Page 153
“Your body is mine now.” His fingers bunched my lehenga skirt, and his nails cut against my skin.
I trembled as he tightened his hold around my throat, his breath filled with cigars and nightmares.
No. He’s not my foster father, and I’m not fourteen.
His nails clawed against my flesh as I waited.
I pulled away from him when he tried to kiss me again, and he laughed.
“Oh, when I told you to run… you should have run, then.”
Gritting my teeth, I lunged toward the floor. I grabbed the knife from my coat and plunged it into his cock before he could realize what was happening. With a scream, he slumped to the floor, flailing.
“My body, my choice, and… your dick, my fucking knife, Holland.” I grinned as he howled. I moved then, sitting over him, pulling out the knife from his deflated cock, and he screamed harder, tears trailing down his cheek. “When I’m done with you, you won’t ever hurt another girl.”
I pushed the knife into his right ball, relishing in his scream, my laughter mixed with his wail.
He sobbed out, spewing curses.
“Riley called you a monster, but you’re not. You’re just a weak, pathetic man,” I gritted out. “You think you can gain power just because you abuse a woman who can't defend herself. Fuck now. And men like you who hurt women for pleasure don’t deserve to have a penis.”
When I plunged the knife into his left ball, he wailed louder.
“No, no…”
I pushed the knife against his cock, and started slowly sawing it. I went as far as I could, until blood soaked the floor around us, until his howl turned into a weak prayer.
“This…” I said, stumbling up from him. “This is who you are, Holland. A pathetic piece of nothing. This is what you have always been. Now I’ll wait for Ellis to see you like this. Defeated. Defaced. De-cocked?”
“Please, please. Don’t.”
“She’ll take one look at you and hate you. You’re useless to her now.”
His screams grew louder, his voice breaking as he tried to sit up in the pool of his own blood and slid back down.
“Kill me,” he begged. “Pl-please. Kill me.”
I laughed.
“Why would I do that? Do you think this is enough punishment? Oh no, Mayor Bricks. A man who strips a woman of her dignity, who robs her of her right to her own body… is the worst kind of evil, and so you will get exactly what you fear. Your wife will see what a loser you are.”
“Kill me. Ellis… she—she can’t see me like this.”
“The bitch will see you like this, and then I’ll tear her cunt into a million pieces like you wanted to do to me.”
“No.” He thrashed, trying to move, and sit, but slid helplessly down again on his own blood.
“When I’m done with both of you, you’ll regret your entire fucking existence.”
I sat down on the floor, keeping my distance away from the pool of blood, smiling.
“Tick tock. Tick tock,” I hummed. “Tick tock.”
34
FINDING
ASHER
