"Please, man, please?—"
"Did she say please?" I ask, genuinely curious. The coldness has spread through my whole body now, numbing everything except my hands and my eyes.
I feel like I'm watching myself from a distance, seeing myself the way Ruger and Coin must be seeing me.
A stranger. A monster.
Something that wears my face but isn't really me anymore.
"When you were doing what you did to her," I continued, "did Vanna say please? Did she beg you to stop?"
His mouth opens and closes.
His breath comes in short, sharp gasps.
He's hyperventilating, his body going into shock even before I've really started.
"I asked you a question."
"She—she?—"
"You don't remember?" I press the flat of the blade against his cheek, not cutting, just letting him feel the cold metal. "Let me help you. She begged. I know she begged. Because that's what Vanna does—she fights, and when she can't fight anymore, she begs. She pleads. She cries."
I trace the blade down his face, watching a thin red line appear in its wake.
"And you didn't stop." My voice drops to a whisper. "You heard my wife begging you, crying, and you didn't stop."
"I'm sorry?—"
"No." I shake my head slowly. "No, you're not sorry. You're scared. There's a difference."
I make the first real cut.
It's across his chest, through his shirt, deep enough to hit muscle.
The blood wells up immediately, soaking through the fabric, and Virgil screams.
The sound bounces off the walls of the cabin, echoing in the small space, filling my ears like music.
"This is for my wife," I say.
He's gasping, crying now, tears streaming down his face. "Please—please stop—I'll do anything?—"
"There's nothing you can do." I make another cut, parallel to the first. "There's nothing you can say. The time for talking was before you put your hands on her. Before you violated her. Before you threatened my child."
"I didn't?—"
"This is for my baby." The name comes out rough, raw. “It’s not even born yet, and you put your hands on his mother. You held her down and you hurt her and you made her afraid that you'd kill it."
Another cut. Deeper this time.
Virgil's screams are getting hoarse, his voice giving out.
He's sagging against the wall, held up only by my grip on his collar.
"This is for my sister's necklace." I carve a line down his arm, watching the blood flow. "My mother's necklace. The only thing Leah had left of her—the only thing that survived the fire—and you kept it in a bag like loose change. Like garbage. Like it meant nothing."
"I didn't know?—"
