Turn for the Worst

Chapter 28

"You're going to protect her?" he asks in surprise.

"She's clearly afraid of you, you bastard! I protect the innocent."

"What are you a cop?" Arthur asks.

"Bail bonds," Emma says.

"A woman of the law..." Arthur says. He takes a step back from Gwen and turns to face Emma fully. "No wonder you put up such a fight."

"I put up a fight because you were raping me!" Emma snaps. "I did what I could to protect myself."

Gwen weeps a little harder as Emma shouts out what she already assumed. "Why Arthur Why?!" she whimpers from the floor.

"I did it for us," Arthur says in a gentler voice.

"He wants to get me pregnant!" Emma shouts. "Give him a baby since you can't anymore."

Arthur's face turns red in anger and he clenches his fists. To hear this horrible truth said out loud makes him embarrassed and upset. Gwen never checked with him before she had the operation, never asked if he wanted another child. It's why he did this in the first place... to give them a new family. Now with Emma saying his plan out loud, it made him sound clinically insane, which was likely true at this moment with his anger levels rising more and more each second.

"Why would you do this?!" Gwen screams.

"He's insane, your husband is insane," Emma says.

This sends Arthur over the edge.

He lunges at Emma so quickly that the gun goes off, but merely grazes his arm. He swats the gun from her hand and then punches the blonde in the face. Emma goes down, disoriented and her nose is bleeding. She fights the dizziness as best she can, she uses her leg to hit Arthur in the back of the leg hard. He cringes, but he grabs Emma around the throat again. Emma immediately struggles, trying to claw at Arthur's face, dragging her nails along his cheeks. She tries to defend herself, but Arthur gets on top of her struggling body. Normally, she'd be able to throw him off, but because of her lack of nutrition, she's much weaker to put up a good fight. Arthur begins to squeeze her windpipe, taking her breath away as he gets even tighter. Emma gasps desperately, she continues to claw at him, trying to take his hands away. She fears that this might be her last few moments. Her mind races to find something... anything to save herself. She keeps fighting, tears welling up from the lack of oxygen. She thinks of Henry, Killian, Mary Margret, David, Ruby and everyone else whom she would never see again. Everything goes black.

...

Arthur is still strangling Emma until he feels a sharp pain in his back. He drops the unconscious and bleeding Emma to the ground and turns to see a screwdriver stick out of his left shoulder. He sees his distraught wife glaring at him, angry eyes behind frightened tears. He turns like a wild animal would after being attacked and goes towards his wife.

"You're a monster!" Gwen says as fiercely as she can.

"You haven't the faintest idea!" he roars.

He lunges forward, screwdriver still in his shoulder and shoves his wife against the wall. He begins to get his hands around her throat, but Gwen knees him in the groin. He goes down a little bit, allowing Gwen to grab the screwdriver from his shoulder. She goes to stab him again when Arthur shoves his whole body and his wife against the wall. Gwendolyn smashes her head against the wall and becomes unconscious. She falls limp on the floor.

Arthur suddenly gathers his bearings. He blinks and sees his wife on the ground. He then looks at his surrogate lying on the floor, beaten up, but still alive.