You stood there.
Scrub harder.
You watched her bleed and you didn't move.
The water is scalding now, but I don't turn it down.
You let him do that to her.
I catch my reflection in the mirror above the sink—brown contacts, dyed hair, someone else's face—and for a second I don't recognize the man staring back. He looks calm. Too controlled, like he didn't just spend forty-seven minutes watching the woman he?—
God fucking dammit.
I watched her crawl through broken glass while that bastard smiled.
My hands shake as I turn and heave into the toilet.
When there's nothing left inside me, I move to the sink and scrub them raw again, working the soap until my vision blurs. I grip the counter hard, pressing down until the tremors stop.
Until I can breathe without tasting rage.
But I see her every time I blink.
Her hands. Slick with blood that kept coming no matter how carefully she moved. The glass glinting under the chandelier light like scattered teeth. The way she didn't make a sound, not even when the cuts went deep enough I could see what was underneath.
She just kept going.
Piece by piece. Shard by shard. Building a neat little pile of her own destruction while Calder probably watched from his office.
And I stood there.
Three feet away. Close enough to smell the blood in the air.
I could have stopped it.
One movement. That's all it would have taken. Cross the room, put my hands around his throat, and squeeze until his eyes went red and his legs stopped kicking. I've done it before. I know exactly how long it takes. Know the sounds a man makes when his windpipe collapses. Know the way the body twitches at the end, desperate and useless.
I could have ended him right there.
Instead, I stood still. Followed orders. Played the role of the obedient dog while she bled three feet away from me.
I will never forgive myself for that.
The porcelain cracks under my grip.
The sound snaps me back and I glance down at my hands, realizing I've been squeezing the edge of the sink hard enough to break it.
Get it together.
I can't afford to spiral. Can't afford to let the mask slip even for a second. Calder is always watching. One wrong move means I'mdead and she's still trapped and my son grows up calling that monster father.
But god, I want to kill something.
The urge is so strong I can taste it. Hot and metallic at the back of my throat, pulsing with every heartbeat. I want to find Calder tonight, drag him out of bed, and show him exactly what his wife's blood looks like on his skin.
I want to make it last.
Hours. Days. However long it takes for him to understand that there are consequences for men like him, and I am every single one of them.
