Chapter Twenty
I want to speak, but I don’t dare, the small knife firmly, yet comfortable, in my hand. I don’t have any practice with hand-to-hand combat, not even the slightest, but all I have to try and manage to do is to stick the sharp side into whoever seems to be in our home. Preferably into their throat.
The wood groans quietly as whoever’s weight settles. Jasper’s face is one of anger, his rage exudes off of him. He shields me from whoever has entered the house. He glances over his shoulder, his eyes meeting mine. ‘The women,’ he mouths.
My eyes widen as my brain registers what Jasper is telling me.
He believes the women we rescued earlier from Marvin are the ones who entered the house.
I want to move past him, but he stops me.
Again, he signals for me to stay quiet. I want to speak to him, but the soft creaks interrupt me before I even open my mouth.
Soft murmurs ensue. I realize they are searching for us; perhaps they need aid. Jasper pushes me back behind him with one arm, while raising the other, the crowbar ready to attack. We slowly advance to the door when three women appear at the entrance.
“What the…,” I whisper, barely audible.
I only recognize the blonde one, the one that I followed straight into Marvin’s cabin, the one who rescued me, and the one I selfishly rescued back.
She looks a bit better, not in the sense that she looks prettier, but her hair is washed, almost detangled.
The clothes she wears are less ragged. Clean.
All three women look deformed, mutilated. One misses an arm. My mind trails off to the one that’s not here. And where did Marvin hide them? Were all of them buried alive? Like the blonde one?
“There you are, you monster. We’ve been looking for you.”
One of the women speaks, her hair brunette, shoulder-length. Her face is as ugly as the others. Maimed, scarred. Her voice is laced with hatred, aimed at Jasper. Her words stir something inside me, something deep that lay dormant, forced to awaken.
I meet her gaze full-on, not an ounce of fear for these pathetic women, who dare to step into my home, threaten my man, and want to disrupt my way of living, just as I found myself. A rage bubbles up that I am unable to ignore.
I shove away Jasper’s arm and step in front of him, and surprisingly, he lets me as if he can sense the fury that whirls inside me.
“Who the hell are you?” I seethe.
“I think deep down you already know, sweetie,” she says condescendingly.
I suck in my lower lip, reigning in my frustration before I answer. “You’re right. I do. You are the cunts who refused to die, even though your time was there. You escaped with your life, spared… until now.”
Her face twists into a grimace at my words. Yet I continue to speak, not done with these miserable bitches.
“You made a mistake coming here, sweetie. You cheated death once, and then you decide to confront the Grim Reaper himself once more. To taunt him. I promise you, though. He’s not the one you should worry about; I’m worse than him.”
Her brown eyes widen, then narrow as she takes me in, as if trying to calculate how much of a threat I truly am.
The blonde woman pulls the brunette’s sleeve and shakes her head slightly.
She steals a glance at me, her one eye darting between us, before returning to the brunette, as if trying to tell her to leave me alone.
The other one, a light brown-haired woman, stands there, as if the sight of Jasper has frozen her on the spot.
“Listen, Tawny, I don’t care whether she saved you or not; she’s clearly not thinking straight. He has a hold over her.”
Tawny, the blonde, shakes her head again, the only way possible for her to disagree with the assessment.
I consider whether to attack them while they’re distracted.
The brunette sighs theatrically and turns to the other woman, whose eyes are glued to Jasper.
It irritates me, the way she ogles him. I don’t care if it’s out of fear.
“Annabeth? Thoughts?”
When the woman doesn’t respond, the brunette roughly grabs her chin and forces her to face her.
“I’m talking to you, you nitwit.”
Annabeth’s eyes dart from the woman to Jasper, her anxiety palpable. I don’t know what their idea was coming here, but they seem awfully unprepared.
Annabeth finally finds her voice and begins to talk, squeaky, rushed. “Marvin, Lanny, Marvin. That’s why we're here. Why is he here? Why is HE here, Lanny? He’s not supposed to be here.”
“Calm down, Ann. Jesus. We will find, Marvin.”
“We’re going to die without Marvin. Lanny. We need him. But why is he here? I don’t want to be here.”
Seeing my window of opportunity, I chime in.
“Marvin is dead, Annabeth. You three came here for nothing.”
On cue, Marvin begins to wail like a damn siren, but it only kicks the three women into gear. Annabeth loses her mind and crouches, rocking herself back and forth, rendering herself useless. Tawny looks lost as Lanny charges Jasper.
I yell at him that they’re mine, and he stays rooted in place, not lifting a finger.
I turn my attention to Lanny.
“I don’t think so, you bitch!”
I storm toward her, and as our bodies collide with a loud clash, I jab the knife straight into her neck.
I let out an animalistic cry as I wrench and twist it into her flesh, opening up the gash in the hope that I sever an artery.
It doesn’t take long before I hit it, and blood sprays all over me like a broken sprinkler, misting my face in crimson.
