Chapter 68 Slade
Slade
The door closes, and Randolph stands with his back to me. He doesn’t fear me, not while he holds the knife. He mistakenly thinks my small size isn’t a threat and that he’s in control here.
And that will be his downfall.
I let my emotions rise—unrepressed and unrestrained. There are no accompanying screams or flashes of memories. It’s like those are banked, maybe gone, and instead, I feel a presence standing at my back.
It’s not literal—there’s nothing or no one physically behind me—but the presence is there, nonetheless. Fourteen tortured and departed souls, here, standing with me, to get their justice, to get their pound of flesh.
“That was unacceptable, pet,” Randolph grits, turning toward me.
I let him see the full expression of all my hate. All my vengeance. And that I’ll make him pay.
Wary shock flashes over his face, and he lifts the knife.
My heel-palm strike connects brutally with his nose, making blood explode from it. The only sound he makes is a pained, shocked grunt.
My next blow is a roundhouse kick to his head, and he stumbles sideways but doesn’t fall. He lifts his hand holding the knife and lunges toward me on wobbly legs.
I don’t focus on where the blade is. If I die killing him, then so be it.
Self-preservation should at least be pushing me to get control of the knife and remove it as a threat, but I want the challenge.
I want to feel his body hurt with my own hands.
After I’ve had my fill of raining retribution and vengeance down onto his flesh, then I’ll slice him to ribbons.
I crouch low and sweep his legs out from under him, and he hits the floor, hard.
The wind knocks out of him, and his head bounces off the concrete.
When I kick his ribs, I hear them crack.
Amidst the sound of his ribs breaking, I realize that I’ve started speaking out loud.
Relaying the heinous things that had been done to the Numbers.
I kick him again, feeling the presence of the Numbers standing with me stronger and fiercer now.
Randolph might not be Antwane, but he’s just as horrible. And he had played just as horrendous a role in their games. Their plan.
Tell him.
Hurt him.
Kill him.
The Numbers chant.
They want not only their pound of flesh; they want the words out of what had been done to them. They want to no longer bear that burden.
For me to no longer bear that burden, I realize.
So I yank Randolph to his feet—and continue to do so every time he falls—while I beat him and reveal everything that had been done to those fourteen poor, tortured souls.
If no one else ever hears the words or the details, it’s okay, as long as Randolph does, so he can carry the full weight of his guilt when he descends into hell, meeting his demon brother where they’ll burn for eternity for their sins.
Once I can hardly make a fist to hit Randolph again, I grab the knife he had dropped.
Yes, fourteen voices whisper in unison.
Then, feeling every ounce of my hate and vengeful wrath, I stab and slash. I puncture and slice Randolph’s face, neck, and torso—just like I had when I ended his devil-incarnate brother.
When I’m finished, Randolph lies unmoving in a pool of blood, in a room that looks like a massacre occurred. I fall to my knees, and the knife hits the floor.
A part of me has always remained trapped in Antwane’s cabin of hell. And the day I escaped it, I had fallen to my knees, too. But back then, I had felt numb nothingness.
And right now, with the Numbers still with me but quiet, I feel only…
Peace.