“Ahh, come on. Little whores like you, I know you.” He points at me with his cigarette.
I smile at him. “See, David, the only reasonlittle whores,” I air quote his words, “become like this is because of fathers like you.” I cock my head to the side, hoping his drugged andalcoholic mind can see me for who I truly am. Pulling the hoodie down, along with the blonde wig. I watch his eyes strain and then get huge with realization. His mouth opens and shuts, not able to form words.
“What’s wrong, Dad?” I say dad as if it’s a slur.
“Ro.” He stands up.
“Sit the fuck down!” My voice isn’t mine anymore; the anger that escapes has it sounding foreign. I reveal my gun, shaking it at him as he had just done to me with his cigarette. “You and I have some talking to do. So, get fucking comfortable.” I inform him while I grab a tattered and beaten chair, pulling it to sit closer to him. If I shoot, I want to make sure I strike him dead.
I stare at him; all the questions I wanted answers to have fucking disappeared now that I’m in this moment. Forcing them back to the forefront. “Why did you give me as collateral?” I keep my head held high.
He shrugs, the motherfucker shrugs his shoulders, and that pisses me off. Without warning, I pan my gun down and pull the trigger, shooting him in his bare foot. His scream is loud as he wallers on the couch, grabbing at it, blood gushing from the bullet wound, his now forgotten cigarette being snuffed out by the blood puddle it fell into, but I just sit, pointing the gun at his other foot. I’ve come here for one thing, and I’m not fucking around.
He moans and groans, but I stay quiet, waiting as I cock the gun once more.
He raises his blood-soaked hand. “Okay, fuck. Why wouldn’t I? Briggs had his eyes on you since you were little. I knew I could.” He stops, groaning even louder, and I wave my gun at him to keep talking. “I could rack up an enormous debt with him and he’d take you; I’d be free of it.” He falls over onto the cushions.
“You’re fucking sick,” I spit at him. “What kind of man could do that to their own child?” It’s not a question, but a statement.
Coughing out a laugh, he looks me dead in the eyes. “Because you’re not my child.”
Shock hits me, but I don’t let my face change. “Then who is?” I need everything before I kill him.
“Your whore mother never told me.” His shaky hand reaches out for the small mirror on the table, bringing it to his nose, snorting the white powder. I let him, because before I’m done with him, he’ll be begging for me to kill him.
“You raised me.” Those words were hard to get out because he didn’t raise me. He fucking tortured me every day of my life and still after I was gone from him.
“For my benefit.” He smiles at me, showing his rotting teeth.
I nod my head and stand up. “Don’t you fucking move.” On hurried feet, I go into the kitchen, looking back to make sure he stays where he is, opening the cabinet under the sink, smiling when I see it.
Sitting the green container on the table, “Pour you out some lines.” I give him a wicked smile.
He huffs. “Are you insane?”
I laugh. “Matter of fact, I fucking am, because of you. This is the woman you’ve made me into. After they brutally raped me, this is who was born from your sins. Now pour the fucking Comet into lines.”
He thinks he can get out of this, out of this alive, and there is no way in hell I’m letting that happen.
“NO.”
“No?” I fire another bullet into his other foot, but this time I miss and hit his ankle. I can see the impact and the way it breaks his bones. He screams, spit flying out, tears coming from his eyes, and I laugh as I tip the Comet can over, pouring thepowder onto the table, using my fingers to make huge lines. “Now, fucking hoover it up!”
The house shrouds in quietness as he passes out from the pain. Moving from the table to stand over him, hitting him in the head with the gun… I hit him a few more times but force myself to stop. He’s still breathing; I fall to the floor next to the couch. My mind is telling me to get up and leave. To be done with it and him, but I can’t. He has no remorse for what he did to me or for what they did because of him. He’s not good enough to let live. To let breathe the same air that I breathe.
My hands shake as I place the gun on the table, noticing the blood splatter dots marring, ignoring it and smiling when I get an idea, reaching for the syringe lying empty. Using a water bottle cap, I pour some water in it, missing the circle, spilling water, finally making enough in, I scoop some of the Comet cleaner, sprinkling it in the water, watching as it mixes in and evaporates, the water changing color before I suck it up into the syringe, sitting it on the table locked and loaded for his vein.
He doesn’t deserve an easy way out; I didn’t get one, and he isn’t either. Standing, I tap his head with the barrel of the gun, repeatedly until he starts to stir, and that stirs something in me.
“Wake the fuck up, David. We’re not done.” I reach out and squeeze his bleeding foot; his wailing pierces my ears. “That’s not even half of the pain I endured the night I was ganged raped because of you. You couldn’t imagine the pain that coursed through me because of the man I thought was my father. Because of you!” Laughing on the word father, because a bit of my heart healed when he said I wasn’t his daughter, knowing I don’t have his blood ruining my system, his evilness feeding on my genes.
Spit hangs from his chin, swaying with his shaking body, making my face coil in disgust.
“You don’t have the balls to kill someone, Rowan. You’re a girl with a daddy complex, not a murderer,” comes out between shaking lips. His pain high, his body reacting to the blood loss.
I smile, showing him my teeth. “And that’s what they thought also before I killed them on the altar they raped me on, David. They fucked up like you did, letting me live bit them in the ass, like it’s biting you now. You, more than anyone, should know how everything comes back in a full circle.” I’m also my mother’s vengeance, her retribution. It comes out before I can stop the words, “Where is she, David?” I don’t have to say her name; he knows who I’m speaking of.
Struggling to sit up, my gun following his every move, he finally positions himself on the couch, and I see the moment he notices the full syringe placed in front of him. His nostrils flare, as his eyes follow up to my now standing form, gun pointed to his head.