I feel feral, and I bare my teeth at the feisty woman, who tries to fight me off of her.
I pull out the knife and slash her throat as she lets herself fall to the ground, taking me with her.
We both slam onto the floor, and the impact takes my breath.
The knife drops from my hand and falls next to us.
I gasp for air and roll on top of her. Her fingers wrap around my throat, and I hook my fingers in her elbows and push them wide, causing me to collapse to her face.
I open my maw and clamp down on her nose.
She cries out as I twist and tear until the organ rips free.
The taste of copper fills my mouth, but I don’t care.
Blood is not unfamiliar to my taste buds.
I spit it out, and with a wet squelch, it lands next to us.
I reach for the knife and pry it off the floor.
Despite my slippery hands, I still manage to jab it with vigor into her eyeball.
She wants to reach for it, but the blood loss finally starts to take its toll, as Lanny begins to weaken.
I plant the knife wherever it allows me, the blade sinking into her flesh over and over.
Seeing her friend slip into unconsciousness from my relentless assault makes Tawny realize that I was never on her side.
Our interactions each time were coincidental and selfish on my part.
She snaps out of her defensive stance and launches herself onto my back.
From the corner of my eye, I see Jasper move, but I shout for him to stay away.
I made these three women a promise. I told them I’d be worse than him, and I plan to make good on my vow.
Reluctantly, he listens to my command, but he keeps a watchful eye on me.
His body is tense, fists clenched, the crowbar tightly in his hand, ready to strike if needed and kill these women himself if they hurt me in any way.
Tawny wraps one arm around my throat, trying to suffocate me.
The knife still in hand, I take hold of her arm, and she understands something is wrong.
She tries to pull back, but I hold on to her firmly.
Without hesitation, I plant the blade into her scarred flesh, repeatedly, like a maniac who’s unable to stop stabbing.
Her muffled moans sound as if she mimics patients from an asylum, unable to form words without her tongue.
She lets go, and I spin around, still straddling her dying friend.
I get on my feet and I jump on top of her to continue my whirlwind of an assault.
The knife smoothly slices in her tissue, the blade scraping against bone that’s no longer protected by its soft cage.
Blood pours from the gashes all over her body.
Her arm, her shoulders, her back. I move on to her stomach. Stab, stab, stab. More blood.
I want to look her in the eye, like I had done with Lanny, as hope begins to die, like brittle bone scorched in flames. Perhaps I should reunite her remaining eye with the one that still sits in the fridge.
As a final fuck you, I drag the knife across the corners of her mouth.
Opening up the ugly scars, redoing Jasper’s work that Marvin had tried to cover up.
I leave Tawny to bleed out as she collapses next to her friend.
She stares at me, confusion written all over her face, not understanding why I am doing what I do.
She had expected to find solidarity within me, from woman to woman.
But how do you explain to someone that all of this, is me protecting what is mine?
The one person she hates, while he’s the reason for my existence.
“You escaped the worst of it… You should have stayed away,” I whisper, as I plunge the knife right beside her heart. I have no intention to give her a quick death, but I can feel her chest pounding. I twist it, tearing the skin open further, and pull it out.
With my face covered in freckles made of blood, I point the blade at the woman, Annabeth, who’s still rocking herself back and forth. She doesn’t even glance at me.
None of it matters. Jasper was right at the cabin, even though he didn’t say so; there was a hesitation in letting these feral women cheat death.
Yet Death, at some point, still comes to collect.
I understand now that letting them live was never a humane thing to do; all we did was give them borrowed time they could never repay.
I walk over to the hunched woman and grab her hair, dragging her to her feet.
She screams and cries, slamming her fists against my chest. I slam the knife straight into her ear, perforating her eardrum.
The wail that escapes her throat makes me wish I could do the same to mine to snuff the horrid sound out.
I knee her straight in the vagina, and her bloodshot eyes bulge from the unexpected impact as her body collapses. I twist and pull the knife out, causing blood to spurt from her mangled ear.
I position the knife against her throat and slice with all my might, the flesh giving way to the sharp edge of the metal.
A sea of crimson pours from the gaping wound.
She sinks to the floor, and once more I lift my knee, this time straight into her face.
My bone connects with the tenderness of her nose, the fracturing that occurs a sickening noise. She falls flat forward, her eyes still.
I furrow my brows watching her, when Jasper steps next to me.
“I think some bone splinters found their way into her brain. It can happen.”
I kick her lifeless body, and she rolls over, a human-sized ragdoll, her face expressionless.
“Get your camera,” he says, as he catches me staring at the body in a trance.
Not wasting any time, I step over the body and hurry to find what I need. My fingers itch to capture the strange beauty that only death can bring.
I hear Jasper dragging the bodies to the room where I made my earlier images. The fact that I have three bodies to work with makes me giddy with excitement. I just know, I will be able to find beauty in their hideous ugliness.