My head lifts from the confused thoughts, and I watch him move closer. I’m gone before he gets to me, my body taking over at the threat. Everything blurs by me as I smash down objects behind me, hoping to knock him off his feet. But he’s too fast, and his hand catches my arm and picks it up until he’s dragging me.
Everything I know about him from before now rushes through me at the contact.
Angry hands, severe demeanour.
Doors and hallways go past me in a haze of panic, showing me nothing but fear and dread until we get to a bathroom. He shoves me inside the room, enough pressure from him that I slam into the side of the vanity unit.
“Clean yourself first. No one likes a dirty pussy, Alice.”
I’m so shocked that I just continue to stare, open mouthed, at the thought. No movement from him. No grace or sense of game playing. He’s entirely serious. He expects me to fuck him, or lie with him, or let them all rape me to compensate for the attack I tried for. That’s not happening. No fucking way am I letting him anywhere near me. Screw that.
“I’ll kill you before you get anywhere near me.”
“I’m certain you’ll try,” he says, smoothly. “You’ll lose.”
The door closes after a few more minutes of him glowering at me, and I keep staring at it as if he’s still there. I’m shaking. I can feel it all over my skin. Real fear. I was ready for anger, for hate and words of death, prepared. I even expected a fight. Relished the thought of it. But this – this isn’t what I thought I was coming to. This isn’t something I was ready for.
My legs slowly give way under me, sending me slumping to the floor in a heap. Tears come after a while. I don’t want them. I’m not even sure what I’m crying for. Me maybe. Me and this fucking mess I’m in. All the years we’ve hidden and now it’s here and I’m paying the price. I thought we’d run from the tainted – found some freedom and peace - but I was never free of it.
None of us were.
The fear inside wanes into a new catatonic state, constantly shifting from misperception to the reality around me. Faith dead? Me? I don’t …I don’t remember that. I just remember Malachi and finding him under the water. I hunted – found him. Saved him. And now I’m here and there’s no sense in anything but the death I thought was coming to me.
All those times my mother chastised me for wrongdoings, for running the streets and acting up like they did. She told me to be better, to escape the world around us. Be strong, she said. Don’t be one of the devils. Don’t let them change you or get inside you.
They’re about to get inside me.
I end up pulling myself into the shower, hoping to wash the stench of disgrace off my skin before it arrives. I won’t win a battle with him. I’ve got nothing to fight with. He’s bigger, stronger, and intent on getting his revenge.
My skin, my body, is the only thing he can take without killing me.
And he can’t do that, can he?
That’s for Franco alone.
The water washes down on my clothes, drenching me. Revenge is like that. We take what we can, deliver the best result to avenge our loved ones. Maybe this is why my mother took her own life. Maybe this feeling of melancholic confusion showed her only one way out after Daddy was killed. I suppose it was the easy end. Malachi knows that. He’d feel that with her – understand. And I guess I could do it, too. I could just slice a vein, watch as the blood seeps out and know it’s over. Easy enough now my head’s in the right space for it.
A small smile creeps across my lips, and I look back into the bathroom, searching for a razor, anything that might cut a vein. The thought of pills and Malachi and his freaks makes it easier to comprehend. This is it, isn’t it? The right headspace to be in. Nothing matters. Nothing out there to think about other than nothingness and ease of life without any life to live. You don’t have to think here. You can just let it all ebb away with the water until it’s nothing but distance and empty space.
No running anymore. No confusion.
I drag myself out of the water slowly, still searching for a razor, and scour cupboards and surfaces. Must be dark in death. Like a black hole that you can’t rise back out of. Dark and cold and empty. Malachi wasn’t cold, though. Not like he thought he was. He was warm and solid, hard and yet soft. I can see him now – smell him now. I can almost sense the feel of him on me now I’m not thinking, as if he’s here with me, finding me.
Always here, wherever you want me to be.
I want him here.
He isn’t.
And he never will be if I did kill his wife.
Time must trickle on like the water tumbling down. I don’t recognise it anymore. I’m lost in it like I was when I was with him. Just thinking, musing my existence, and searching for a blade. I could use some of those pills now. Lots of them. I could get truly lost and fly. He said we could. I know what he meant now. Die. We could die together. We all have our reasons. Mine just came along later than his. No blade anywhere, though. No way out either. It’s like a veil coming down over me – a blanket of death just waiting for me to find a way under it. I’ll just lie here and wait, lose myself so I don’t have to deal with the present.
The water eventually stops falling, and I stare at the last of it swilling around the stone floor. It ripples and retreats, slowly coming to a stop. There’s just my breath blowing now. I wish it wasn’t. I wish it ended. Stopped. Finished. I’d be alright then. Nothing to think about.
No fear to worry about.
Someone’s tugging at me. Clothes being stripped but for the black boxers. Near naked again. Fine. The clothes aren’t mine anyway. And I’m clean like this, ready for God if he wants me. I’ve been naked for so long lately that being clothed seems uncomfortable anyway.
