Page 120 of Dark Ugly Places

“Stop, Jason,” Bambi shouts. “We need to call 911!”

His lips part into a sneering, soul-crushing smile. “Yes, you will.”

He palms the knife handle and raises it aloft as he jets toward us, and guttural sounds rage from his lips. He grabs Bambi and yanks her to him. The knife slices through her left arm, sudden and fast, and she lets out a sharp, tiny cry, glancing down with shock at her blood spilling to the floor. The three of us struggle, Jason’s hand at Bambi’s throat again, his other stabbing the empty air toward me, blood droplets on the floor, our feet, slipping.

Jason squeezes, and Bambi falls to the floor, clutching her neck and gasping for air. He turns to me, his knife raised, eyes dark and menacing. I back into the fridge, the raised handle hitting my spine, and stagger away from him.

He sneers, just once, but that’s when I know. He lunges toward me and swings, and I leap back just in time. I raise the Magnum light and take careful aim. One swing, hard, and the head of the Magnum collides with his temple. His eyes roll back, his arms fall slack, and in moments, he’s lying at our feet, stunned and choking.

Bambi scrambles toward me.

“Oh my God,” she yells, eyes wide with horror. She runs to the kitchen wall and grabs the landline. “Oh my God, oh my God! We have to call for help.”

Instinctively, I slap the phone from her hands. It clatters noisily to the floor. “Don’t be ridiculous.” With one foot, I step on the phone and hear the plastic contort and snap.

“It’s self-defense,” she mumbles stupidly. “We won’t get in trouble.”

“Like hell we won’t.”

I stare into her large and defenseless eyes. She really is beautiful, even looking as she does with her face so distorted with fear. Part of me aches to have this all over with, the two of us someplace else, sand between our toes maybe, a sunset on the horizon, gossiping and laughing over cocktails, the way best friends would do …

It could be like that, just Bambi and me. I know it could.

Bambi kneels to Jason and strokes his hair from his eyes. Her face breaks into sobs, and her hand rises to her mouth, watching him, shaking as he chokes, the final toxins taking hold. “I can’t believe this. How could this happen?”

“It’s going to be okay,” I say sweetly to her.

She shakes her head. “No. No! It wasn’t supposed to be this way! The pens—not one of them worked. I don’t understand …” She stops and turns to me then, her eyes fierce. “You did this, didn’t you?”

My chest swells, a warm bubble of pride in my center. She’ll never know, of course, how carefully I found his pens, how, one by one, I made sure they were just the right temperature. And oh, how I’d studied the instructions to be sure: “EpiPens should be stored in dry conditions at 68° to 77°F to be effective.” And to be ineffective? Just do the exact opposite of what it says on the little yellow box. A nice pot of boiling water. Cooked for a few minutes each.

“Bambi, I did this for you, remember? So that you could be free?”

“Free? He’s dead now! I never wanted to hurt him, Martha! This is so fucked!” she screams. “How could you do this?”

“It’s going to be okay. You just have to trust me.”

“Trust you?”

“Yes!” I shout, louder than I intended. “Haven’t I been a good friend to you?”

“Friend?” Bambi stops. She glares at me. “You were never my friend, Martha. You’re no one—just someone I hired. And now you’ve ruined my life. Ruined it!”

I can hear Nicola now, her voice echoing in my skull. See? I told you.

“Liar!” My fist slams onto the ground, a tiny waft of anger emerging that I’d intended to save for later. But there it is, the pinprick of disaster on her flesh. She senses me now, and there’s no turning back.

There’s a clean rush of energy into my core, the thrill of something about to unfold, a river of vengeance swimming in my cells. Maybe he didn’t do it. Maybe he did. Maybe Bambi knew. Maybe she didn’t. What do I care? Either way, now they both deserve exactly what they are getting.

My vengeance is against a life unlived. All those moments waiting, hoping, asking, pleading …

I always wanted the light, even as Nicola wanted the dark. She longed for it to come forth, and I helped her. And isn’t that the way it always is with us humans—longing for our innermost demons to be exorcised, our pains and our wrongs to be avenged?

At last, vengeance is in my grasp. It comes easily and effortlessly as I stand watching Jason take his final rasping breath.

54

Bambi