I could’ve brushed it off as the same shit that happened day in and day out in this fucked up city. Murders, assaults, illegal dealings, and all sorts of other degrading, nasty shit. But something kept me rooted to the spot, and when I heard a soft female whimper come from the other side of the dumpster diagonal to where I stood, I felt my hands tighten into fists at my sides.
I already had a plethora of anger rushing through me, built-up energy, increased pent-up aggression from all the shit that I'd been dealing with the last month. And that aggression had only risen in me the longer I let it fester and boil. I needed an outlet. And when I heard the distinct sound of someone getting hit, I knew I’d found it.
I started making my way toward where the sound came from, and made out more clearly the soft pleas from a woman and gruff demands from a male.
His voice slurred, the sound of his hand hitting no doubt her face growing louder and louder, making my anger rise to the forefront.
All I could picture was Marco treating Amara that way, putting his hands on her brutally, making her obey his rules, his law.
The blood was rushing through my veins, my nails digging into my palms hard enough I knew I broke the skin. My chest was pumping up and down, the need to draw blood, to make someone hurt filling me like a violent beast ready to tear out of me, skin me alive just to escape.
For the little sanity I had left, I needed to get this rage out of me. Because if I didn’t, it would continue to grow and mutate inside of me. I'd be too dangerous to be around Amara, too volatile. I already wanted her desperately, craved her, hungered and was so fucking thirsty for her.
I was a ticking time bomb and I needed to push the detonation.
She didn’t need to see that side of me, the one that got excited and anticipated giving pain and delivering death, violence and blood. But as much as I wanted to give her gentle and sweet like she deserved, I knew that was also false hope. Who did I think I was to be able to offer that to anyone?
I rounded the edge of the dumpster and saw two forms, the shadows concealing most of their features, but I could make out his body, much larger than hers.
I had a gun strapped to me, but that’s not how tonight would go. That’s not how this fight would end. I’d use my hands, and make it really painful.
I curled my hand in his hair before he knew I was standing behind him, and then with all the force I had, slammed his face into the side of the dumpster.
His skull cracked against the metal and made an echoing sound. The woman cried out and stumbled back. All I could picture was Amara, someone hurting her, someone thinking they could take from her what she wasn’t offering.
I started breathing harder, couldn’t see straight, couldn’t hear anything but the rush of blood in my veins.
He let out a deafening roar when I let go of his hair. I took a step back and watched the woman run off, her clothes haphazard, her hair wild around her head.
I focused back on the piece of shit, his upper body curled forward, his hands covering his face. I was pretty sure I’d broken his nose, could smell the blood that was no doubt pouring from his nostrils
“What the fuck,” he slurred and went to stand, bracing a blood covered hand on the metal as he looked at me. I kept to the shadows, and as he blinked at me, not recognizing who I was, I knew he was about to come at me.
Good.
The fucker smelled like a brewery, probably had all sorts of toxic shit shut up in his veins too. His movements would be slow and sloppy.
I let the smile spread across my mouth, slow, thorough. I could see when his vision adjusted to the darkness, when he could see me a little more clearly. He swallowed roughly and took a small step back, but the dumpster was in his way, stopping him from retreating.
There was no escape for him, not with what I planned to do. He’d be a broken, ruined mess at my feet, bloody and destroyed just like he was going to do to that woman. I'd never been a man who cared about other people's business. If it didn’t concern me and I kept moving.
But this was different and I couldn’t explain it, couldn’t stop myself as I took a step forward, grinning bigger as he took a step back. He held up his hands, blood dripping down his palms and along the underside of his forearms.
“Please, please I didn’t know it was you. I wasn’t going to do anything.”
I didn’t say anything. Words didn’t need to be spoken. That time had passed. In fact, that time had never come. He wanted pain and distraction right now. And so I’d give it to him tenfold
I slammed my fist into the side of his head, his skull slamming against the dumpster once more. He groaned but didn’t fight back. I wanted him to. I needed him to. And it pissed me off that he was being submissive because he knew who I was.
I growled low and held his thick, sweaty neck in my grip, squeezing tightly, doing to him what I wanted to do to Kirill back at the club. I used force to walk him backwards so his body slammed against the chain-link, felt his hands claw at the back of mine, his nails digging at flesh, and all I did was stare into his eyes.
I crushed his trachea in my grasp, listening to the garbled sounds of him trying to breathe. I watched as the blood vessels burst in the whites of his eyes, the muted glow from the streetlight giving me a front row seat to his death.
And how I fucking reveled in it, like flames with accelerant, an addict with his next hit, a lungful of oxygen after not being able to breathe.
I’d never claimed to be a good guy. I was the villain in every story, the boogeyman under beds. I was the grim reaper greedily coming to take that next life.
And I’d never apologize for it. Because I’d never stop. This was me. A monster who wore that title like a fucking crown.