Reborn with my killer's looks-Chapter 46: A loser

Montez’s room was a disaster.

Pizza boxes stacked in the corner. Some still had half-eaten slices inside that had been sitting there for days, beer cans lined the floor like a minefield and video game cases scattered everywhere.

Most of them still had the discs inside because he couldn’t be bothered to put them away properly.

And there way tissues. Way too many tissues.

The lights were off and the curtains were drawn. The only glow came from the laptop sitting on his bed.

Montez shuffled across the room in his underwear and socks, scratching his stomach.

He grabbed the laptop and dropped onto the mattress, pulling a blanket over himself. He positioned the screen directly in front of his face and opened an incognito tab.

"You know what’s worse than a gooner?" he said to the empty room. "A guy who’s proud of being a gooner."

He typed in the URL from muscle memory. Clicked through three different pop-ups before finding the video he’d bookmarked last week.

He reached for the lotion and tissue paper on his nightstand, knocking over an empty beer can in the process. It rolled off the table and clattered across the floor.

"Ever since that field assessment shit went sideways, Kaiser’s barely gave me any jobs." He muttered, adjusting his position. "The last job I got was to give Azzuri some box and I hadn’t really gotten any before that eitherm Saw he was gone and figured it was only a matter of time before they got rid of him like they did me."

He clicked play on the video.

"Rent’s overdue and I Can’t even afford decent food anymore."

The video buffered.

Montez sighed. "Even the wifi’s slow."

And then it started playing.

"Can’t sleep without this anymore either. Tried last week and I just laid there for four hours staring at the ceiling." He paused. "At this point? Yeah. I’m proudly a gooner. You gotta own it, right?"

The video hit the intro.

Montez adjusted the blanket and reached for the lotion.....

But the door slammed open.

Light from the hallway flooded in.

His landlady stood in the doorway, her old and wrinkled eyes like a hawk that just spotted a rat.

She looked at him, looked at the laptop screen and looked at the lotion in his hand.

Her face turned purple.

She took off her slipper and threw it.

It hit Montez square in the forehead.

"OW—what the hell, old hag!"

Montez scrambled off the bed, his laptop tumbling to the floor. He stood there in his underwear, socks, and dark shades looking like the world’s worst superhero.

"DEGENERATE!" the landlady shrieked, pointing a bony finger at him. "You’re using MY wifi to watch that FILTH!"

Montez grabbed the nearest thing, an adult comic from the pile on his desk and held it over his crotch. "Mind your business old hag, a man’s allowed to have some private time!"

"Private?! PRIVATE?! The entire street can hear you through those thin walls!"

"That’s not my fault! Blame the landlord!"

"I AM THE LANDLORD!"

"Then blame whoever built this shitty house!"

Her face went from purple to red and her eyes began to glow gold.

Montez’s survival instincts kicked in. "Uh...."

"I was a SISTER OF THE CLOTH!" she roared and her Crest activated, light radiating from her entire body. "I devoted TWENTY YEARS of my life to the church! I will NOT tolerate this degeneracy under my roof!"

"Okay, okay, let’s talk about this—"

A blast of pure light shot across the room.

Montez dove sideways. The beam scorched the wall where his head had been two seconds ago, leaving a smoking hole.

"Holy shit!"

Montez scrambled toward the window, still holding the comic over his crotch with one hand while grabbing his pants off the chair with the other.

"If you want some action yourself, I can recommend some good sites...."

"GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!"

Three beams fired simultaneously.

Montez threw himself through the window.

The Glass shattered, he hit the fire escape, rolled, somehow managed to get one leg into his pants mid-fall, and crashed into the dumpster in the alley below.

He landed on a pile of garbage bags.

Above him, his room exploded in light. He could hear the landlady screaming something about "cleansing the filth."

Montez pulled himself out of the dumpster, now wearing pants but no shirt, and stood there looking up at the building.

Smoke was coming from his window.

