Death Bliss
The uncle did not order this shot but he has not been displeased to see it fired.
I pick up the ledger.
My hands are slick with Domenico's blood and the pages stick to my fingers and I find the authorization page by touch, by the thinness of the paper where I have pressed it too many times, by the violet stamp that bleeds into the margin. I hold the ledger open with one hand and I press the other against Domenico's shoulder, against the wound that is pumping heat through my fingers, and I begin to read aloud again.
"Authorization code seven-four-one," I say, and my voice carries across the gravel, flat and precise and unflinching. "Issued on the fifteenth of March, two years ago. Signed with