I spit blood onto the shag rug. “Get off me, old man.”
Shifting, I hear the flick of his pocket knife opening, the sound snapping every nerve awake. Panic hits like a punch. Digging my nails into the floor, trying to crawl, he hooks a hand in my belt, yanking me back.
The first cut burns across my side. It isn’t a clean slice. He drags the knife slow, letting the serrated edge grate over old scabs until they rip open. I howl, twisting, but the boot forces me down again. Blood runs hot along my stomach. The second cut crosses the first, deeper, angrier. Biting down hard on a scream, I taste copper.
He mutters scripture while he cuts me, voice sickly calm. “Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war…” The drawstring of his pants clicks between his fingers as he toys with it, twisting it around and around like a man working a rosary. My whole body shaking, I stare at the broken knifeglinting in his grip, terrified he’ll go lower, terrified he won’t stop.
Finally dropping the blade onto the coffee table, it clatters, spinning, landing within inches of my bleeding hip, the handle wobbling. Locking onto it with tunnel vision, that knife is my whole world. Trying to drag myself toward it, elbows slipping, muscles screaming, he plants his boot on the small of my back and shoves. Pain explodes. I gasp.
“Don’t you move.” His voice carries that nasty edge of piety, like this is God’s work and not just him getting off on control. Grabbing my wrist, yanking it above my head, he pins it to the carpet. My cuts smear blood over the floor.
I try to dissociate, to float outside my skin like I used to when I was younger, but all I see is that knife an arm’s length away. All I feel is fire licking my ribs. All I hear is the warped hum of scripture muttered through tobacco-stained teeth.
The second his fingers slither under the waistband of my pants, something detonates in me hard enough to shake my bones.
No more pain.
No more punishments.
I don’t let myself think beyond that. Rolling hard, ignoring the fresh fire tearing across my ribs, I slam my hand onto the coffee table. The knife’s cold handle slides against my palm, slick with blood. Planting my foot, hauling myself half upright even as he snarls and tries to yank me back, I yell.
“You little-”
Driving the blade sideways into the meat of his neck, steel flashes, sinking in faster than I expect, puncturing skin and grating bone. Hot blood erupts instantly, splattering my face, hitting the wall behind him in a violent spray. He chokes on his own air, eyes flaring wide, hand flying to the wound. Wrenching the knife free, I slam it back in higher.
No more pain.
No more punishments.
The mantra pounds in time with my heartbeat as I stab again and again, each plunge aimed just beneath his jaw, each twist tearing cartilage, each withdrawal drawing a new gush of blood that streaks down his chest and baptizes the shards of glass littering the rug.
He tries to speak, but the words dissolve into a wet gurgle, my vision tunneling.
All I see is crimson.
All I feel is the vibration shuddering up the handle each time metal hits bone.
He stumbles backward, knees buckling, but I’m on him before he hits the floor. We crash into the coffee table, splinters digging into my knees and his back. He claws at my arm, nails digging furrows down my forearm, but he’s weak already.
“Silas,” he gasps, voice bubbling with blood, reaching toward me like sudden softness could erase years of torment. Slamming the blade into the soft hollow above his collarbone, the plea dies as a hiss. Blood pours across my hands, thick and warm. It smells like iron, nicotine, and every nightmare I’ve ever had.
Collapsing fully, his head smacks the leg of the toppled table. Straddling his chest, panting, I rain down three more stabs in quick succession.
No more pain.
No more punishments.
The mantra is everything.
His fingers twitch, grabbing at a handful of air before falling limp. Eyes going glassy, he stares at the popcorn ceiling as blood gurgles from the gaping wounds in his throat. It spills over the carpet, spreads under us, soaking into my jeans.
The knife slips from my shaking hand, nearly clattering across the floor, but I don’t let him see me weak. I shove off hischest and stumble backward until my spine hits the wall, lungs clawing for air. He coughs once more, a feeble, choking sound, and then there’s nothing but the drip-drip of blood off the edge of the collapsed table. My pulse still thunders, high and wild, as I press my back to the peeling wallpaper, sliding down to sit in the ruins, watching the life leak out of the man who taught me pain like scripture.
No more pain.
No more punishments.
Blood slicks the carpet, first in blotches, then in a slow, spreading tide that creeps toward my shoes. I stand there gulping air, lungs raw, knife still clenched. My hand trembles so hard the blade clatters against my thigh. He’s sprawled in the wreckage of the coffee table, head tilted at an unnatural angle, eyes glassy and fixed on nothing. Each breath I wrench into my body feels like a stolen thing, like it belongs to someone else.
