C.M. McKenna

“I have a really nasty temper, and no restraint. I’ve basically got no impulse control, so I do whatever I feel like, the second I feel it. I’m also into really fucked-up sex.”
I blinked. “Oh.”
“Plus, since I got no impulse control, I tell girls I just met that I’m into really fucked-up sex.”
“You don’t say.”
“I’m a fucking mess,” he said, with the delivery of someone remarking about the weather, like, shrug, What can you do?”
― C.M. McKenna, Badger

“His bike was lying against the curb, and he righted it, holding the handlebars. “What I do, I do out of hate, not humanity. Because punishing assholes gets me off—not saving victims. And actually all this . . .” He cast his gaze around us. “This isn’t doing a fucking thing for me. So if you’re not going to jump, I’d just as soon be home in bed.”
Home. Well, there was one question answered.
Face burning, I shook my head. “No, I’m not jumping.”
“Great.” He slung a leg over his crossbar. Face utterly unchanged, the Badger drew his infamous Glock from inside his hoodie, took aim, and shot me in the thigh from five feet.
“Ow, Jesus!” White paint exploded across my favorite jeans, and a bolt of exquisite pain promised a welt.
“That’s for wasting my time,” he said, replacing the pistol. “I’m too fucking tired for false alarms, so next time have the decency to jump.”
My slack mouth produced no words. I watched him glide away, silent and passive once more. As ever.
I glanced at my palm, streaked with white from where I’d grabbed my leg. Looked and felt just like when a bird shits on your hair. You pray it’s a raindrop, but it never is.
Fuck you too, Badger.”
― C.M. McKenna, Badger