Page 93 of Out for Blood
“Reap.” Tyler says my name again sharper this time.
His voice sounds like I’m underwater because all I can hear is the music, the bells and the begging.
I wrench the clown down in the center of the room directly beneath the immense spotlight. His costume is soaked in blood now, bright colors darkening while his painted smile has faded apart from tears.
“Do you think this is funny?” I bellow.
The words scrape out of me raw and vicious.
“You made a stage out of a woman’s abuse and wore a painted smile while you did it?”
“Please, don’t!” he screeches.
A little horn sits to the side of him, it must have fallen out of his pocket.
It’s bright red, made of cheap plastic and something meant to make children laugh.
I scoop it up and cram the red ball side down his throat as far as it will go.
A pathetic squeak echoes through the room and something about that sound nearly drives me feral.
Tyler positions himself at my back now, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from him and to stop me if he decides I’ve gone too far.
But he doesn’t intervene because he understands exactly why I’m unravelling.
My hands are shaking uncontrollably now, I can barely feel them.
The clown notices and his eyes lock onto mine.
And I know he finally comprehends something horrifying.
I’m no longer struggling to control the darkness inside me.
I’m letting it have him.
The clown whimpers beneath me again. Piece of shit.
Wet choking breaths spill through cracked greasepaint and the carnival lights wash over him, turning the entire room into something hellish.
For the first time tonight, he looks exactly like what he is, just a coward hiding behind paint and bells while he participated in a girl suffering.
Tyler approaches the swing tentatively, lowering his weapon as he speaks softly to the girl dressed as a jester. The chains clank while she jerks intensely from the pain still being inflicted on her body, mascara and greasepaint mixing and trailing down her face.
The clown detects my attention shift and he makes a mistake.
He pounces, but not far or fast enough.
The movement snaps something savage loose inside me.
Tyler reacts instantly, turning sharply, but I’m already moving.
I drive the clown flat onto his back again, my knee slamminginto his chest hard enough to knock the air from his lungs and the horn flies out. Bells sewn into his costume explode into frantic metallic jingling beneath us while his hands scramble uselessly against the concrete.
“Reap!” Tyler starts but then he sees my face.
Because I’m gone now.
Whatever part of me that hesitated before entering this room died beneath these lights.
