Page 52 of Virago

“No,” Danvers gasped. The pure, crystalline fear in that syllable was almost satisfaction enough—

No, fuck that. It wasn’t nearly enough.

“What’s the play, Z?” Dom asked.

He really did like the idea of hurting the part that had done the bad touching. There was poetry in it.

“You’re right-handed, yeah?” Zaxx asked Danvers. “So it was your right hand that went into my baby sister’s underwear.”

Danvers didn’t answer. His right hand clenched into a shaky fist, and he looked halfway to passing out.

“Hold him down, right arm out.” Zaxx nodded at the worktable. “Over there.”

Tommy and Dom grabbed Danvers, who started to fight and yell until Dom grabbed a shop rag off the grass and shoved the filthy thing into his mouth.

They muscled him out from the frame of the new deck and slammed him down on the work table. It was a temporary thing—a plywood sheet locked into a couple plastic sawhorses—and it bounced and rocked with Danvers’ struggle until Tommy punched him in the back of the head, at his nape, and Danvers sagged into a disoriented haze.

They had him chest down on the table, his right arm extended, locked under Dom’s powerful arms.

Zaxx went to the other side of the table, where he had room to work. Danvers’ hand was clenched in a fist, but that was okay. In fact, maybe it was better.

He raised the board and brought it down as hard as he could. The sound of breaking bones was loud enough that Danvers’ muffled scream couldn’t compete. On that first strike, Danvers’ fist opened like a crushed bud trying to bloom. The rusty nails took thick gouges of skin.

Zaxx struck three more times, wham-wham-wham, Danvers’ fist deflating with each blow, until Dom said, “Hey, easy now,” and Zaxx stopped.

He’d hurt people before, people who’d deserved it. He’d been in lots of fights and won most of them. He’d gone after assholes who’d bullied or shamed or hurt his sister. He’d corrected drunks who’d crossed the line at No Place. But he’d never done anything so brutal before, not even close.

Yet he felt ... nothing. Not satisfied, not avenged. Not disturbed or horrified or sorry.

Nothing.

Danvers was weeping, drooling, struggling to breathe through a nose swollen with tearful snot. The thing at the end of his wrist was little more than a sack of goo.

Zaxx dropped the board. Tommy and Dom let Danvers go. The broken man slid to the ground and curled up like a baby, cradling his ruined hand.

Tommy crouched before him. “We gotta stop meeting like this, Billy Boy. And you need to get yourself to the ER. That looks like a helluva accident you had, working on your deck. Probably you should hire this work out. Remember what happens when you take on more than you’re built for.”

He patted Danvers’ head and strode toward the gate. Zaxx and Dom followed.

~oOo~

Back at their bikes, as Zaxx put his revolver away and closed his saddlebag, he was surprised to get yanked into Tommy’s arms for a bear hug. The SAA squeezed him until he thought he’d break, then smacked an actual kiss to the middle of his forehead.

“Damn, little bro! That was fuckin’ fire! Who knew you had that in you? Not me, I can tell ya! Did you see him, Dom?”

Dom smiled. “You did good, kid.”

“Like the old days!” Tommy cheered. He squeezed Zaxx again and finally let him go.

Still numb and empty, Zaxx didn’t know what to think about Tommy’s enthusiasm. So he said nothing. He mounted his bike, ready to get back to Signal Bend and see Zelda. Maybe he’d feel normal again when he could tell her she was safe. He’d protected her, as he always would.

A thought of Gia floated up. He hadn’t thought of her since Dom’s call this morning, but now there she was. What would she think of what he’d done?

Her father, her uncles had done far worse. How did she feel about the Horde’s outlaw past? Was she disgusted by it? Appalled? Was that why she stayed away from home so much?

It didn’t matter. One way or another, he wasn’t right for her. One way or another, he’d hold her down where she didn’t want to be. Best to let one spectacular night be one spectacular night and nothing more.

That, the loss of what might have been, of what he’d thought on Saturday night would have been, that hurt. It broke through his stunned detachment and ached. Like an open sore inside his chest.

---