Suddenly, the man was beneath me.My fist connected with his face, and his cheekbone shattered. He cried out, begging me to stop after the fourth or fifth punch. One of my knuckles split open as his teeth caved in, and I relished in the satisfyingcrunchas my fist crushed the bridge of his nose. He was screaming now, asking me questions that I didn’t have the ability or the desire to answer.
I’d been voiceless by choice since I was six years old.
Today I was also blind and fucking deaf.
I was deaf to his pathetic,meaninglessapologies.
I was blind to the way his face broke apart beneath my hands.
I refused to listen to his pleas to spare his life or acknowledge the wreckage I was unleashing on his face.
My knuckles began to break, but I couldn’t stop. I continued to rain blow after blow down on him.
Over and over again, I hit him until he was an unrecognizable puddle of gore.
His head turned into chunky, black and red biomatter as I beat him well past the point of death.
It took me longer than it should have to realize that he wasn’t screaming anymore. The only sounds that filled the room nowwere Naomi’s sobs mixed with the wet sound of my fists hitting what was left of her abuser’s face.
Naomi hiccuped, and that, of all things, was what pulled me out of the all-consuming rage that had possessed me.
With a tremendous amount of effort, I forced myself to stop beating the dead man and got to my feet.
I turned to find Naomi curled up on her side, her bruised and battered face buried in her hands as she sobbed.
Her sundress was still pushed up to her waist, and she didn’t have underwear on.
There was no way she left the fucking house today without panties on. Someone had removed them, and the thought of that made me want to kill the man a second time.
I shook my head, resolving that taking care of Naomi was more important than continuing to beat the shit out of someone who was already dead.
Slowly, I approached the cot and got to my knees next to her.
Being as gentle as I could, I tugged down her dress, covering her back up. She froze and peered through her fingers at me with terrified eyes.
The look on her facewrecked me.
Her bruised, tear-stained face hurt me so fucking badly that I felt like my heart would give out.
I wished I could say something to her to take that look away, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out.
“Vox?” she whispered, and I nodded at her dumbly, reaching forward to take one of her hands in mine. My hands were covered in blood, but neither of us seemed to care.
I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile and nodded, reaching forward to gently brush away one of her tears, leaving a smudge of red on her swollen cheek.
Yeah, sweet girl. I’m here. I’ve got you.
“He said… he said he was going to‘test me before they sold me.’”She barely got the words out before she broke down again, and I pulled her into my chest, wrapping her up tightly in my arms.
I shook my head against her, hoping like hell she could read my mind the way she always seemed to do.
That’s never going to happen, sweet girl. No one’s selling you. No one’s taking you from me. He’s dead. I’ll kill them all, beautiful. No one will ever fucking touch you again. You’re safe now.
She cried into my shoulder, and I reached behind her and grabbed the thin, ratty blanket off the cot. I wrapped her up in it, hoping she would feel better if she had something to hide in.
She shook in my arms as I stood, cradling her against me. I dropped a kiss on her forehead, being as gentle as possible.
She was a mess.
