It was more than a woman, too.
It was unbridled rage, vengeance, his past misdeeds come back to haunt him.
“Put me down,” I instructed Bates.
He complied and wrapped his arms around my shoulders from behind me, resting his chin on the top of my head.
“What do you think? Should I pull them out?” he asked, knowing full well that he didn’t want an answer.
“I’ll break his ribs. It’ll make it easier,” I told him, tilting my head so that he could see my tears had finally run dry. Bates kissed the tip of my nose and nodded as he dropped his arms from my body.
Dropping the small knife I held, I ran a hand back through my hair, leaving a streak of blood on my skin as I went back to my lover’s workbench.
My eyes took in all of the tools I could use to break his bones. A claw hammer, a pair of pliers, but the one that caught my eye would make the deed hopefully more painful than the others.
I wrapped my hand around the handle of the wood-splitting maul hammer.
I went to stand in front of him.
This time, I separated this monster from my lover as I thought of all the things that were done to me that night at his direction.
With a rage I hadn’t felt in so goddamn long, I lunged at him and began to slam the edge of the blade against his open wounds. His flesh tore away in chunks and blood was splattering everywhere, but I wasn’t going to stop until I was fucking satisfied that Bates Murphy wouldn’t have to put much more effort into something as calculated as this game of revenge ever again.
“Look at me!” I screamed with each and every blow. “Look at me!”
I finally heard bones cracking under the weight of my rage, but I didn’t stop. I had no intention of letting this bastard think I was the weak girl that he had trapped in the bathroom that night.
He'd never have the chance to hurt anyone ever again.
Bates and I were going to make sure of it.
I raised the maul over my head and brought it down with all the force I could muster, splitting the left side of his ribcage, and Bates finally reached for me, holding me tightly against him.
“Hollis, stop,” he whispered into my ear. The maul fell from my hands as I sobbed from the uncontrollable rage I felt, and that’s when he gently pressed his lips against my ear.
“I’ve got it from here, pretty girl. Thank you.”
I dropped to my knees, my face in my hands as I cried when Bates moved away. He was the one thing that always held me together and not having his arms around me right now hurt so goddamn much. Although I knew he wouldn’t be able to hold me while he worked, I wanted nothing more than to feel his body against mine.
Over my own heart wrenching sobs, I could hear the sounds of Bates grunting again and I did my best to calm down.
What he was doing now was for me, and I wanted to show him how truly grateful I was to have someone like him in my life.
Taking a series of shuddering breaths, I firmly clasped a hand over my mouth and did my best to stop crying as Bates put all of his strength into pulling the broken bones apart. Once he succeeded, he retrieved a carving knife from the waistband of his jeans, and plunged a hand into his chest.
I watched as his elbows moved in a sawing motion, as he tried to close his eyes so desperately from the pain, wondering how the hell it was possible that there was still life left inside of his body.
A grunt, a forceful tug, and Bates tumbled backward, almost falling onto the ground.
“That’s one,” he said, casting a glance down at me. Wiping the tears from my eyes, I forced myself to my feet to glance around my beloved. I needed to see what he was doing and when I saw the bloody muscle desperately trying to inflate, I felt a small smile start to curve the edges of my lips.
Bates cracked his neck as he plunged his other hand back into the gaping wound and repeated the sawing motions until he was able to tug out the other large muscle.
“And that’s two.”
His tone was gentle now.
The only sound beside my ragged breaths being his steady own, punctuated by the gentle drips of blood landing on the floor at his feet.
A crimson pool of revenge borne of the man that had tried to end my life years ago for being different.
Bates stood so goddamn proudly inside of it, his back gently moving in and out as he breathed new life into a room where none existed.
Where Death found its way home inside of a man and a woman that only ever knew love from violence, from being different, having been brought together by fate.
Bound in blood, rage, anger, hatred, but most of all, each other.