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I stare down at the first man. I remember when he pretended to help me and my friends before grabbing us off the road, shooting us, hurting us. My veins fill with contempt.
I pick up a knife with a long, thin blade. I want to kill them. I want to rip them open and make them hurt. Make them bleed. Make them beg.
Just knowing that they will feel what I do to them is enough. It’s actually more satisfying. They don’t have the power anymore. It’s been taken, the same way they took it from all of us.
I see them, the things they did. The way they’d laugh as they hurt us. It doesn’t matter what their faces look like. Because they’re all the same. Every single man who hurt the women and children, they’re all the devil’s hand. And I will return them back to him.Back to hell, where they will burn for eternity.
My lips twist as I lower the knife to his face, and I etch a line down his cheek, being careful to dig it deeper the more I go. When I’m through, his face is bloody, and my smile swells. I start on his other cheek, then his forehead, his jaw, lower until I carve his throat, his arms. I slice him until blood pools, until there’s too much.
But I want more. I want every drop. Until he’s empty.
“I remember you.” I stare into his open eyes. “I remember what you did to us. The way you laughed. The way you smelled. I even remember that stupid brown t-shirt you wore with a red stain on the collar. Like you dropped some ketchup on it. Or maybe it was blood. Maybe you hurt someone else before you hurt us.”
My heart races, my stomach dipping with every ounce of resentment.
“I hate you.” I lift the knife in the air, holding it in both hands. “I hate that you’re still alive. That you get to walk this earth. But that ends today.” I jam the knife into his stomach and grab another. “Does it hurt?” I grin. “Does it make you want to die? Because I won’t let you. Not yet. Not until I’ve had enough, and I haven’t come close.”
With a roar, I unleash, everything spilling out of me. All the hurt left inside me suffocates me until I’m lost to it, lost to the agony I’ve lived in all these years. I sink the knife into his thighs, his cheek, his stomach. I stab his body until there’s no more space. Until blood covers my hands, my clothes. Until the last strike, until the weapon sinks into his throat. Until he’s gone.
Hands hold me as I rise, breathing heavy. “Are you alright, baby bird? Do you need me to finish it?”
I turn to him and shake my head, both corners of my mouth curving. “No. I want to be the one.”
He nods once, brushing his knuckles down my face. “Then go and make them hurt, and don’t stop until they do. Let your rage rain.”
I grab the bat this time, wander toward the second man who took me, and swing the wood in the air, grinning down at him. “I know you couldn’t see what I did to your friend, but I promise it was quite the show.”
I smash the bat into his nose, cracking until blood explodes from his face. My pulse pummels as I come at him, blow after blow, shattering his kneecaps, his fingers, his tibia. Every bone I can smash splinters in his body. The fury overtakes me until I’m lost to its power, made one with it, like we’re connected. Unbreakable.
Screams echo. My screams. My battle cry. I’ve won. I made it out of there while they’re here, dying.
Maybe I’ve become like them. An animal. Someone society would never accept. But I’m okay with that. I got something so many people like me never get. I got to torture them. I made them hurt.Me. Weak little Kayla.
They had no idea how strong I truly was. No one did. Not even my friends.
But here, with A, I get to prove my strength. My perseverance. He’s the only one who sees the true me, the one I fight so hard to hide. But with him, I never have to do that. He’s like me. He understands.
With the final blow, I smash his skull until his face collapses into itself, until there’s nothing but brain and blood. It makes me want to vomit, but I hold it in, dropping the bat and collecting myself.
“Are you okay?” A asks, clasping my face in his now-bloody hands. “Let me hurt the other two for you. Please,” he whispers. “It would be my honor.”
I nod, knowing I can’t handle four bodies on my own. Those two were enough. They were my victory.
A makes it to one of the men, picking up a pair of brass knuckles. “You will all die here.” He stares at them. “You will all burn, your ashes never to be found. This is your last day in this world, and I promise it will feel like an eternity.”
Then he’s smashing the man’s face with the knuckles until he’s no longer recognizable.
He collects a knife next and slices his throat open until it bleeds like a slow-moving puddle. When he rises and gets to the other man, we’re both covered in crimson, and something about it is beautiful. He’s killing for me. Hurting for me. It’s a bond beyond anything I’ve ever known.
He does the same thing to the last man, unleashing himself the way I did, his wrath spilling through every blow he enacts until he’s through. Until they’re all dead.
If only I’d known him when I was stuck in there. Maybe he could’ve saved me before I turned into this.
But it’s too late now. This is Kayla, and I have to accept her. I have to become her instead of wishing I could be someone else. Someone who didn’t have the life I had.
I once felt alone. That there was no one like me.
I don’t feel that way anymore.
