I throw the knife, and he screams, diving to the ground as it sticks into the picture of him on the wall. He’s wearing his robes in that picture, looking prominent and pompous. The real man is sobbing on the ground while trembling in fear.
“Tell me!” I shout, smiling on the inside while playing the out-of-control mad-woman on the outside.
He curls in on himself, sobbing harder. “I did it,” he says, sobbing harder. “I did it. I suppressed all the evidence that cleared Robert Evans. But at the time, I swear I thought it was him. Johnson promised us it was him.”
I crouch, pulling another knife from my boot and toying with the handle for a nice little psychotic show.
“Tell me the rest,” I say quietly. “Tell me how you and the sheriff, along with all his deputies, sent a gang of boys to rape the children of the man you wrongfully imprisoned.”
He chokes on his sobs, hiccupping out the next words. “I never meant for the rape—”
“Bullshit!” I snap, holding the knife in front of me. “The truth, Judge. I already know it. I just want to hear it.”
His breaths grow labored and his cries get harder. It takes effort, but he finally speaks again.
“We just wanted you to feel the same pain as those women because you two wouldn’t stop defending him!”
That familiar coldness washes over me, and I slowly stand, moving toward Murdock who is positively quaking in fear now that he knows I’m a fucking crazy bitch with a knife. I’m sure the fact I’m the one who peeled all the flesh from Kyle’s body is wreaking havoc on his nerves right now.
The record starts skipping, the song coming to an end, and I let the annoying sound continue as I slice the knife across Murdock’s torso with no warning. Blood spills from the wound and red plumes grow bigger and bigger against the tan shirt.
The judge screams, as well as Murdock as I slice again, aiming at Murdock’s middle just right, and this time, the gash is deep. Everything on the inside spills out, intestines rolling from his body like an uncurling ball of yarn.
He stops moving, dying almost instantly, and I face the judge again as he spills his own stomach contents in a different sort of way.
As he retches, I come up behind him, finding his lack of fight anti-climatic. These are the men who I feared for so long? One who beats his child and wife, but couldn’t land a single punch on me? One who cries on the floor in the fetal position, praying I’ll disappear like a bad dream, instead of fighting for his life?
Instead of drawing it out, I slice the knife against his throat, finding no excitement with these kills. The blood sprays across the room, and gurgles of agony are all that escape his lips, as all other sounds struggle to make it past the gash in his throat.
I leave him there in his fancy suit, allowing it to be stained red, along with the carpeted floor of his chambers. After cleaning off my knife, I tuck it back into my boot, but I leave my other one stuck into the picture of the judge.
Then I pull out the paintbrush I brought, and I dip it into the blood. Instead of painting a wall this time, I leave a message.
A message for the man who broke my heart.
A message for the man I never should have loved.
It’s completely juvenile, but I can’t help myself.
By the time I leave, the blood has mostly drained out of them, and I walk out, stained in their shades of red, but no one notices. At least I put on the horribly huge boots, though I don’t know why I bothered.
Eventually Logan will out me.
I drive back to the house, finding myself in desperate need of a shower. There’s a silver sedan in our driveway, and my brow furrows. Hadley drives the FBI issued SUV. Maybe she got another car to keep them from looking at her GPS history or something.
Wary, I pull out a knife as I slowly open the door. All the lights are off, and none of the monitors are on.
With silence, I step into the house, stealthily close the door, and gingerly make my way through the eerie quiet. A garbled sound comes from the back room, something sounding like pain as a loud grunt follows.
Without hesitation, I kick open the door to Jake’s room, flipping on the light immediately, raise the knife in the air, and…freeze.
Jake curses, Hadley squeals while covering her bare breasts with her hands, and my mouth opens and closes a few times in complete shock.
“What the hell?” Jake asks, as though I’m the one who has lost my fucking mind.
“What the hell?” I shoot back.
I rarely get surprised. Usually I hate surprises. This time…I’m not really sure how I feel about this little nugget of unexpectedness.