Page 150 of Savior
He shifts his focus from the file on the table, to me, as I lower myself back into the chair nearest him. “I’m so conflicted....” He whispers, almost shamefully, a sorrowful expression in his dark eyes. He reaches towards me, placing his open hand, palm up, on the table between us. I place my hand in his, gently squeezing his fingers.
“Dean? What is it?”
“A hit.”
“Oh…”
“I met with Jason today… We had a talk about ending this arrangement… In fact, he… did end it.” Dean says, and I can tell it’s with difficulty. “I know the time will eventually come, when I cannot physically do this anymore… But… I never thought the time would come, where I’d have to stop for other reasons. That there would be things in my life, to consider beyond myself.” He squeezes my hand a little tighter. “That this time might be here… now.”
I don’t know what to say, so I simply continue to hold his hand as we stare at each other. His eyes eventually lower from mine, to the folder.
“She refuses to press charges.” Dean says. “Afraid he’ll retaliate. Without that, without her testimony, he’ll walk. Guaranteed. And do it again. To her… to others… maybe even to kids.” He lifts his face to look back at me, searchingly. “You once told me you wished something would have happened to Jack, something that would have given you a chance to escape.”
“Are you asking me to tell you not to do this?”
His brows pull together and pitch upward slightly, before he leans back in his chair. His hand slips from mine as he does so. “No… No… This… This is fucking happening.” He slides the file closer to himself, flipping it open. “There is no choice. This motherfucker meets fate’s messenger tonight.”
“You’re going after him tonight?”
He slowly nods. “I have to.”
I’m not even sure what to say. I can feel my anxiety rising up inside me, my hand gravitating to the base of my throat as I stare down at the file. My breath hitches as I catch a glimpse of the victim’s photo, and I immediately squeeze my eyes shut against it. Though, it only took that brief moment to sear into my mind. Dark purple, nearly black, swollen eyes and cheeks. I can’t even imagine what she might have looked like, before she was beaten so badly…
Trying not to swallow audibly, I allow Dean’s words to pull my focus back to him. Never again… I remind myself.
“My father did this to my mother once… Beat her so bad, she wasn’t recognizable for weeks.” His voice sounds distant, as if he’s far away in thought. “My brother, little then, too, was afraid to even look at her. Like she was some kind of grotesque monster… I think that hurt her the most.”
I open my eyes and find him still staring at the photos.
“My father took off on his bike for a few days, after that beating. Leaving her battered and bruised with the two of us. The night he returned, was the night I decided he was never going to do this to her again. We were seated at the kitchen table, eating the supper my mother prepared. Well, trying to, anyway. Daniel was afraid to look at anyone. My mother barely said a word, attempting to eat through her busted lips… I know it was only to encourage us to eat. To act as if everything was okay. I watched as she winced through the pain, while my father droned on about some irrelevant fucking bullshit. As if he wasn’t sitting across from the woman he battered. As if his kids weren’t nauseous with fear, trying to choke down our dinner, for our mother’s sake. As if we were a normal family eating a normal meal together… He was saying something… I don’t remember what. I do remember him slamming his fist on the table, because whatever it was he had been saying, didn’t elicit the response he expected from us. When my mother jumped, and the tears Daniel had been fighting back, finally broke, I snapped.”
I’m almost afraid to ask… “What happened?”
“I jumped up, grabbed his steak knife and held it to his face. Told him if he ever hurt my mother like this again, I’d kill him.” Dean scoffs. “I was a scrawny little shit. He got the knife away from me the moment I finished the sentence.”
I watch as Dean lifts his left hand to look at it, curling his fingers into a fist and opening his hand a few times.
“He slugged me in the face, hard enough to spin me around.” Dean places his hand down flat against the surface of the table. “When my hands planted on the table to steady myself from the blow, he put the knife right through this hand.”
“Oh my god…”
“My mother screamed. Daniel puked and ran out of the room.” What sounds like another scoff, escapes him, before he continues, “I stood there staring at my hand. Not really feeling much at that point. I must have been in shock.”
“Jesus Christ, Dean…”
“I didn’t feel anything until my mother pulled the knife out and lunged at my father with it. She cut him, too. I was proud of her. I remember that...” Dean’s eyes shift to look at me once more. He smiles slightly, glancing down at my stomach for a moment, before he meets my eyes again. “Mothers are fierce creatures.” He says, looking at me with a sort of pride. But then something shifts in his expression. That sorrowful look in his dark eyes creeps back in as he whispers, “Vanna… I don’t know if I can ever stop...”
His words almost sound like an apology, and again I wonder, does he want me to tell him to?
I watch, still stunned from his shared memory, as he gets up from the table, grabbing the file. He walks into the living room, kneeling before the hearth and opens up the flue and the folding doors to place the file inside on top of the logs. Grabbing a matchstick from the box nearby, he strikes one, bringing the flame to the corner of the file. When it catches, he tosses the match inside and closes the mesh screen before he stands, brushing his hands off on his jeans as he watches it burn. When it’s nothing but ash, he walks back over to me, placing his hand against my stomach, over Ace, and presses a kiss to my forehead.
“I’ve got a few things I need to do tonight…” He says, and I can’t help but notice how frequently he says these words to me as of late. “Don’t wait up.”
MIDNIGHT
Iused to feel good about this. Derived a level of inner peace. Yet with every step I take in the darkness towards my unsuspecting target, my heart beats faster. This is more than an adrenaline rush. More than a high in anticipation of breaking an abuser. This feeling surging through my body is laced with something new. Something that isn’t copesetic to how I usually feel when I’m administering a little street justice to a well deserving piece of shit.
I could see it in Vanna’s eyes… She would ask me to stop. She would do it for Ace. She would give me permission to hang this all up. But I’ll never ask her for it. Because this is all I’m good for. I’ve sentenced myself to a life of penance, I don’t know how to let go of.
