His crazed eyes were fixated on me.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
He lunged at me again. I waited for him to get closer before I wrapped my arm around his waist, pushing him back with the weight of my body. We were two enraged monsters.
You are a failure, Viktor.
The Devil was back, sitting on my shoulders.
Is this your way of feeling in power?
He mocked me.
You failed Valerie. You let Valentin fuck her. Right in front of you. A failure. You are weak. Weak.
A fucking failure.
His voice resonated through my ears, hurting me, enraging me.
You think shedding the blood of others will erase what you’ve let happen to her?
He laughed.
Weak. You are weak. Give up.
NO!
He laughed louder. Don’t you ever wonder…when Valerie looks at you…does she think of what you’ve done to her…what you’ve let Valentin do to her? You used her…like he did…
Punch.
I felt a crack under my fist.
She must hate you.
I felt another crack. His arm. Through the red…dark fog I saw that his arm had been bent in an impossible way.
Valerie hates you.
STOP!
You hate yourself, don’t you? Tsk. Tsk. Weak.
His teeth gritted so hard I wondered if his jaw wasn’t breaking under this pressure. He held his arm closer to his chest and growled at me, stumbling over his legs.
What can you give Valerie? Safety? You failed in that. Love? You failed when you sat there watching Valentin fuck her.
FUCKING STOP!
My head ached and my body throbbed. Confused and blinded by the devil’s constant mocking in my ears, I didn’t see him coming at me. His brass knuckles made contact with my stomach, under my ribs. Pain seized me, and I almost went down on my knees. I held my breath for a second, feeling the intense throb before I inhaled.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
Tsk. Maybe if you died tonight…
No. I wouldn’t. I wasn’t going to die. I had to return to Valerie.
I had been sliced, bleeding, stabbed, breathless…weak.
But I wasn’t losing.
Every part of me was hurting. Pain and exhaustion. Pain and rage.
My opponent hissed and tried to come at me again, but I successfully avoided his jab. He stumbled and jolted forward; I reared my arm back and then punched him as hard as I could in his ribs. Not giving him time to recover, I moved behind him and jabbed my elbow into the column on his spine, where I knew he was fragile.
He went down and I climbed onto him.
Punch. Crack. Punch. Crack.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
The Devil wouldn’t stop laughing. And I fought harder.
You failed her.
No.
She hates you.
No.
Removing the brass knuckles from his hand, I put it in my own.
Punch. Crack. Slice. He bled.
His breathing became ragged.
His bones were mangled. His body was a mess.
You failed her.
“NO!” I screamed.
My fist came down over and over again. My opponent’s face became unrecognizable. The spikes were bloodied from their owner’s death.
Death.
He was dead.
But I couldn’t stop.
I was done…yet I couldn’t fucking stop. The pent-up aggression and rage I had held in me for so long became unleashed.
I was fucking incensed.
A mad mad mad man. Crazed and obsessed. Broken and weak.
A fighter.
A killer.
I was so wrong for her. My sweet myshka. This man I was, this man I’d become in a week since I failed her.
The body went limp underneath me…I felt…nothing.
Lifting my hand up one more time, I brought down my fist and felt it crunch the face of my opponent one final time. My vision cleared, the fog in my brain disappeared, the devil was gone, and my thoughts were mind again.
His eyes were wide open. Glazed over and empty.
My heart raced. My chest tightened and my stomach caved.
I knew I was losing blood as my vision started to blur, and I felt sluggish, tearing over the edge of conscious and unconsciousness.
The crowed exploded, going insane. The air was charged with excitement.
I won.
Yet…
Why? Why?
Fucking why did I feel so damn hollow?
The Devil was right.
I was weak. I did fail my Valerie.
She didn’t hate me, though.
Except…I wished she did.
Chapter 22
Viktor
The fight had left me completely battered. Slashed and bleeding, in pain. I remembered losing consciousness for a minute, the world going pitch black and then…nothing. The next time I woke up, I was in the car with Yegor in the driving seat as we cruised through the dark streets of Moscow.
The water cascading around me was both soothing and a slow torture. I rubbed my skin furiously, trying to wash away the blood and the filth of the death-pit. My wounds seemed to burn right out of my flesh, causing me to wince and hiss every time I accidentally touched them.
The cold water started to turn my aching body numb, and I placed my forehead against the shower wall, sagging forward. My shoulders slumped, and I felt…so fucking lost.
Closing my eyes, I breathed. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
My mind became an endless road that led me to nowhere. I thought of everything that had taken place within a week. Day and night, I had been consumed with one thought only.