Page 28 of Cast Stones
Twelve Hours Earlier
People are hardwired to exaggerate.
This bag weighs a ton.
She’s as skinny as a toothpick.
Obviously, those aren’t true statements. No mere mortal could pick up a bag that actually weighed a ton, and if a woman’s body was really the size of a toothpick, she wouldn’t be skinny. She’d be dead.
However, the one that pisses me off the most is when some attention-seeking media whore compares a simple murder to a bloodbath. Getting blood on your hands is messy but expected, an inconvenience easily remedied with a towel or faucet.
But a bloodbath?
No.
A bloodbath is something meant to be savored. It’s something dreamt about for years, planned with precision down to the most minute detail. It’s choreographing every cut and writing every word so that nothing is left to chance. It’s desecrating someone so much that they stop looking human, instead becoming a canvas for revenge.
Thatis a bloodbath. It’s when your hair, your skin, and your clothes drip with the coppery scent of justice.
It’s the one I was nearly denied.
I’m a possessive man. I don’t share. What’s mine is mine, and God help whoever tries to take it away from me. Tonight belonged to me, and it nearly slipped through my fingers.
Luckily, I’m as demanding as I am selfish. I always get what I want.
Twirling the knife in my hand, I bend down on my haunches and stare at what used to be a man. “I learned,” I bite out between clenched teeth. “Just like you wanted. Every Sunday of every week for twenty years, I learned. I listened. I studied. You wanted me to become you.” I don’t recognize my own voice. Gripping the handle tighter, I point the blade downward and plunge it into what’s left of his chest. “But I became so much worse.”
A small part of me expects him to rise up and admonish me for breaking one of his precious Ten Commandments.
Honor thy father and mother.
With my knife still skewering his heart, I start to laugh, and as the seconds tick by, it only becomes louder and more maniacal. It’s a little hard to honorthy motherwhenthy fatherput her six feet under twenty-two years ago.
It seems the Divine Disciples of God are allowed to cherry-pick which Commandments are enforceable and which ones aren’t. Apparently,Thou shalt not commit adulteryandThou shalt not murderare simply suggestions.
Biting down on one final laugh, I grind my teeth so hard I can hear the enamel chipping away on my teeth. I haven’t thought about my mother in years. Thinking about her conjures memories I’ve kept locked away in the back of my mind.
“No, David! You can’t let them touch him! He’s just a boy!”
My father strikes her across the face with the back of his hand so hard she stumbles backward, shoving me into the wall. “Shut up, whore. It’s God’s will.”
“You’re wrong!” she cries, squishing me even harder. “God would never allow a child to endure something so vile!”
Heavy footsteps move closer. I can smell the smoke on Father’s robe. The Twelve have been outside again. I saw the bright blaze from my window. “Move, or I’ll move you myself,” he says calmly.
Too calmly.
My mother stiffens. I don’t understand what’s happening, but it makes the hairs on my arms stand up. “If you want Luca, you’ll have to go through me first.”
“You want to be first, Hannah?” A sadistic smile spreads across his face. “That can be arranged.”
By the time the memory fades, I’ve not only removed his eyes, but I’ve cut out his tongue and sawed off his ears.
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Placing them all in a pile by my feet, I stare down at them with a frown. “I’d present these to Mom if she had a grave, but you couldn’t even give her that, could you, you son of a bitch?” He doesn’t answer, of course, which oddly irritates me. I’m not as satisfied as I thought I’d be. It was over too quickly. He didn’t suffer enough. There wasn’t enough blood.
There will never be enough blood.
