Page 360 of Once Upon a Fable

I went after him.

Grabbing his ankles, I yanked him back, throwing strike after strike against his back, shoving him from his knees to his face.

He didn’t have time to talk, doing his best not to die.

I relished in that.

I made him afraid.

I hit wherever I could.

He wasn’t human.

I wasn’t human.

He was every evil I had to eradicate.

There was no room for him here.

No room for him, period.

He has to die.

I struck harder.

My knuckles split. My healing arm bellowed. I couldn’t catch a proper breath as my opponent stopped trying to get away and threw himself into meeting me in war.

I grunted as his own fists found new places to injure me.

We rolled and fought.

Two bears fighting over scraps.

I found hair and yanked so hard, a handful came away in my fist.

I punched his stomach and listened to the sweet sounds of him gasping for air.

I didn’t stop.

I kept hitting.

It was rhythmical.

Poetic almost.

Entirely justified after a lifetime of running from what I truly was.

This was what I was.

This...thing.

This hatred that’d been building and billowing for decades. These memories I’d never had the guts to face. These ghosts of a family whoringed us in the dark and watched me massacre one of the men who’d abused us.

I would protect them all.

I would do whatever it took tokill.

Another burst of fury flowed through me.