by T. Rudacille
***
After he had fallen asleep, I carefully got up so as not to wake him. I crept out of our bedroom and closed the door behind me without a sound. My destination was set: In the basement, the doctors in our camp kept a makeshift office. They would have taken Donovan there.
The party was still in full swing, even as the second moon began its final descent towards the horizon. The bright beams cast from that white orb in the sky lit my way for me. It was not until I had silently opened the basement door that I was plunged into total darkness.
“Change over.” I whispered to myself, and at the command, my eyes were able to see. I walked easily down each steep stone step. Once I reached the landing, I moved through the corridor, my feet lightly touching the concrete floor and not making even the quietest patter.
Two doors down from the beginning of the corridor, and I would find my target, lying immobile on a bed made from logs and animal fur. His breaths would rasp in my ears as he struggled to say his piece. He would surely apologize and swear never to harm one hair on Penny's head. Perhaps he would even cry in repentance and beg for my forgiveness.
In response to all of those possible scenarios, I would simply pull the pillow from under his head and smother him. I would look up to the sky and smile as I felt his body struggling beneath me. When he moved no more, I would place the pillow back under his head and saunter away. His pleas for mercy and his tears of apology would have meant nothing. They would have only proved further that he was not a man.
Pulling my hoodie sleeve down over my hand, I turned the brass doorknob. The room was empty. The only light came from a tiny flame still burning inside of a lantern beside his bed. Sure enough, his breathing was labored and his wounds, in the state of repair that they were in, were beginning to crust over while still oozing repulsively. I walked closer to him to observe the plants that were cut up or minced completely and separated into piles on his nightstand. I knew one of them was called Elixir, and it was said to cure the most terrible of diseases and injuries. Several of our number had been afflicted with various cancers and found themselves cured upon ingesting that plant. In fact, they felt healthy again and ready to face their immortal lives with joy. If Donovan were to be given Elixir, his injuries would be healed completely. He would be strong once again.
As the thought grasped me, I pulled the pillow from under his head, thinking of Penny. As the fear assuaged, that rage I was becoming so comfortable with took its place. As I placed the pillow over his face, I wondered only briefly if I was truly capable of murdering a defenseless man.
The short answer: Yes, for I had to protect Penny. If Don would not punish the man for what he had done, I certainly would. I would enact the most final, resolute punishment imaginable: I would end his life.
Beside me, the lantern's flame flickered to full life. I was aware of someone standing in the room with me. I did not have to guess for very long because he spoke immediately; his voice was as unwelcome as a hard blow to my head.
“Well, good evening to you, you breathtaking silent assassin.”
I did not appreciate his pun.
“What do you want?” I asked in a fury before whipping around to find Adam leaning against the door-frame with his huge arms crossed over his muscular chest. In his tight, black t-shirt and because of his slick, styled gray hair, he almost looked like an overage version of a ridiculous moron on that New Jersey-based “reality” show. However, I must admit, his physical attractiveness was not unnoticed by me. I ripped those thoughts about his physique and handsome face from my mind as though they were my own form of cancer. I glanced at the Elixir, wondering if it could rid me of such disgusting thoughts of Adam.
“I want you to think what you are doing through very carefully. I want you to be sure that you have fully prepared for the consequences of such a violent action.”
“I have. Thank you so much.” I replied curtly, and my fingers tightened around the soft plush pillow I still held in my hands. I raised it above my head and took a deep breath.
Donovan's thoughts screamed that he was sorry. He was not aware that I was standing there beside him, ready to end his life. He was not apologizing because he had suffered such extensive injuries. His cries of sorrow were genuine. His plea for his life was driven by his desire to “get better.” Perhaps, he wondered, there was a drug on the planet that could erase his sickest, most depraved urges.
Sickness. Was he sick?
“I want you to leave.” I told Adam quietly. “I told you to stay away. I was very clear in my orders. Yet here you are.”
“I was enjoying your leader's party when I saw you slink down the stairs. Curiosity got the better of me, I am afraid.” He replied as though I had asked for an explanation.
“If Penny had not been able to defend herself, he would have killed her.” I told Adam quickly. Our pattern of conversation was characterized by us both running on separate tracks, completely ignoring whatever the other said.
