Newborn

Chapter 106: Savage

Anne Halton

I run through the city, hidden in the shadows.  My pain is concealed behind my scarlet scarf but my anger cannot be contained by anything.

Since my fight with Liam, I have been prowling the city like a beast looking for suitable prey.  My last victim didn't put up nearly enough of a fight.  I need a new offender worthy of my wrath.

I can feel it now, three blocks away a woman calling out to me.  Her heart is screaming for vengeance.

I’m happy to oblige.  I barely even think about soothing the woman’s pain, I just want an outlet.

I run to the building.  The front door is locked.  It’s a flimsy little door with glass paneling.  I punch through the glass and tear it apart.  Doors and locks and the all the little toys humans use to make themselves feel safe are nothing to me anymore.  I’m a force, like a hurricane, great, terrible, and unstopable.

I hurry up the stairs.  The woman is close.

I hear music playing very loudly, probably to hide the victim’s screams.  I break down the door and head straight for the bedroom.  I can feel where she is.

Her name is Samantha.  She’s twenty-nine.  She has her own apartment and a cat.  She was lonely.  She just wanted to meet someone new.  One of Sam’s friends offered to set her up with a guy from work.  It was a blind date.  He was supposed to be nice.

The man is on top of her now.  He’s naked.  Underneath, she’s struggling to get free.  She shouts for him to stop.  He doesn’t listen.  Why is he doing this to me? she thinks.  She feels weak and vulnerable and violated in ways she never really understood until now.

I break into the room and see what he’s doing to her.  I can feel her hurt and her rage.  He’s just a mound of flesh, moving around as if it has significance.  He disgusts me.  The violation he’s committing barely matters anymore, I’m disgusted by his very being.

I grab him and hurl him against the wall.  The woman instantly grabs the sheets to cover herself.  The man screams out in pain as I hold him, pinned to the wall.  The music will hide his screams just like they hid hers.  I can see the look of shame on his face as he comes to accept the fact that he’s the one that is powerless now.

I look over at the woman, I can tell that she wants to run, but she stays to see what I do to the pathetic mound.

I can tear him apart with a thought, but that would be too fast.  I use my energy to constrict around him.  I can feel one of his ribs break.  He screams out.  His voice is getting annoying, so I seal his mouth shut.  He can’t move his jaw now.

I let his body fall to the ground and then I get on top of it and start pummelling him.  He’s bleeding, but I keep going.  It isn’t enough.  It doesn’t satisfy my anger.

“Burn,” I say, setting my own hands on fire.  I grab his hands with mine, searing them in my flames.  He struggles, but I’m far stronger than him.  He can’t scream anymore, but I can see the agony in his eyes.  His body quivers. 

I look down at the pile of flesh beneath me and over at the woman, and they don’t seem so different.  They’re both just bags of blood and bone.  They almost don’t seem worth the effort.

There’s a vital difference the two people though.  The man below me only has fear and agony in his eyes.  The woman has a look of horror and something else.  I think it’s disappointment.  She was praying for someone to stop her rapist, but she thought that I’d be better.  She didn’t want to trade one monster for another.  The look in her eyes reminds me of the look that Jess gave me when she first saw my powers.  I remember how much that look hurt.  It’s hard to imagine that look could be so meaningless now.  Jess was so horrified when she learned I was the Scarlet Lady, but then she accepted me.  Jess knew I could be good.  What am I doing? I think.

The woman on the bed sees me staring at her and she gather’s the courage to speak out.  “Please stop,” she says.  In spite of the things the man has done to her, she is still able to find some pity for him.

I can be better, I think to myself.  I don’t have to be this.  I try to convince myself to stop what I’m doing, but my pain is so strong.  The fire is overwhelming.  How am I supposed to live with it?

I look at the naked woman on the bed, asking me to stop.  I think about the way she was just violated.  I suppose we all have burden’s we need to live with.

I manage to stand up and leave the man alone.  I unbind his mouth, but he’s smart enough not to say anything.  “Call the ambulance,” I say to the woman, and then I leave. 

Covered in the man’s blood, I can't think about myself without being disgusted.