The Broken & The Punisher

Chapter 7. What a Waste

Continued ...

With that, he tapped the iPod and sat it down as speakers in each corner blared the opening melody to a song. He crept over to her, like a tiger about to strike its prey. Her heartbeat quickened as he grew closer, and the fear she had tried so hard to hold back forced its way into the forefront of her mind. Her instincts told her to beg, scream, thrash, anything but just lie there. The words were on the tip of her tongue, her vocal cords readying themselves. But then her brain registered the song that played.

Song- "I—I’m so lost without you…

Can’t stop dreaming about you…

Can’t you see?"

She knew that song, she hadn’t heard the song since the night her husband died, but it hit her all at once with the force of a train. She saw herself, dancing for her husband for the last time. She could see the bruises, the blood, the years’ worth of abuse. Everything in her life erupted that night and everything that led to it, and she was no longer Mary Gibbens-Kirk. She was someone new. She was herself, once again.

'But how did he know about the song?' She was surprised.

With that much going on in her head, it was soo chaotic and wild that she was no longer in her body as he ran the tip of the scalpel underneath her shirt. She could feel the cool metal, but she wasn’t there. She was above herself, watching, waiting. Her consciousness had separated from her body, a form of escapism taught by the years of abuse. There was a blankness to her expression that must’ve disappointed him.

He cut the shirt, starting at the collar and slicing with the scalpel all the way down. It fell open and exposed her flesh, exposing her scars. The crisp air of the room touched them, making her more aware of their existence.

She lost it. It was just too much all at once.

“Oh baby!” she screamed along with the singer. “Come back to me!… I’ll be your king!”

Theo’s eyes widened as he spotted the disfigured flesh, and the scalpel dropped to the table.

“You’ll be my queen, we’ll make love and sing…” she continued at the top of her lungs.

“Shut up!” His fist slammed on the table next to her head.

She ignored him and continued to sing the lyrics at the top of her lungs, drowning out the chorus. She wasn’t sure she even registered the music anymore until Theo had shut it off and her voice was the only one echoing along the walls of the room.

He stood with his back to her, leaning with his palms flat against the counter. He heaved as if he had just run a marathon, and the muscles in his back were pulled tight. That was what happened when you fu*ked up a psychopath’s plan. They were all about their routine… or so she had heard.

But for some reason, the sight of the man relaxed her. She had won. Maybe he would kill her. But she had won.

"Maybe my stepchildren had finally hired someone to torture me until I admitted to their father’s murder," she assumed but right then all that mattered was that he was the one bent over, his shoulders heaving with his pants. While her breathing was normal.

“Strike a nerve, Norman?” His muscles somehow tensed even more at the sound of her voice, and his breathing stopped altogether. He straightened and punched buttons on a keypad beside the door before it opened and he left. He couldn’t get away fast enough.

“See you soon, Norman,” she whispered to the empty room.

He had no idea who he was dealing with.

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Theo's POV:-

My heartbeat thudded in my ears as I slammed the door to the vault and strode through the second hidden door. A bookshelf was built into it, so only the subtle view of hinges on the side was visible if looking hard enough. I jerked the shelf back and flinched as books crashed to the ground as the latch clicked.

She ruined it.

I lifted the sling over my neck and tossed it to the floor, ignoring the pain that erupted in my shoulder. It was a hairline fracture on my shoulder blade from the bat. According to the late-night ER doctor, it would heal on its own. Great, but I still had to explain away the sling.

My fists clenched at my sides and I couldn’t keep the rage from clawing its way out of me. Deep breaths blew over my lips as I picked up the lamp sitting on my desk and threw it against the wall. The bulb shattered into many pieces and scattered across the floor, but it wasn’t enough. I flung back the office chair and swiped at the contents on the desk’s surface, sending pens and papers flying.

“Fu*k!” I fisted my hair and yanked.

A scream filled my head, but it wasn’t Rose. This one was louder, higher pitched, and panicked.

No.

I shook my head. Not that one. I couldn’t hear that one. Rose was supposed to take her place.

I clenched my eyes shut, but it didn’t keep the memory from playing on a loop. I could see the blue light of the radio, the rain pelting the windshield. The smell of stale cigarette smoke and fast food entered my nostrils as if I was there.

I sank to the carpet and continued pulling at my hair. When that didn’t work, I slammed my head into the oak desk, faintly registering a cracking pain. Still, the song on the radio played in my head.

Song- "I—I’m so lost without you…

Can’t stop dreaming about you…

Can’t you see?"

And then her scream. I bit my lip until I tasted blood. I begged my childhood self in my memory not to turn his head, but he didn’t listen. I could see through his eyes as he crawled into the back seat and peered through the rear window. It was too dark to see even as hard as I’d squinted, but when a bolt of lightning lit up the night sky, she was there, clear as day. She lay on the ground, her mouth hung open, her eyes closed. She wasn’t moving.

“Mom?”

By the time my eyes opened, my head ached from pounding it on the desk and a sheen of sweat coated me. I swiped at my forehead and took deep breaths, but I couldn’t calm the darkness that encased me. Nothing could.

She’d ruined it.

I trembled with rage and considered for a minute going back to the vault. I could gag her and carry on with my purge, but I knew it wouldn’t work. I needed her screams. Only then would the haunting stop. And she wouldn’t do it right. I should’ve known that. She was different from the others, harder to catch, harder to study, harder to read. I should’ve known she would fu*k it up.

My skin crawled as the image of her disfigured flesh flashed through my mind. Scars. She had scars. She wasn’t a blank canvas. She was a waste.

I stood and pulled the book back that would unlock the latch. After the click, I swung it open and paced the few steps to the vault door. I needed her gone. Needed a new target, a new purge, and I couldn’t do it with her in my space. And I needed it right the fu*k now.

I punched in the first three numbers on the keypad, but my finger hovered over the fourth. Why did she have those scars? I shook my head, trying not to think about it. She had killed her husband, everything pointed toward it. She was guilty. A murderer.

'What if she was a victim?'

My jaw clenched and I allowed my finger to hover over the pad a moment longer before I slammed my hand into the steel door. It echoed throughout the space, and the loud noise was almost a comfort. I slammed my hand against the metal again, allowing the clang to drown out the noise in my head.

"I wouldn’t go in there. Not yet. I had more research to do."

I turned from the vault door and marched back into my office. Some of the anger had dissipated, but it left behind a layer of tar beneath my skin. It crackled beneath the surface, waiting to explode and rip me to pieces. It weighed me down and would be with me throughout the day, but I had learned to live with it before. Since I was a teen, before my first purge. I couldn’t allow it to go too long, but for now, I’d need to suffer through.

I eyed the photo album laying on the carpet in the aftermath of my rage. It was opened to the first slot, and Rose’s image stared back at me. It had been the only picture I had snagged and was of her in a wedding dress when she was eighteen. Behind that page were the scrappings of potential targets, and I was tempted to flip through them but refrained.

I needed a shower and change of clothes before heading to work, and I had already been late as it was.

I fished the cell phone from my suit pocket and sent a text to Teresa letting her know I would be late. It wasn’t as if I would be able to concentrate on my work. I would be busy digging up everything I could on the woman in my vault. I needed to know more about her past and about her marriage to her late husband. Secretly, I hoped she was guilty. That those scars were self-inflicted or from some sort of freak accident. I hadn’t gotten a good enough look to judge.

Whether she was a predator or prey, there was one thing for certain—she was even crazier than me.

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