Chapter 6 #4
The crack of knuckles against bone echoed like a gunshot through the storm. Blood sprayed in a bright arc, splattering across Ruslan’s face and chest. The therapist groaned—low, animal, stripped of language—and sagged, barely conscious.
Ruslan grabbed him by the collar and hauled him upright like dead weight.
“Mr. Ruslan... I never—”
The rest of the sentence drowned.
In one brutal, decisive motion, Ruslan drove his head down into the ankle-deep water. Hard.
Marcus thrashed instantly. His hands clawed at Ruslan’s wrists, fingers slipping, nails scraping uselessly against soaked fabric.
Water rushed into his mouth as he tried to gasp, his body jerking in blind panic. His legs kicked wildly, splashing mud and rain, desperation written into every convulsion.
He didn’t want to die.
That was clear in the frantic way he fought—lungs burning, shoulders shaking, muscles straining with everything he had left.
Ruslan didn’t flinch.
He kept Marcus’s head submerged, arm locked, unyielding, watching the struggle slow—not out of haste, but intent. As if he wanted to see the exact moment fear gave way to helplessness. As if he needed to be sure.
Rain continued to fall around them, indifferent.
And Ruslan held him there, steady and merciless, until the fight began to fade.
But the moment Ruslan released him, Marcus jerked his head above the water, gasping, lungs searing with relief. He thought he was done—thought death had finally claimed him.
Adrenaline and terror ignited his muscles.
His eyes widened, wild, panicked. Without thinking, he lashed out, swinging a desperate, uncontrolled punch, fueled by fear rather than skill.
Ruslan’s hand shot up.
He caught the punch mid-air as if it weighed nothing, twisting Marcus’s arm violently. There was a sharp, wet pop—bone or joint giving way—and the sound cut through the air like a knife.
Marcus’s scream erupted, high-pitched and shrill, raw, stripped of anything human by sheer terror.
He twisted, clawed at the mud, at Ruslan, at anything, desperate to pull away, to survive.
Ruslan didn’t flinch. Not a muscle. Not a twitch.
His calmness was more terrifying than the violence itself, a predator in full control, waiting, calculating. He could have ended it. Any second. And Marcus knew it.
The panic in Marcus’s chest exploded into chaos, every heartbeat pounding with the realization that he was utterly at Ruslan’s mercy. And in that mercy—or lack thereof—Ruslan held the ultimate power.
Ruslan suddenly lunged, his fist smashing into Marcus’s face again—then again, each blow harder, faster, relentless. It was as if something inside him had snapped, a past he had buried for years now devouring him, driving him forward with merciless force.
Marcus flailed, weak, panicked, trying to shield himself, but Ruslan’s strikes were surgical, unstoppable. Each impact made his world shatter a little more—teeth rattling, skull throbbing, vision swimming in red and rain.
Finally, Marcus crashed backward, slamming into the muddy wall of the grave. His skull struck the packed earth with a dull, sickening crack that echoed through the hollow night. Blood poured immediately from the wound, mixing with the rainwater, swirling around them in a dark, sticky pool.
Marcus gasped, choked, and tried to scramble away, but Ruslan didn’t stop. He hovered over him, a predator feeding on the fear he had cultivated for years—every blow a reckoning, every strike a message.
I watched from the edge, frozen.
Rain plastered my hair to my face, soaked my clothes through to the skin, but I barely felt it.
My entire body trembled—not just from cold, but from the violence unfolding before me, from the knowledge that this man was capable of ending lives without hesitation.
.. and that some part of him believed he was justified.
Ruslan looked like a devil forged in storm and grief.
Rain beat down on his bare shoulders, his hair plastered to his forehead, his eyes burning with something beyond rage—something ancient and feral.
“You...” His voice broke, low and guttural. “You allowed my wife to be—”
The word caught in his throat.
Wouldn’t come.
His jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth might shatter.
Instead, he surged forward again.
