BrokenTune

‘Mine!’ called Gabriel, holding back the others, as if about to take a free kick. He crept around the table as the mouse finally came to its senses and made a run for it. In an action that seemed to take ages and ages, Gabriel turned to look at me. ‘Kinder, this way,’ he said with a wink, and then, stretching his great crane leg, he squashed the mouse with his vast zoo boot. 

He raised his arm victoriously to cheers, and, as discreetly as I could, I exited through the plastic sheeting and ran to the staff toilets, where I retched into the bowl. A brown torrent of chocolate poured from me. There were so many things I had grown accustomed to. Spiders, snakes, dark spaces, blood. But not this. The endless cruelty that seemed to follow Gabriel, wherever he went.

Gabriel is such an arse. Unfortunately, this is not the type of novel where one can hope for Gabriel to meet a fate befitting his arsiness.