The old lady gets to her feet as I say this, she’s looking crossly at me, trickles of blood dribbling outta the black hole between her eyes, which seems to have some faint wisps of smoke rising from the edges of the seared circle—how cool is that?—and with sudden inspiration I pull a set of cuffs off my belt, slip behind her, elbowing her in the eye as I glide by, then slap the cuffs on her from behind while she’s still in a daze. I guess the slugs in her head really rattled her. Then I grab her by the ankles, turn her upside down and dangle her like that. This isn’t tough, she’s small and light, and I take her over to my piss-filled toilet—it’s a bright yellow wading pool with that really heady pee tang, I took a Twinlab Daily One Cap this morning—then kick the seat up and stuff her head in it and hold her like that as she tries to kick her frail, veiny legs.