The Broken & The Punisher

Chapter 12. Let the Smoke Out

Continued from chapter 11.

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"No!" Mary screamed, shaking her head.

Theo's grip moved from her wrists to her shoulders, pinning her against the wall. She trembled beneath his touch. For the first time in years, she felt fear. Not just a flicker of it, not a fleeting moment of panic, not even a full-blown anxiety attack, but pure justified terror.

She hadn't realized how much she didn't want to die, but she realized it at that moment. There were so many things she had yet to do, so many places she had yet to go. She believed her life to be taken away from her when she was only eighteen, but she realized at that moment that she still had something that she was wasting. Wasting it behind a computer desk, wasting it with Ricky, wasting every single day, every single second. She wanted life. She chose life. She wanted another chance to make that choice.

But she chose too late.

"Mary," Theo said, shaking her. Her eyes finally met his, and she could no longer make out the danger that had shone so clearly a few minutes ago.

They stared at each other for several moments, the only sound between them was her heavy breathing. Her chest brushed against Theo with each inhale, but his grasp never loosened nor did his gaze let go of her eyes until, finally, another sound broke the intensity between them. Both their gazes flicked at the man lying on the cart as he groaned.

She imagined he would be waking up soon, imagined he would soon learn of his impending death. Maybe he already knew.

Theo's gaze returned to her and he sighed. "That man is an abuser, Mary. His wife had been to the hospital sixteen times before she finally found the courage to divorce him. She told the police, she filed the reports, and do you know what it got her?"

She stared at him blankly, unsure if he actually expected her to answer. She didn't need him to tell her.

"Supervised visitation every other weekend, while this motherfu*king pig gets full custody of their two children when he doesn't even deserve to be called a father because the pathetic prenup she got wasn’t enough to stand a chance against the lawsuits he decided to file against her. He claimed she was an unfit parent, and he won, Mary. For no other reason than he had more money." Theo waved a hand at the man as he spoke. Disgust covered his features. "Does that sound fair to you? Is that justice?"

Theo's hold on her intensified, and the air rushed from her lungs. He terrified Mary. So much hatred, so much rage poured from him. It was as if he had been the man's wife or at least had some relation.

"There's nothing you can do about that," she whispered.

Theo's eyebrows lifted and he glanced toward the man. "Actually, there is.”

He released her before walking to stand in front of the cart. Even in his absence, she couldn't breathe. There was a cloud of tension around her that made her lungs continue to feel constricted. So she just stood there, back pressed against the wall as she silently watched Theo drag the man's body onto the table. He secured the man's wrists and ankles with a fresh rope he had pulled from his pockets. The fear slowly faded as she watched him, wondering if that was how he had looked when she had been the one unconscious and strapped to the table. If he had been that enraged at her sin. He had been right. She had indeed killed her husband. Yet, here she was, unharmed. Why was she found to be innocent?

Her hands absently lifted to brush along the scars of her stomach. He didn't see her as guilty. 'He meant it when he said he wouldn't hurt me.' She found it believable.

She considered the man on the table might've been innocent. Theo could've been lying, or more likely, delusional. But as she stared at the man, now tied and minutes away from consciousness, she felt some of that rage too.

She bent and took the scalpel in between her fingertips before lifting it from the concrete. Theo pushed the cart toward the door, and while she could feel his stare, she didn't look to confirm. She was too busy eyeing the man, the abuser. Out of nowhere, his form morphed into Richard’s, and she ached for the chance to kill her late husband a second time.

Theo was there blocking her path as soon as she took a step toward the table. He grasped her wrist, gently this time, and guided the scalpel from her hand into his. "Not yet," Theo said. "It needs to be done right."

She nodded even before she understood what he meant. His ritual. How many times had he done this?

He glanced at the man one last time before nodding to the door. "Come on.” He took her hand and guided her to the exit. Her muscles were tense with both rage and residual fear, but she still managed to study the numbers he punched into the pad—36918. He tossed the scalpel onto the burnt countertop before pushing open the door and stepping aside to usher her through.

After she'd stepped out, he pulled the cart behind him and used it to keep the door propped open. When he turned back to her, the question must have been obvious on her face because, with the tilt of his head, he gestured into the room. "Need to let the smoke clear out."

Her eyes darted to the floor as if she were embarrassed, and to be honest she was. But not much if both their actions were compared... who would be the more questionable between the two of them.

She spun around, annoyed at herself, and stormed up to the second door. It was heavy as well and took more force than she would have thought necessary to push it open. She was surprised when she stepped through it and saw an office as opposed to some creepy hallway in an abandoned building. She had forgotten they were in his home. As she scanned his office it was difficult to imagine such an alarming room existing in such an otherwise normal, cozy space.

Her thoughts were interrupted, and she flinched as a loud bang sounded behind her. Spinning once again, she was relaxed to see it was only Theo shutting the second door, which was a built-in bookcase. And then she realized how fu*king crazy she was to be relieved that it was only Theo.

'You know, the guy that has a torture room in his home where he likes to do God knows what with his victims, that might have occasionally involved a blowtorch.' She knew no amount of reasoning would make it seem normal to be relieved in the company of a killer, no matter how righteous his reasoning was.

She retreated as Theo took a step toward her, her feet carrying her into yet another door. This one wasn't so heavy, and it was made of wood. Theo held up his hands as if to calm her. He must've seen the panic that was threatening to surge.

She turned and twisted the knob, flinging the door open and sprinting out of the office into a space she recognized from when he had carried her earlier. She expected at any moment to feel his hands circle her waist and jerk her back toward him. Maybe he would even take her back into the room, lock the door behind her and force her to share the space with a woman-beater.

To her amazement, she made it down to the hallway, and in a split second, she had to make a decision: right or left. If her memory served her correctly, they had come from the left, so she chose the right. She had only slowed her pace by a fraction, but it was enough that when she turned the corner she felt Theo’s fingertips brush her hair. He was right behind her.

He ran through the kitchen and tipped a trash can as she ran past it in a pathetic attempt at slowing Theo down. To her amazement, it worked. Her heart leaped as a thud sounded behind her from Theo’s shoe connecting with the plastic. She bought herself maybe one or two more seconds, and she had every intention of making it count.

A cry of relief came from deep within her throat as a door came into her line of sight. She knew it led to the outside because she could see a tree through a nearby window. Theo was right behind her and she realized that he could have followed her out of the house, but in her mind, outside was the sanctuary. All she needed was to get through that door.

With a twist of the knob, she swung the door open, but before she could squeal with joy, her breath caught. Her lungs would no longer contract, and her wildly beating heart stopped for a moment before it started beating even faster. Every muscle in her body seemed to coil at the same time but none of them moved her.

She was as rigid as a tree trunk, rooted to the ground with no hope of going anywhere. Only instead of physical constraints holding her down like the roots of a tree, her restraints were all in her head. She closed her eyes and pressed her palms over her ears in an attempt to drown out the thudding. It didn’t work, of course. The thud was her heartbeat. And she couldn't stop her heartbeat, at least not if she wanted to truly make this second chance count.

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Continued