw herself onto my knife. She lost a lot of blood. She should be bedridden in some high-end penthouse right now.