you're too young & eager to love

Bill uses a grindstone for his cleaver, on nights when he is feeling particularly agitated. It is an exhibit of willpower. Discipline. An angry man would abuse the cleaver and press it down much too hard, grinding the blade to powder. But not Bill. His hand is steady, even as the white-hot anger courses through him. He is calm and keen-edged, just as his weapon of choice must be.

Tonight he imagines grinding Amsterdam's face into a mess of raw and bloody tissue. White bone and sinew. Grey matter and fluid. He would steep his hands in it, and they would not be washed clean.

Bill finds tranquility in the action of honing his blades, but finality and conclusion in sheathing them and sliding them into his belt. Each to their proper place. Fitted and secure. It is the ending of a day. The ceasing of rhythm, and then he can rest. But one of these blades shall not be stowed away this night.

The next place it will be sheathed is in Amsterdam's gut.

This is a kill.