Page 88 of He Hate Me

But like an animal he has keen instincts. I start raising the gun, but he leaps over the desk with a gun of his own and fires, almost before I can duck out of the way. The bullets drill into the loveseat, the acrid smell of gunpowder filling the room. I fire at him from the ground, a lucky shot catching him in the hip and another in the shoulder. He lists to one side, the gun no longer pointing at me. He hasn’t made a sound, and his stoicism bothers me. I want to hear him scream.

I’m plowing into him before he can get another shot off. His gun goes flying and, in the collision, so does mine, but it doesn’t matter. My fist connects with his face, the jolt going up my arm like I hit concrete. My hand explodes in pain, but it’s worth it to see the blood flowing from his nose. The bones of his face are no match for the strength I’ve built up in the gym. He gasps, a beautiful, bloody gurgle coming from his mouth. He starts to fight me, trying to throw me off, but I have the superior position and youth on my side.

“We actually have something in common,” I tell him, kneeling on his uninjured right arm. He punches me with his left, but the angle doesn’t allow for much leverage.

My hand shakes with adrenaline as I flick my knife open. His eyes widen, only now betraying fear despite already having been shot and beaten.

“I have a side of myself I keep hidden from other people as well.” He tries to kick me, but I easily avoid his legs. Time seems to slow as I decide my next move. I feel a smile spread across my face as I drive the knife into his upper thigh. His scream covers the sucking sound of the knife exiting his flesh. A pool of blood spreads slowly under his body. Later I realized how lucky I was not to sever his femoral artery, but in the moment, I feel nothing but elation as his limb twitches feebly, the nerves he needs to control it sliced through by my knife.

“I really like that,” I tell him, repeating the motion on his other leg, inches from the bullet wound. His scream is hoarse this time. “This is so much fun, and thank you for being such a piece of shit I can do this without feeling bad after.”

I smile down at Devin's writhing body, my hands sticky with his blood. Until this moment I thought I would be horrified by the act of slicing through another’s flesh, but I feel only satisfaction and the pleasurable hum that comes from inflicting pain. He was a dead man as soon as he touched Deja, and I like to think that I’m not only punishing him for hurting the women I love, but exacting the revenge David would have taken if he’d lived long enough to realize his friend was the one who raped his child. I press the knife deeper into his thigh, eliciting another raw scream.

“You’re no better than me,” he groans, sweat beading on his forehead. I ignore him, scratching my chin as I decide where to use the knife next. By the time I’m done he’s screamed himself hoarse and I’m drenched in red. His breath comes in stuttered gasps, his muscles shivering as if he’s cold, though I suspect he’s in shock from the pain and blood loss. I’ve tried to avoid stabbing him in places that would cause rapid bleeding, but I’ve never done this before, and the sheer number of wounds made this outcome inevitable. I can see that he’s fading, his breaths getting further apart and his eyes clouding. I don’t have much time left to enact my last bit of revenge. With a cheerful whistle, I begin unbuckling his belt.

“Remind me not to piss you off,” Anton says coming into the room just as I’m finishing up. I drop the recently excised meat on Devin’s chest, satisfied that he saw me holding the bloody trophy before he died. “I told you to let me handle this. I’d at least have laid down a tarp.”

“You watched the videos; you know why I couldn’t.”

He shakes his head, stepping over Devin’s body and pressing two fingers to his neck. “I’ll call a few of my guys to come deal with this mess. They’re going to be pissed.”

“Are we square?”

“Should I keep paying your mother’s medical bills?” Anton asks.

I look at the bag of money and valuables on the floor. It’s hard to gauge how much is in there, and my mother’s care is extremely expensive. “I don’t know.”

“You could keep working for me. Based on this,” he says, motioning towards the body, “I think you would be an excellent fit for my organization. We can teach you a bit of finesse, I pay well, and cleanup is complimentary.”

Deja’s sitting on the bed when I enter our room at Rourke’s.

I toss the duffel bag into the nearest chair, but she pays no attention to it. She runs to me and pulls me into her arms. I squeeze back, breathing deep of her sugar cookie smell.

“You showered,” she says, pushing a lock of my damp hair behind my ear, “and changed. What happened?”

“Things got a little messy.”

“Devin…?”

“Will never bother anyone again.”

Her eyes widen as she processes my words, then she nods pressing her lips together.

“Did you…kill him?”

“It was mostly a side effect of using my knife to emasculate him.”

She gazes up at me, a crease furrowing her brow. I’m worried that I might have upset her, but then she smiles brightly.

“Seems like the perfect way to handle a pedo.”

It takes a moment for me to catch up but when I do, I scrutinize her face, trying to see if learning what was done to her has changed anything. I think I see new shadows behind her eyes despite her smile.

“Did you remember something?” I ask carefully.

“A couple flashes. What really happened is I called my mom to see if she could reach Anton. I was worried about you getting hurt. She thought I already knew. It turns out Devin and my dad were probably drugging and date raping girls in college and she knew about it but married them anyway. I don’t think I ever want to see her again.”

I kiss her cheek and hold her close. I know she means it now, but she and her mother have been relatively close most of her life. I’ll wait and see. Even now I’m considering whether it might be time to reach out to my dad again and at least tell him what Devin told me about lying to him. The pain he’s caused me is still there, but it’s hard to give up on the hope that your parent loves you despite signs to the contrary.