“If I don't kill him now, he will kill her. All of his internal cries for forgiveness do not erase the rage he feels in his heart for what she has done to him.”
“Are you quite certain of that?” Adam asked.
“Yes.”
“You are not.”
“You do not know what I am thinking. You also do not know what I can hear inside of him.”
I was not sure if he could hear Donovan's thoughts or not. I wondered if perhaps Adam was right, and I was lying. Maybe Donovan did not feel that strong urge to take revenge on my sister. Whatever the case, I refused to take the chance. I had to end his life. Though a part of me sympathized with him and wondered if maybe he could be saved from his violent lust, I could not risk his physical recovery. I could not see him walk around, healthy and whole once again, after the fear he had struck in Penny.
“There it is.” Adam whispered. I was startled to find that he was right behind me. “You cannot bear to see him live, for you wish to enact your own final form of justice. You wish to dispatch a man from this realm whom you feel does not deserve his life. You accuse me of playing God. How very hypocritical of you, Ms. Olivier.”
“Go away!” I shot at him furiously. I had raised my voice so that it thundered authoritatively around the room. I was sick of his calmness. I was sick of his constant analysis of me.
“You cannot do it while I am standing here. You know that you are wrong.”
“I am not wrong! I am doing this for Penny!”
“You are doing this to feel that you have taken action against a morally depraved man. You suffered great pain at another man's hands as a child. Now, you wish to kill poor Donovan because you were unable to kill your father. You think I do not know of your weaknesses, Brynna Olivier. But I know them all. You are doing this to assert power over men like them, for it is men like them who took your own power.”
I looked back at him, the flame from the lantern beside me crackling in my eyes.
“How are you able to read my mind? How do you know all of that, Adam?!”
“It is not your mind that I am reading; it is your face. Your eyes tell dark stories of your terrible past. I find it very...” His hands ran down my arms, and I shook him off furiously, “…intriguing.”
He was right only partially. A large portion of my decision to kill Donovan was motivated by my fear for Penny's safety. But the other part, the larger part, wanted to kill him for what he had done to those women. I wanted to avenge the violent deaths that could have been my own. I wanted to avenge the repulsive act to which those two women had been subjected, for I had suffered it myself.
“You are weak in that sense, my dear Brynna. Your fire both strengthens and cripples you. It is almost pathetic, in a way. It is certainly a fascinating paradox in my view, at least.”
Now, his barbs were flying. Whatever minimal pain I had inflicted on him with my cutting rejection and my bluntly honest assessment of his ways was driving his words. He wanted to punish me for my harshness towards him.
I found myself laughing. I covered my mouth lightly to suppress the snort that always seemed to follow such hilarity.
“I must have cut you so very deep, Adam. I am aware that you thought yourself unable to feel pain. I wondered that myself, actually. Now, I know that you feel. Not only do you feel, but it was me who was able to hurt you. Now, I know that I have power over you.” I smiled to myself, “For whatever reason, I am able to shatter your armor.”
He chuckled softly and squeezed my shoulders more tightly than perhaps he intended. His mouth pressed to my ear, and he whispered:
“Do not flatter yourself, my dear. I hold your life in my hands. I hold your secrets very close, even those that you do not know yet. I can shatter your armor just by making a fist. Do not forget that.”
As he drifted away from me, I looked down at the maimed man before me with fury boiling to frenzied life in my chest. I hated Adam. I hated Donovan. I hated Don. I hated those raucous, partying buffoons stomping and screaming above my head. I hated Dad. I hated Mom. I hated Maura. I hated Michael.
I brought the pillow down and held it over Donovan's face; I strengthened my grip as he thrashed wildly. He had found his strength somehow in the moment of his death, though by then, it was useless to him. It did not come close to matching my own. His hands flew up to claw at my arms as he attempted to weaken my grip. Even after his body went slack, and his chest deflated the air his lungs had been holding, I did not move.
“Your fire...” Adam said again from the doorway, “It lights your way, of course. But it also casts a great darkness.”
I merely looked down into the face of the man I had just killed as Adam finished his thought in a whisper:
“A shadow.”
His final two words rang in my ears long after he was gone.