"Old hag’s always bitter at night," he muttered, zipping up his pants. "Not my fault she became a sister in her youth when she she should have been getting in on the action in. Probably why she’s so angry all the time."

He looked down at himself;

No shirt, socks and wet from dumpster juice. Yet his shades were somehow still on his face.

"It’ll be a while before I can go back." he said.

He turned and walked toward the main street, pulling his shades down slightly to check if the coast was clear.

In the shadows behind him, two figures stepped out from the alley entrance.

They exchanged a glance and followed.

Montez sat at the counter of the brass knuckle bar and hour later with three empty shot glasses lined up in front of him.

The bar was half-full mostly regulars and a few rogue Topplers who didn’t want to be found.

Montez stared at the fourth glass the bartender had just poured.

The amber liquid reflected the dim bar light.

A memory surfaced in his head without permission.

It was the same bar but a long time ago.

He’d been sitting in this exact spot with a friend.

"You know what’s worse than an alcoholic?" Montez had said, raising his glass.

Marcus laughed. "What?"

"An alcoholic who’s scared of admitting it."

The friend shook his head, grinning. "Man, take it easy. You’re gonna regret this tomorrow."

"Tomorrow’s a problem for future Montez."

They’d clinked glasses.

Montez blinked and the memory vanished.

He was alone at the counter now.

"Marcus," he whispered. "You were always too good for me."

He picked up the fourth glass and downed it in one go and slammed it on the counter.

"Another."

The bartender with his arms crossed.

"That’s your fourth shot," the bartender said. "Pay up."

"I’ll pay when I’m done."

"Not falling for that again, Montez."

Montez looked up. His shades were crooked on his face and his eyes were bloodshot behind the dark lenses.

"What are you gonna do about it?"

The bartender’s jaw tightened. He glanced toward the back of the bar. "Boys."

Four regulars stood from their seats.

Big guys.

Montez stood too, his stool scraping backward.

He activated his crest. Orange light shone from his eyes and the m air shimmered with heat.

The regulars stopped but Montez shoulders dropped and the orange light faded.

"Uh, fuck it," he said quietly. "What’s even the point."

The first guy didn’t hesitate and his fist connected with Montez’s jaw.

Montez’s head snapped sideways and he tasted blood immediately.

The second punch hit his ribs and he felt it crack

Montez didn’t try to block or fight back.

"I know this isn’t nearly enough to stone for my sins."

A kick to the stomach doubled him over. He coughed, saliva and blood dripping onto the bar floor.

"But I’ll keep taking every single backshot the world bends me over for."

Someone grabbed his hair and yanked his head back to land another punch.

His shades flew off his face and they clattered to the ground.

Someone stepped on them and the lens cracked.

"I’ll keep hoping that one day I’ll finally be punished for all my sins."

Montez straightened up as much as he could with blood running from his nose and his eye already swelling shut.

He looked at the guy in front of him; huge bastard with a beard and knuckles covered in scars.

Montez spat blood on the floor

"Your mom should’ve swallowed," he said.

The guy’s fist broke into his nose.

Montez hit the floor hard, his head bouncing off the wood.

Everything was a blurr and sounds became muffled.

They kicked him twice more in the ribs before the bartender finally waved them off.

"Alright, that’s enough. Get him out."

Hands grabbed Montez under the arms and dragged him across the floor. His feet left a trail through spilled beer and blood.

They opened the door and threw him into the street.

He hit the pavement and rolled, coming to a stop on his back.

His broken shades landed beside him a second later.

Montez just lay there for a moment, staring up at the sky. The stars were out, barely visible through the city lights but there.

He reached over, grabbed the shades, and put them back on.

Then he closed his eyes.

"My name is Montez Ford," he said to nobody. "Firstborn of the House Oxford. And I’m.....

A loser."

Kaiser would hear about the bar fight soon and they’d come looking for him. Maybe ask him a few questions and then decide he wasn’t worth the trouble anymore.

Footsteps approached from the alley.

Montez’s eyes shifted slightly

"Huh?"

The sound of a blade cut through the evening wind.