Chapter 53 #3
That doubt, that uncertainty that maybe he was right, maybe I had made up the whole thing in my head, and the story he had told everyone was the truth, that I had gotten drunk and come on to him and taken off my clothing and fell asleep in his bed.
That maybe I was the villain.
My eyes flicked over to the woman standing in her underwear by the wall.
The soldiers had said the medical scan showed her system still had traces of the drug I asked them to search for. If this had just been me, it wouldn't have happened to others.
If this was all a product of my mind being crazy and messed up, she wouldn't be here.
My mind flashed back over every moment with this guy.
He showed small gestures of disgust and disdain for me every time I interacted with him.
The way he invited me to a party, saying Arnina was going to be there, but then she wasn't, and when I texted her, she said she hadn't heard of it.
The way he had handed me that bottle of beer, the cap already off.
"No one here will listen to you," I said softly, my words holding the hard edge of my certainty, gripping the knife.
"Your words are empty. A man who betrays trust just so he can use others for his own entertainment has no sway here.
You may have been able to convince people back on Earth because people have a tendency to kiss the asses of men who get hysterical with their emotions and think that shouting equals truth-telling, but these guys here - you know what they think of you? "
Bryan just gaped at me.
I'd never spoken up before.
I gave Arnina the sanitized version of what he had done to me, I had started to tell her, unable to give the full length detailed story of what it had been like waking up in his bed, instead choosing to tell her that he came on to me, and she had gone to him for confirmation.
When he reacted by spewing the same kind of crap he just tossed at me here, I'd shut up.
I'd shut down.
But there was no shutting down now.
I was going to finish this.
I needed to gift myself a head in a box.
"Why are you letting her do this!" Bryan had found his voice again, and was addressing the soldiers. "She is fucking crazy!"
What an idiot.
He was so used to men pandering to him just because they all had dicks in their pants that he thought his male comradery card would work on Inuyasha look-alikes.
"They don't think anything about you, isn't that right?" I glanced at the ginger soldier standing next to the woman in her underwear. "What do you think about him?"
The soldier snorted.
"If you're going to kill him, get it over with. This woman needs to get to medical," he replied.
I grinned.
I loved that the Emperor surrounded himself with people who would say what was on their mind.
"He says that I should just get this over with," I translated as I stalked over to Bryan.
"So that's what I'm going to do."
"No!" Bryan snarled and lunged for me, reaching for my hand with the knife.
I twisted it, slicing at his palms as he got ahold of my wrist.
Even with cut hands, he yanked me towards him; towards the knife in my own hand that he was turning back on me.
I thrust my other clenched fist forward.
Something erupted from me.
The space between my knuckles burned and tore. It felt like there were snakes slithering under my skin, wrapping around my bones to brace themselves, an additional skeleton wrapped around my own that held me from head to toe before extending out from me.
My osae had finally decided to emerge.
"Fucking wolverine claws!" I shouted. "Finally!"
Bryan coughed, blood erupting from his mouth to dribble down his chin.
I lifted my arm.
The four tentacles had extended from my knuckles and pierced through Bryan's chest and throat. As I raised my arm, I was able to lift him off the ground on the end of my dagger-like tentacles using the strength they gave me by being a part of me forever.
I shook my hand and flicked him off to the ground.
It was done.
"She can control her osae?" one of the soldiers muttered as they all took a step back from me.
"Yes," the Emperor replied. "The hoomons can control their osae. This fact stays quiet for now."
"Yes, sire," the soldiers replied.
Oh, look, who was the scary alien now?
I turned my attention back to the dying man in front of me.
For a moment, I stood there, listening to the strangled gasps of the man I had hated for so long, and the steady drip of the blood running off of my tentacles.
I thought I would feel more than this. I thought I would feel the full intensity of my hatred or the raging agony when I realized that Arnina had believed him instead of me.
I thought that watching him die would heal me.
I thought I would feel better.
Instead, I just felt calm.
I carefully wiped my tentacles off on Bryan's shirt, then pulled them back into me.
They slithered back beneath my skin, leaving no sign but the rapidly healing gashes in between my knuckles where they had emerged.
