With more swiftness than I anticipated, Colette swings around on her knees, spitting on Bunny’s feet. “I did you a fuckingfavor.”
“You set me up.”
“I gave you an opportunity!” Colette justifies, the missing teeth and blood turning her into a monster. “We both did! Do you think you would have gotten anywhere looking like you did? You were trash. You both came from nothing. We got your feet in the door! We introduced you to the right people! It’s not our fault they had a better use for you.”
Bunny staggers back, looking as wounded as Colette hoped she’d be. “I was beaten,” she starts, losing every bit of strength. “I was raped.”
Bunny and I have seen the cruelest in the world, her more so, and yet, what Colette says next is what almost brings Bunny to her knees.
“Then that’sall you deserved.”
It’s as if her words, the slice of them, sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Bunny stands there, with a slight wobble to her gait, appearing completely devoid of life. I see a whirlwind in her eyes, a shattered life, all because someone felt like she deserved it.
There’s a different kind of broken to my Bunny now.
Wishing I could peel back every layer of skin on Colette’s fragile little body, I force myself away, focusing on the man I can hurt instead.
Taking my blade, I slice through the silky bindings holding Nathan together. “Get up.”
Face splotchy from his hyperventilating, Nathan stutters, “W-What?”
“I said,” I rumble.“Get. Up.”It takes some time, but when he’s confident, I won’t stomp his head into the floor, Nathan uncurls his body and stands to meet me. I study him beneath my nose, remembering how great I felt when he first introduced himself to me. I knew at that moment that my life would forever change because of this man—little did I know what that meant then. I couldn’t have prepared myself for how casually he’d ruin my life. “Why?” I ask, needing to know. “Why me?”
Before meeting my eye, Nathan trembles and wipes away the last bit of snot dripping from his nostrils, attempting to appear semi-composed. “What?” he stutters.
“There were tons of us fighting that night. A lot of them were better than me. So why?” I push, “Why did you pick me?”
Nathan’s mouth falls open and closes, brow furrowed with utter confusion. I don’t know if he expected something else from me—if I was supposed to say something more profound. But from where I’m standing, there is no other question that could be asked.
“Why, me?”
“Don’t tell him a thing, Nathan!” Colette spits, feral at Bunny’s feet. “You don’t owe this piece of trashshit!”
Tired of her fucking mouth, I almost break code, but I collect myself at the last second. “You would be smart toshut the fuck up.I don’t hit women,” I reassure.However,“But I won’t stop her from knocking out every remaining tooth until you’renothing but gums beneath a crumbled face.” Youugly, vile, disgusting sack of skin.
“Don’t threaten me!” Colette shrieks. “You’re nothing but a puppet who bends under other people's word. You won’t do anything but take it.Just like her.”
Oh.
I’m going to fucking kill her.
There won’t be a person alive who will be able to tear my fist from her throat.
With tunnel vision fixed on her smug grin, I stalk forward, blade already secure in my grip.I’ll start with her tongue, I vow to myself, only to have Bunny stomp past me. I move to hold her back, not wanting her to get caught in the crosshairs of my violence, but it’s like she’s in a trance. Despite my calling for her, Bunny only stops when there’s a foot of distance between her and Colette.
Before I can blink, Bunny swings the metal baton high over her head and brings it back down onto the side of Colette’s jaw. Whatever teeth were left fly across the room, sprinkling the white-washed walls in more gore.
I think she’ll stop there, successfully limiting Colette’s ability to utter another sensible word, but Bunny keeps going. She swings the baton over and over, arching the heavy metal high above her head with feral grunts. With each blow, the cracks against Colette’s bones turn to soft, pulpy squelches.
Slowly lowering the blade, I stand back, watching Bunny completely lose all humanity with a savage, broken cry. It’s not that Colette doesn’t deserve it. But my Bunny shouldn’t be the one with death on her shoulders.
When Colette’s jaw is gone and there’s nothing left there for Bunny to break, the baton swings south, cracking collar bones and ribs. I don’t even think Bunny realizes. It’s like she’s not even here when the shards split open the skin. I unlock theshackles from my feet once Bunny mindlessly begins to head back toward the skull. Or, where the skull should be. Enough is enough. I-I can’t let her do this to herself.
As if she senses me, her arm drops on its own, swinging little sprinkles of blood on top of the saturated floor. “Hey,” I call as she sways in place, but there’s no response. There’s not even a reaction. “Bunny?”
Then, finally, after some time, a quiet exhale floats into the air, a better sound than Nathan’s hiccupping sobs. A low hum comes out as vibrations from her quivering mouth, but I don’t interfere. She’ll see what she did and, without my involvement, she’ll decide how to feel about it.
Keeping an eye on Nathan, I watch in my peripheral vision the baton fall to the ground. Her head drops, examining the red, sticky gore covering her palms. I don’t hear Nathan’s sobs, his cries for help as he watches his lover weakly convulse on the floor before death finally takes her. I only hear her, my love, gasp.
