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But I have. I’ve seen the price he’s paid for it too. Time and again.
“Argh!” Redix slams Derek’s skull so hard against the glass. It’s thick, but that impact starts to splinter the perfect facade.
“Fuck you,” Redix growls back, slamming Derek’s head again. His big, strong hands squeeze Derek’s neck so hard he can kill him.
And I want to let him.
My colleagues, the deputies, and Penny stand with weapons itching to do something, but they won’t defy me.
Redix can do it. He can kill Derek and kill his pain, too. Derek’s eyes glass over, his face red, and his body limp. He’s seconds away.
But this isn’t Redix.
This is rage, and though Redix and I align in a perfect match in every way, this is our fatal difference.
Redix is passion and peace and everything protective. His soul has survived so much.
I’m the vengeance. I’m the one he sacrificed for, so I’d be strong enough to do this for him.
“Redix, stop!”
My shout booms with a rattle of thunder, the reverberations traveling through him.
His hands drop from Derek’s neck. Derek’s limp body slides to the floor, unconscious.
The heave of Redix’s chest, his shoulders rising and falling, he doesn’t even feel that his arm’s been shot. That Derek’s bullet went straight through it. It’s not a fatal wound, but it’s weeping blood down to his wrist and staining his shirt to his waist.
The deputies rush over, guns drawn, while Penny cuffs an unconscious Derek. She starts calling in the medic and other deputies outside.
Chaos rains down over the house while they secure the scene. While Redix can’t find his sanity, and I don’t even think he sees me standing before him.
He’s lost in that night.
In all Derek did in the name of hurting him.
Medics take Derek out. A couple of others try talking to Redix, to address his wound, but he’s not responding.
“Just give him a minute,” I say. “Give him some space.”
The room clears. Deputies and medics stand on the edge of it while we all watch Redix on his mental edge.
“Hey.” I touch his sweaty arm, the one not shot. “I’m right here. It’s okay now.”
His eyes, his logic, finally see me here. “No, it’s not,” he says. The fracture in his eyes. The pain and torment in them. I’ve seen this look before. It’s right before he runs. “It’ll never be okay what they did to us.”
He moves so fast. Lifting the side chair beside him, he slams it into the glass window. It shatters, almost breaking to the storm outside.
And I step back. I’m not shocked. Redix slams the chair against the window again, and I glance at the deputies. They’re ready to intervene, but I put my hand up.
“Let him,” I say.
It’s his house. It’s his rage. It’s his pain, and I’ve never seen him like this.
Redix slams the chair over and over until, finally, the window breaks into pieces, pouring a glass avalanche over the floor. He’s yelling. He’s shouting. He’s picking up the matching chair and going for another window. Another perfect facade he wants to ruin like they tried to do to him.
“Fuck you!” He shouts. He’s never been so angry, so loud. “Fuck them!” His blood drips to the floor. Sweat pours down his face. “Fuck them!” But he won’t stop.
He’s in that night. The one that changed us forever, and I’m right there with him. Seeing him beaten, battered, and bloodied, all for me, and my vision blurs with the tears he’s not crying while this madness takes him.
