Our eyes met and his held a myriad of questions. He thought I couldn’t shoot my abuser. Maybe he even thought I’d show him mercy and let him live. I’d considered it when I’d first stepped into the hardware store and seen the pitiful guy but whenever the thought had tried to take root, every fiber in my body had fought it and the voice calling for retribution had chanted louder. I took a deep breath and slanted another look at the man. Hope had entered his expression and he gave me another begging look. Over a decade ago, nobody had cared about what I wanted, about my begging.
No mercy.
Without thinking about it, I reached for the knife in Adamo’s chest holster, curled my fingers around the cold handle. Adamo didn’t stop me as I withdrew the sharp blade with a satisfying hiss.
I’d never used a knife in a violent way and I wasn’t sure what I was doing as I stumbled toward my abuser. He tried to scramble backwards but I followed. My heart beat in my throat and my surroundings became a blur as I lunged at him. He brought his arms up, tried to fight me off but I lashed out at him with the knife. Flung it at his flailing arms, his upper body, every inch of him I could reach. He tried to fight me off, and Adamo’s voice rang in the back of my head, but the man’s screams drowned it out. I couldn’t stop, even if I didn’t even see what I was doing. My vision was blurry with tears and blood. My palm and my thigh stung, my cheek throbbed, but my hand with the knife still arched down on my abuser until I was dragged away and someone was holding me tightly in their arms despite my struggling.
I gasped for breath. Every intake stung in my chest.
Adamo’s soothing voice waded through the fog clouding my brain and slowly I came to myself. Adamo ripped a piece off his shirt and wiped my face with it. I closed my eyes, allowing him to clean me. When I opened them again, my surroundings came back into focus. Shock crashed down on me as I saw the sight before me. The man lay in a large puddle of blood and his corpse was littered with stab wounds. His hands, his arms, his chest, his face, his throat…the blade hadn’t spared any part of his upper body. I hadn’t spared a part of his body. I had done this.
I released a shaky breath. Slowly I looked down at myself. Adamo’s arm was still wrapped around my waist and I sat between his legs, his warm chest pressed against my back. My bare legs were smeared with blood, and my jean shorts were completely soaked with it. I raised my hands, also covered in red. The knife clattered to the floor and the sound made me flinch. My shirt, my hair…everything was covered in blood. And the shred of fabric Adamo had used to clean my face and eyelids was now red. I blinked, stunned by what I had done. “Why did you stop me?” I said, but my voice sounded distant, as if something was blocking my ears. Maybe more blood. I shuddered.
Adamo took my hand and turned it so I saw a long but shallow cut in my palm then he pointed at another deeper cut in my calf. “You cut yourself in your state and I didn’t want you to seriously injure yourself. He’s been long dead.”
I nodded. “I don’t know what got into me. I just lost it…”
Adamo pressed his cheek against mine, even though I was a mess. “Maybe this is a start. Maybe this is your way of releasing the pain you have bottled up.”
There was no pain now. No memories. No fear or anger or hatred, only numbness and a blissful calm.
“What do we do now?”
“I have to call our local cleaning crew so they can come over and take care of this.”
I laughed hollowly. “I guess it’s a good thing this is Camorra land.”
“It makes things easier. Vegas would be even better, but our men will clean this up and dispose of the body. Nobody will be able to trace anything back to you or me.”
Adamo got up then held out his hand. I took it and allowed him to pull me to my feet. My legs felt