I won’t allow my body to betray me. I can’t drop the knife. I can’t stop myself. The fear and rage are mingling into a concoction that’s far too powerful to deny.
The blood on the blade drips down onto my hand and feels like fire on my skin. The tension, the anger, the pure rage, and terror all boil in my blood as I stare at the dead, milky white eyes of the monster in front of me.
I can’t look at Carter. I can’t rip my gaze from the motionless stare of Alexander Stephan.
I’m waiting for him to blink. To jump up and grab me. The fear I feel is paralyzing, but the adrenaline coursing through me is going to burst my veins. He’s limp in the chair, his throat split wide open although the blood isn’t gushing anymore. It’s only a slow trickle at this point.
It reminds me of the way my mother’s throat was slit. The way he did it.
I remember it so clearly. That scene has haunted my dreams for as long as I can remember. How he stood behind her after he’d abused her. How he didn’t do it slowly; instead it was vicious and violent. It was all I could think to do to him here in this chair and at my mercy when Carter handed me the knife.
“Aria,” Carter’s voice breaks through my terror and the memory as he commands, “Give. Me. The. Knife.” His words mix with the sound of my heavy breathing.
Carter’s voice is demanding and on the edge of anger. I barely peek at him, the fear of Stephan waking and taking the knife from me is all too real. Blood seeps into his shirt, and his mangled body is unmoving. But I know he’s going to take the knife back. Stephan will take it and do to me what he did to my mother.
I squeeze the steel handle harder. I won’t let him.
Tears prick my eyes as Carter yells at me, his voice booming in the silent room and sending a violent vibration through my chest. It hurts. It all hurts.
My head shakes in defiance. I shouldn’t disobey him. Bad things happen when I do. The cell. At the thought, my shoulders hunch and my knees go weak, ready to surrender and kneel to the man who’s held me captive yet given me this revenge.
Given me the means to avenge my mother’s death.
But I can’t move. “I can’t,” I say, and my words are weak and fall from my lips like a pathetic whimper. “I won’t.” Those two words come out harder and I reach out, swinging my arm violently in the air and slicing into Stephan’s throat again. In my periphery, I see a man back away, and then another.
A small cry slips through my lips unbidden as Carter wraps his hand around mine, his other hand on my shoulder and keeping me steady as he pries my fingers back. The murmurs of the other men in the room barely register. All I can hear is Carter shushing me, and all I can focus on are Stephan’s eyes. The depths of his irises never seemed as dark as they do now.
The steady shaking of my shoulders turns violent as I try to move backward, away from the monster, away from his grasp. To run and hide like I did all those years ago.
But I can’t. Carter won’t let me.
It’s Carter, I tell myself. Carter is holding me. Focusing on regulating my shaky breathing helps steady me back to reality.
My left knee falls to the ground first and it makes my right knee slam against the ground.
“Shh,” Carter shows me mercy. Stealing the knife from me but guarding me against my fears.
“It’s over,” he whispers as he finally pries the knife from my grasp. And I let him. I let him take it, but I won’t move until I know Stephan is dead.
“He’ll come for me,” the scared child inside of me speaks. He can’t be dead, because then it would be over. And with Stephan, it’s never over. He’s haunted me for as long as I can remember.
“She’s fucking insane.” The sharp and disgusted voice of Romano cuts through my thoughts. Thump, thump. My heart beats harder as I remember where I am. “This is insane,” Romano says with anger.
“Shut up.” Carter’s voice once again tears through my body, thrumming through my blood and for the first time, I close my eyes. But then I remember Stephan is only feet from me, and they fly open again.
The room falls silent, just as Carter commanded. His fingertips are gentle on my shoulders, one hand on each as he lowers his lips to my ear and tells me, “Go upstairs and wash yourself off.”
My head shakes on its own, my eyes not moving from the body in the chair in front of me.