He seized the therapist by the throat, fingers digging deep, yanked him close, and slammed his forehead into the man’s face with a sickening crunch. The therapist screamed—high, broken, animal—before Ruslan drove a knee into his groin.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The man’s body convulsed violently, legs buckling, mouth open in silent agony as the last of his strength drained away into the rising water.
Ruslan held him there.
I stood frozen at the edge of the graves, arms wrapped tight around myself as though I could keep my body from shaking apart.
Rain lashed my face in cold, stinging lines, ran down my spine, soaked into my clothes until they clung like a second skin.
The world felt narrowed to this circle of mud and death, to the man standing inside it, delivering justice in the only language he knew.
Ruslan punched again.
And again.
And again.
Each blow landed with ruthless precision, driven not by frenzy but by something far older and more terrible—years of unspent grief, betrayal calcified into muscle memory.
He wasn’t flailing. He was executing. The therapist’s face collapsed beneath his fists, bone and skin giving way until it no longer looked human, until it was only blood and ruin and soundless surrender.
The man’s body jerked once.
Twice.
Then it went slack.
Ruslan released him.
The corpse sank beneath the surface for a moment—pulled down by its own weight—then floated back up, face-up, empty eyes staring into the rain-choked sky as the grave continued to fill around him.
I hugged myself tighter, teeth chattering uncontrollably, my whole body trembling so hard I could barely stay upright.
And beneath the horror—beneath the cold and the fear—something else bloomed.
Dark. Quiet. Satisfying.
Justice.
Not clean. Not lawful.
But real.
For the first time since I was eighteen, since my voice failed me and the world decided I was expendable, someone had paid a price.
Now I could die.
Almost peacefully.
Almost.
Because even as the rain battered down, soaking us to the bone, and the graves around us overflowed with mud and water, another face burned behind my eyes—one I had tried so hard to forget.
My aunt’s husband. The man who had haunted my nights, whose hands had twisted my body, whose blows had stolen my hearing and my voice.
He was alive. Untouched. Somewhere warm, dry, sheltered from the storms I had to endure, untouched by the chaos, untouched by the consequences of what he had done.
Probably smiling at some new victim, some other soul he believed he had the right to ruin.
His hunger for control, for cruelty, still alive in him, as if desire alone gave him ownership over another human life.
The cold clawed deeper.
It wasn’t just cold anymore—it was invasive, predatory.
It crept into my bones, into my lungs, into my blood.
My body shook violently, teeth clashing so hard my jaw ached. Feverish heat burned behind my eyes even as my fingers went numb.
My vision blurred at the edges, the world tilting, darkening.
I swayed.
Ruslan pushed off the grave wall and hauled himself out, muscles straining as he climbed through slick mud and rising water. He moved with brutal grace, like gravity bent around him.
When he stood again before me, rain streaming down his bare arms, I barely recognized the man who had promised to bury me alive.
“I’ll die...” I whispered, the words barely surviving the storm. “But thank you.”
He shook his head once—sharp, decisive.
“No.”
Before I could react, he stripped the soaked white shirt over his head and draped it around my shoulders. The fabric was heavy with rain and heat, smelling of him—clean, metallic, alive. Then he pulled me into his arms.
I stiffened instantly.
My hands flew up, palms flattening against his bare chest, instinctively creating distance.
Chest-to-chest felt too exposed, too intimate, too dangerous.
His skin was cold from the rain—but beneath it, heat burned steady and real.
His heartbeat thudded beneath my hands, strong and unyielding, proof of a life that refused to stop.
His arms closed around me.
Not crushing.
Not possessive.
Almost hesitant.
As if he didn’t trust himself to hold another human being without breaking them.
“I’ll take you home,” he murmured into my wet hair.
I shook my head against his sternum, tears spilling freely now, indistinguishable from rain.
“It’s too late.”
I turned my face just enough to look past his shoulder. The grave behind him was nearly full, black water spilling over the edges, creeping across our feet like something alive.
