Page 179 of Burn Like An Angel

He slumps forward, falling from his seat. I react fast before we have company. My body protests at the sudden movement, carrying me to his fallen form.

“Fuck you!” I hit his head again, causing the glass to smash.

Crystal scatters between us, cutting his shocked face and forehead. Jonathan writhes on the carpet, trying to peer through the blood now pouring from the wound under his hairline.

“Ripley, stop!”

Instead, I launch myself on top of him, willing my fists to respond. The punches are feeble, borderline pathetic, but I pour all my will into each strike. Raining down every last scrap of fight I have left to give.

We wrestle each other, two opposing forces, both on the wrong side of the law. I may have earned this fate, but I learned to be bad from the best. He sank his evil into me long ago.

“Little bitch!” he screams out.

My fist slams into his cheek, causing spit to fly from his mouth. “You did this!”

“I saved you!”

“No.” I hit his barely-healed nose. “You fucking doomed me!”

Shouts are fast approaching. I’ll be tossed aside by his men soon. Snagging a crystal shard, I grip the sharp piece, raising it high above Jonathan’s face. His eyes bug out, but he doesn’t dare move or provoke me.

I don’t think I’ve seen him afraid before. It’s a pleasant sight. Empowering. For the first time, I hold the upper hand over him. I’m no longer a petrified teenager, handing over her diagnosis for his perusal.

“Ripley,” he splutters. “We’re… We’re family.”

“You were my family,” I howl at him. “You were all I had!”

“Stop this!”

“Did you stop those doctors from torturing us? Experimenting on us? Killing without consequence?”

“You can still walk away,” he pleads, eyes locked on the shard.

Years of hatred boil into a concentrated poison in my veins. Rage has been injected into my heart’s muscle, pouring fuel on a fire that’s long burned within me. The same fire that drove me to avenge Holly’s death.

Injustice.

Pure abandonment.

Cruel, senseless fucking grief.

It all stares back at me in his terrified eyes.

I won’t allow the world to hurt me ever again. I’ve given up enough. I don’t need Jonathan’s threats hanging over me any longer. I’m more than the orphan he beat down with his negligence.

“I don’t want to walk away. I’m right where I need to be.”

Jonathan bellows when the shard sails towards him. I numbly register that I’m screaming as I slam the pointed tip into the side of his throat, just below his jawline.

The glass easily tears through his flesh, parting skin and muscle like it’s little more than butter left out on a summer’s day. It buries deep inside him, slicing vital arteries, and I know I’ve paid the final price.

My soul.

It’s truly broken now.

Pulling the weapon free from his throat, blood squirts from the wound and splashes all over my face. Beneath me, Jonathan’s eyes are wide as saucers, a crimson spill pouring from him at an astonishing speed.

Still straddling his chest, I relax my hand, letting the crystal shard hit the carpet. Watching the life rush from him, taking with it a man who did nothing but hate the child he was supposed to love.

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