Page 18 of Our Monstrous Hearts

“Oh, he was so big and thick,” I add breathlessly, gently squeezing my breasts, my body seeming to spark with desire. There are some creative liberties that I’m taking, but Clayton doesn’t need to know that.

My eyes slowly rake down Clayton’s body in judgment, lip curling in disgust.

“He makes your cock look like a shriveled-up snail.”

Clayton finally cracks, backhanding me across the face—the pain sharp and raw, my lip splitting as my face is violently wrenched to the side by the force of it.

My hands brace against the sink as I groan from the impact.

“I’m going to kill you, you dumb fucken’ bitch,” he screams, rage consuming his body.

The metallic tang of blood fills my mouth and I laugh, my hands quickly searching for the weapon that I had lain here earlier.

Spinning around, I latch onto him with bloodthirsty eyes. Blood spilling down my chin, I point the knife at him.

Clayton recoils, hesitation flashing across his face, and that’s when I see it.

Fear shines in his eyes. He finally understands that I’m going to rip him open, tear him apart with my hands and teeth until there’s nothing left of him but blood and ruin. I am his demise.

He stumbles back again. “You’re possessed…you’re a monster, the devil. Lord, help me.”

My laughter fills the room as I shake my head. “Worse,” I assure him with glee.

Being his nightmare feels magnificent. Here I am to claim what is owed to me—his life.

“You reap what you sow.” My words emerge in a taunting whisper, dripping with venom, and I watch as his sins begin to devour him whole.

“You’re crazy! Get the fuck out. Get out, Cassie.” His voice shakes, and he looks around, searching for somewhere to run.

“How does it feel,” I murmur, “to be so helpless?”

I won’t give him the chance to escape. I am his doom, his reckoning, the monster he created, and the monster he deserves.

Taking my chance, I leap towards Clayton with vicious intent, thrusting the knife out. He screams as I stab him through the side.

Stumbling back, he places his hand over the wound.

“Motherfucker!”

Before he has the chance to draw breath, I stab him again, the knife slicing into his abdomen.

I don’t know how to best use a knife as a weapon, never having harmed anyone before, so I’m going on instinct alone. I want to see him suffer. I want to cause him pain and see how he likes the taste of misery.

“I hate you!” I slash the knife across his chest, watching blood bubble. “I hate what you’ve done to me! I hate that you robbed me of the person that I could have been. You stole my innocence. I won’t think of you when you’re gone—I won’t. You won’t destroy me, but I will destroy you.” Vicious stabs and slashes follow each of my words as I unleash my years of suffering upon his flesh. All I can think, and see, and feel, is making sure that he hurts.

Clayton drops to the kitchen floor with a thud, his breathing labored. I blink past the angry tears that have clouded my vision to see him curled in a fetal position, blood flooding from his wounds. Seeing him so broken, so helpless, is healing in its own right. He looks pathetic, no more than an old man. I don’t know how I once gave him so much power over me, but I never will again.

“Fucken’ bitch,” I hear him gurgle through the blood as it continues to pour onto the floor.

The blood in my veins runs cold.

Everything in me stops dead.

And the scream that leaves me is full of fury.

I straddle his body, the knife raised above my head as rage consumes me. I become a banshee, the harbinger of death, come to take his soul and condemn him to hell. I am the last thing he ever sees, a nightmare to torture him for all eternity. I stab his chest over and over, over and over, screaming and wailing the hurt and abuse I’ve suffered at his hands.

His blood splatters everywhere—all over my face, my clothes, and the kitchen. I don’t stop––can’t stop––sinking the blade into his flesh, slicing and hacking, not even when he has long since stopped breathing.