Page 53 of Submit
“You want more?” I laugh, kicking him in the face as he glares at me, a thick river of dark red pouring from his lips.
The blood splatters on my boot and the ground around me, making a pattern in the snow reminiscent of a Rorschach test. As I look at it, seeing a dead tree, I think to myself that the imagery of the decline of life is fitting for this very moment.
“Fuck you.” He spits at me, spraying my pant legs with more crimson fluid that soaks in and disappears into the dark fabric.
“No, fuck you, you piece of abusive, murdering shit.” I say back to him, hovering over him, pressing the heel of my boot to the back of his head, smashing his face into the snow.
He kicks and flails once again, bucking his body around like a fish out of water, but he’s taken too much damage, and he’s too weak to fight me off at all anymore. It really is sad. A man should be more of a well…man.
But he never was one, not a real one at least. Any man who raises his hand in anger to a woman, or makes her cry, or hurts her feelings with no remorse is not a real man. The only pain a man should cause a woman is the kind she begs for on her knees and thanks him for later.
“Adrian?”
My name on the dainty little voice that comes from behind Max brings my focus off the bleeding piece of shit under my foot.
Millie, wrapped up in a fluffy white blanket, comes through the doorway and steps barefoot out into the cold snow. Her skin is pale and her lips are blue, most likely from the shock of what he did to her. She’s shaking, but her stare at Tyler is resolute with her anger. She looks from him then to me, her gaze softening, then hardening again when she looks back down.
Slowly she walks over to where I stand on the back of his head, smothering him on the white ground. She brings those emerald eyes to mine and tilts her head, chewing her bottom lip nervously.
“She’s dead isn’t she?” She whispers.
“I’m sorry bunny. Yes.” I say softly, brushing her hair from her tear-stained face just as another drop starts to form in the corner of her eye.
“How?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“That bad huh?” She asks, closing those gems and taking a deep, rattling breath in then releasing it on a puffy cloud into the night air. She pauses, and swallows hard, her entire throat moving with it, like it’s painful to do. “Kill him.” She says, her lips quivering, and her cheeks becoming soaked with rivers of tears. “Do it.”
“Back up baby and I will.” I say to her, kissing her on her forehead and flattening my tongue to lick her tears away. “I will always do anything you ask of me. I love you.”
“I love you too. Thank you.” She says through quiet sniffles.
She grabs my hand with the knife in it, and just holds it for a moment, then brings it to her lips and kisses across my knuckles and up onto my hand tattoo before letting it go and stepping backwards and away.
“Max?” I call out to the older man. “You mind?”
I don’t need to tell him what I’m requesting, he already knows.
“Come here Millie.” He says, opening his arms for her, and she goes to him, burying her face in his chest as he wraps her in his safety.
As he leads her inside, I can hear him tell her that he has her and that everything will be okay as I kneel down on top of the barley breathing Tyler, straddling his broken body.
“Enough is enough. This is for what you’ve done to Angela and Millie.” I growl quietly in his ear as I lift his head by a handful of his hair, exposing his throat.
He gurgles and spits out a fine mist of blood on a heavy exhale, but he doesn’t fight anymore. He’s done, and as I sit down on his back and hold him to the snowy ground I feel him give up and accept his fate.
He goes slack in my hold, my fist in his hair the only thing keeping his head up. If I let go of it, his face would flop back down into the snow. The dead weight is heavy to my already banged up body, and my arm begins to shake, the pain radiating down into my broken ribs.
With a final yank, elongating his throat as much as I can, I draw the sharp edge of the blade across it. It cuts through the flesh like it’s heated and going through butter, splitting the skin, and slicing through his jugular veins and carotid arteries.
The arterial spray that blows from his neck fans out like a crimson waterfall, dousing the white snow underneath us, melting it into a red slush from the heat of it. I can hear it sizzle when it hits the frozen ground, like chucking meat in a hot pan.
The last bit of fight comes from him as his hands swing out and try to grab at the fountain of blood, but it only lasts a second before he falls completely still on the death wheeze, where the last breath whistles through the severed trachea.
It’s like something from a movie with the amount of blood that came from him, and the ground around us looks like something from a battle zone, with everything white having turned a dark red. Little rivers of red work their way away from us, melting the snow as they go, finally stopping when they’ve cooled enough.
With a grunted curse of “Don’t rest in peace, motherfucker.” I get off of his corpse, shoving the twisted-up face into the snow and giving the back of his head one final stomp just to make myself feel better.