“You wanted me dead,” I whispered, my voice splitting open. “And now... I’ll die.”
I tried to pull away.
He wouldn’t let me.
“Petros will be here soon,” he said quietly, with a certainty that bordered on faith. As though the world bent to his expectation.
I didn’t believe him.
The cold was unbearable now. My shivers turned violent, full-body spasms that stole my breath.
My lungs burned with every inhale, sharp and tight, panic fluttering at the edges of an oncoming asthma attack.
Memories surged again—hands pinning me down, the weight of a body I couldn’t fight, the therapist’s turned back, the scream trapped forever inside my chest.
I pressed my forehead harder against Ruslan’s chest, seeking warmth, seeking something solid to keep me here.
“I regret... the day I was born,” I whispered. “E-Every-Everything hurts.”
He didn’t answer.
But his arms tightened—just enough.
Not to trap me.
To hold me together.
The rain kept falling.
Thunder rolled overhead, low and endless, as though the sky itself were breaking open in grief.
My knees buckled without warning.
One moment I was upright—barely—and the next my legs simply... gave up. Strength drained from them like blood from an open vein. I didn’t even have time to brace myself.
He caught me.
Strong arms scooped me up before I could hit the ground, lifting me effortlessly into his chest. One arm slid beneath my knees, the other cradled my back, pulling me close in a carry that felt surreal—almost obscene—after everything that had happened here.
My head lolled against his shoulder.
The world tilted.
“I’m... so cold,” I murmured, the words barely audible, torn thin by chattering teeth and a throat that felt swollen shut.
“I know,” he said quietly.
There was no impatience in his voice. No anger. Just certainty.
He turned and began walking—long, deliberate strides carrying us away from the graves, away from the rising black water, away from the pale shape floating face-up behind us. Mud sucked at his boots, rain soaked us both to the bone, but his hold never faltered.
I tried to speak again.
Tried to explain.
Tried to thank him.
Tried to tell him I wasn’t the monster he believed me to be.
But the cold had sealed my throat completely now. My vocal cords felt locked in ice, every attempt at sound dissolving into a soft, broken whimper that shuddered out of me without words.
He didn’t seem to expect speech anymore.
He didn’t push.
He didn’t demand.
He simply adjusted his grip—subtle, careful—tucking me closer against his chest, angling my body to shield me from the wind as much as possible. His bare skin burned through the soaked fabric between us, heat radiating into me in small, precious increments.
Rain lashed down harder, stinging my face, my eyelids, my lips.
Lightning split the sky with a violent crack, white light flooding my vision for a heartbeat before plunging everything back into darkness.
My sight began to tunnel.
The edges of the world dimmed, sound warping, thunder stretching into a distant, underwater roar.
My body shook uncontrollably, muscles seizing, breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps.
I felt his heartbeat beneath my cheek.
Steady. Strong. Unrelenting.
It anchored me.
Even as my consciousness frayed, even as the night pressed in from all sides, that rhythm told me one undeniable truth:
He had meant to hurt me—but instead, he had torn open a wound I had carried for years and finally let it bleed out.
Watching the therapist die didn’t fill me with horror the way it should have; it filled me with something I had never been allowed to have.
Justice. The kind I had longed for in silence, the kind I had convinced myself would never come.
And now he was holding me.
Not dragging. Not restraining.
Holding me—carefully, as though I mattered.
For a man who had promised to bury me alive only hours ago, the contradiction felt impossible—and yet, here it was, solid and undeniable.
His steps never slowed.
Not once.
Not for the mud, not for the storm, not for the weight of a broken woman in his arms.
As darkness closed in, as the rain and thunder dissolved into distant echoes, the last thing I registered was the heat of his body and the firm press of his hand at my back, keeping me from slipping away completely.
Then the world slipped out from under me again.
For the second time that night, darkness took me.
And this time—
I didn’t fight it.
I let go.
I welcomed it.