Dinara gave a small nod. I wasn’t sure if new proof would really matter. This was an internal battle for Dinara, one between her dark side and her good side. I’d fought the same battle.
I handed her my second gun. “If he makes a move, you shoot him.”
I wasn’t sure if she would but from the look on his face, the asshole believed she was capable of killing him and that was all that mattered.
I headed to the backrooms of the store that he used as his apartment. I didn’t want to find proof of his continued depravity because it would mean more girls had suffered but at the same time, I wanted to find something that would convince Dinara to continue with our plan. Something that would tip the scale in favor of her dark side.
After twenty minutes of searching, I found images on his computer that left no doubt that he still harbored the same disgusting desires from the past, even if he wasn’t in the photos. They looked as if he’d downloaded them from the Darknet. I went back into the store. Dinara stood a few steps away from the man, the gun trained on him. Her eyes darted to me and I gave a nod. “I found photos.”
Another almost imperceptible nod.
Number one glanced back and forth between Dinara and me. “They are just photos. I never touched a kid since I came out of jail.”
“The kids in those photos were touched by other perverts like yourself so you could wank off looking at those photos,” I growled.
I stepped close to Dinara and she lowered the gun. We moved a few steps away from the man. “What do you want to do now?”
Dinara swallowed audibly, conflict dancing across her tense features. “I want him dead. I want to be the one, but…I just don’t know if I can. It’s like something is still holding me back.”
“You’ve never done this before. It’s only natural that you hesitate.”
I didn’t remember the moments prior to pulling the trigger on another human for the very first time. It had happened too fast, no time to let my conscience speak up. I sometimes wondered if it would have. In the weeks after my kill, I hadn’t so much been bothered by my conscience but the lack thereof.
“Can you show him the video? I want him to remember what he did, and maybe it’ll give me the courage to go through with what I want.”
Number one hadn’t moved an inch as if he hoped we might forget he existed.
I removed the laptop and the disc from my bag and set everything up on a shelf so the asshole got a good look at the screen. After a nod from Dinara, I turned the recording on. This time neither Dinara nor I hit pause. Instead we watched every soul-crushing moment of the video. I wanted nothing more than to turn the screen off, or better yet smash the fucking thing like I’d done with Remo’s laptop, but I stayed rooted to the spot. The only movement I allowed myself was the occasional sideways glance to Dinara who seemed to be lost in the images, her gaze distant and her body taut with tension. How hard must it be for her to relive those moments?
I glowered at the asshole on the floor who had lowered his head as if he couldn’t bear to watch. Fury raced through me. I grabbed his head roughly and jerked up his chin, forcing his attention back on the laptop screen. “I know what I did! I don’t need to see,” he whimpered, closing his eyes, and my fury multiplied, turned feral. “You will open your fucking eyes or I’ll staple your eyelids to your fucking brows. I’m sure I can find a stapler somewhere in your shop.”
His eyes flew open and he didn’t dare looking away from the screen again. I was glad when we neared the end of the recording. The sounds and images had turned my stomach, and I just wanted to help Dinara move past those horrors.
Dinara looked like a wax figure of herself, pale and perfectly motionless. This was meant to help her, but what if it didn’t? What if this only fulfilled my own twisted hunger for blood?
The images of the screen became blurry and my mind took over, replaying my memories so much more vividly than the video.
Every sensation washed through my body, every pain and odor, every sound and image. They flooded my body like an unstoppable avalanche, dragging up buried emotions. Shame and revulsion, fear and despair, but above all: anger. Anger at the man before me. When the screen turned black and past-Dinara’s ordeal was over, I lowered my gaze to the cowering man before me. He begged me with his eyes, pretended to be a victim, when he was a monster who’d ruined my childhood to satisfy his own needs.
I’d remembered his eyes and his words, the names he called me and the name he wanted to be called, even before I’d watched the video. I remembered his low breathing, his aftershave and the sweat underneath it. I moved closer, took a deep inhale. Even his aftershave was still the same. A new flood of images, the same I’d replayed before, wanted to flare up for a repeat performance, but my mind fought the onslaught.
Revulsion welled up in me, followed by panic, but I didn’t allow it to take root, and finally anger ruled over everything else. My hands were shaking and my throat was tight as I set down the gun on the counter. Adamo watched the move with a frown. My blood seemed to pulsate with fiery anger as I stepped up close to Adamo, my breathing coming in quick bursts. 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.
“Shhh, Dinara. Everything is okay. Calm down. He’s dead. Calm down.”
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.