I turned away from the corpse.
He was just one demon. Taking out one single speck of darkness from a world that was teeming with shit and suffering was just a minor drop in the bucket. It would have no real impact on anyone but me and the future women that he would have harmed.
I ignored the other woman in the room.
I knew that not everyone would agree with me.
The fact was the laws that protected men like Bryan from vengeance like this were made by men like Bryan, men who believed that a crime that left the victim alive and relatively physically intact was not much of a crime at all. That had never sat well with me.
The anger and anxiety that had festered in me over the years as a result of Bryan's attack were not minor.
There was a reason ancient armies used rape as a strategy of war - it destroyed the heart and soul of the population, forcing the people on the receiving end of it to spend the rest of their lives living with the aftershocks of an act delivered with hatred.
I'd never felt hatred before Bryan.
I knew of it as a concept, but I had never felt it.
Whether or not I was right in my choice to end the source of my hatred, whether or not other people would judge me for ending a life because one morning I woke up in a bed, naked, not knowing how I even got there - none of that mattered.
The only thing that mattered was now I had the power to do something about it.
By doing it, by ending it, I finally felt like, for the first time in a long time, I had done the right thing. I had finally taken care of that loose end that had felt like my responsibility.
I'd known what he did to me.
I knew what he did to others.
I hadn't been able to speak.
But I had been able to slay.
And now, for the first time in a long time, I felt… calm.
"I'm ready to do the broadcast now," I said.
I knew, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, that I could do this.
If I could take care of myself, I could take care of the world.
"I'm ready to do the broadcast now," I repeated, a sense of feral joy rushing through me.
"What broadcast?" the other woman asked.
"I'm going to broadcast to the entire planet and give them a heads-up on what I'm going to do," I said. "There are a few places that need to be evacuated and things like that before I blow them the fuck up."
"Why are you going to blow things up?" she asked.
I took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling.
Why was I going to do that?
The calmness in me was filled with a certainty that felt far too close to mania.
It made me pause.
It was time to stop making rash decisions.
"You know what?" I said. "I should get a second opinion on this before I go full anti-hero on the entire planet. Do you have a background in environmental studies or anything?"
"No…" she replied.
"Good," I said, trembling with the intensity of everything I was feeling.
"I already have the geeks working out what I need to destroy.
I need someone who has no idea what is going on to run my plan by, so I make sure it isn't super crazy.
Why don't you get washed up, and I'll get you some clothes.
Then we can sit down so I can get a second normal type person's opinion. "
"Oh… okay," she said.
Oh, I should let her know something else.
"Also, if you fuck the space elves, you get tentacles and pregnant," I told her.
"I'm not…" she stammered, blushing.
"Whatever you need, girl," I continued. "Also, the horny aliens will also knock you up, too, just so you know.
They should all carry warning labels. Maybe when I let them set up their dating center I'll mandate that all the Norratar and Shek'invitali will have to wear outfits that have pregnancy warnings on them. "
She looked at me like I was absolutely bat shit crazy, with giant wide eyes, the sides of her lips drawn horizontally backwards. Her upper eyelids were raised, exposing the whites on top of her pupils and her lower eyelids were tense.
Oh I didn’t know how to make this any better.
She woke up after being drugged, was kidnapped by a giant cat elf, and then watched me murder someone with tentacles coming out of my knuckles. Then I just warned her the aliens wanted to bang her. There was no way I was going to be the one to soothe her.
It would be better if I just took myself out of this equation.
"I'm on birth control," she said.
"Good for you, you smart girl," I nodded. "Now go get cleaned up. I'm going to write a script."
I wanted to get out of here.
I needed to do something with all the craziness rushing through me.
"Wait!" she said.
Ugh, what did she need now?
"What is his name?" she pointed at the dappled male next to her.
"Just ask him," I rolled my eyes. "He can understand you fine."
Then I was out of there, impatience itching at my skin. I'd just gotten rid of my demon, and the act of it had sent me over the edge with excitement. I needed to run. I needed to do something.
Maybe I wouldn't wait.
Maybe I'd just blow up every seat of government on the planet.