Chapter 30
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Tessa the Reaper
I pace my prison impatiently, the chain clunking across the floor with each step. For what must be weeks, I have bided my time and built up strength from the full meals they no longer deny me. Since learning I was pregnant my visits have come to a halting stop. Food appears only when I’m sleeping, and I welcome the peace that comes with their absence.
But my thirst for blood cannot be restrained any longer.
My fingers twitch with the need to inflict the same amount of pain that’s been inflicted on me. Whoever is foolish enough to walk through that door next will discover the price they pay for awakening the Reaper.
Cocking my head like a hawk listening for its prey, I finally hear the sound I’ve been waiting for—footsteps. I crumple to the floor and watch the doorknob turn with bated breath, anticipation trickling down the side of my face in a bead of sweat.
Trent steps into the room and flicks on the light. Grunting in pain, I blink rapidly, my stinging eyes always more accustomed to the darkness. I track his movements as he sets down a tray, kicks it within my reach, then steps back.
I can hardly contain my excitement when I realize he’s not leaving right away. However, there is something strange about his demeanor today, an off look in his eye that wasn’t there before. I don’t know what it could mean, but I stick to my routine and pretend I don’t notice it. Scrambling forward, I grab the tray and drag it back to where I was sitting. The portions have doubled in size, prison perks of eating for two.
“I’m not stupid.” His eerie tone chills my blood.
I force myself to chew slowly and remain calm. “Of course I noticed your belly, I just didn’t want it to be true, so I lied to myself. I’m guessing you probably did the same.” He pauses, eyes travelling over my body. “Do you think this is what I signed up for? To be a father?”
I shake my head slowly in response.
His voice is flat, “Now we have a little problem, don’t we?”
I should have recognized the look in his eyes right away, it’s the same one I currently hide behind a mask of frailty.
Murderous intent.
“Now it might hurt a bit, but let’s be honest, sweetness, I’ll be doing you a kindness. You’re as unfit to be a mother as I’m unfit to be a father. A little boy or girl that glows with youth and innocence, a sweet fruit, ripe for the plucking, and. . . well, I just wouldn’t be able to resist taking a bite.” He sighs as though he suffers a true injustice.
I shake with fury at the thought of his vile hands on my unborn child. I keep my eyes trained to the ground, anything I say or do will give me away. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll make it quick.” He uses a gentle voice as he moves closer, mistaking my trembling for fear. As he talks, he slides brass knuckles onto his right hand. “This will be our little secret. If your mother found out, she would be quite unhappy. Just a few good, hard hits to the stomach should do it.” He reaches down to grip my face, the metal cutting into my cheek. “But if you tell her, well, I’ll be forced to kill you too. We don’t want that now, do we?”
Lifting my chin to meet his gaze, I watch his bloodshot eyes widen with alarm.
Whatever he sees in my face makes him hesitate, then his attention shifts to the floor behind me. His reaction is slow, pupils too wide; he must have shot up before he came in here.
Big mistake motherfucker.
His eyes squint as he stares at something behind me. I use the distraction to snatch the letter opener from where I slid it beneath my thighs. It’s not until he returns his attention to the growing smile on my face and flicks his eyes to the skinny piece of metal in my palm, that the pieces all fall into place.
“Fuck,” is the last coherent word ever uttered out of his disgusting mouth.
With a rush of adrenaline, I grip the opener in my hand and slam the tip into the side of his neck. His hands fly to his throat as he stumbles back and begins to gurgle on his blood.
The pedophile really loved to hear himself speak, I should have done this much sooner.
His eyes look wildly around the room, crying out for help, but the wet choking sounds he makes are unintelligible.
“Sorry? We couldn’t quite catch that.” I rub my stomach as I mock him. His eyes blaze with hatred and the promise of revenge. “Now being the generous soul that I am, I’ll kill you quick.” I throw back his own words from the night he raped me, my own little inside joke.
Like an enraged bull, Trent lowers his head, preparing himself to charge forward. At the last moment, I side step out of the way, tug the chain tight with my ankle, and yank the letter opener out of his neck as he flies past me.
His gargled wail of agony as he hits the floor, tripped by the chain I hold taut, will be my lullaby for many nights to come. I glide forward, high on the knowledge that soon the life will fade from his eyes. Standing over him I twirl the weapon in my hands. I quite miss my knife, but this is doing an excellent job in its absence.
I dip my fingers in the blood gushing out of his neck. “I took your voice, as that was the first thing I heard when you woke me on my sixteenth birthday.” Knuckle deep inside the gaping wound, I wiggle my fingers and laugh when his body jerks in response.
The shock wearing off, he rips away from me and rolls to his feet, headed straight for the door. Almost immediately, he slips in the blood that’s been pooling on the wood floor. Steadying himself by dropping his hands to his knees, he’s able to keep himself from falling. As he straightens, I raise my hand and thrust the letter opener into the back of his calf. Crying out, he goes crashing to the floor.
I clap my hands with glee.
I ignore the pathetic, whimpering sounds he’s making. Even with a fucked up throat he manages to annoy me. Like a turtle, he rocks back and forth trying to get back to his feet, but his energy wanes with the more blood he loses.
Tearing off a part of my shirt, I wad it up and stick it in his mouth to muffle him.
“That is one of the legs you crept into my room on,” I spit, dragging the metal up his quivering body. Grabbing his hand, I spread out his fingers and force them flat against the floor, his eyes brimming with fear as he looks from his hand back up to me. “This is the hand that bashed in my face, over and over until I was a swollen, bloody mess.” I stab between the two middle knuckles with such force that the tip of the weapon becomes embedded into the wood flooring. His muffled screams let me know that it hurt just as bad as it looked.
Hopping to my feet, I straddle his quivering body. Squatting, I undo a button and slide down the zipper of his pants. I yank his jeans down, along with his filthy underwear.
“Now, this embarrassing little guy right here, this is the part of you that stole my virginity. The miserable cock that ripped me apart and made me bleed for days. Can I be honest with you, Trent? I’ve been waiting to do this for a very long time.”
As I look down with a Cheshire smile, his eyes bulge with fear.
ʢ ʢ ʢ
“What the hell is taking so long up here? I’m gone for a few hours and there’s still nothing to ea—” The door swings open, and the dragon’s voice cuts off with a sharp inhale.
Leaning against the only wall my chain allows me to reach, knees propped up, I take another bite of the apple Trent had so generously brought me. It’s all I have left from my tray as I worked up quite the appetite in the last few hours.
It’s hard to tell how long Trent has been dead, or even what finally killed him. I got a little excited finding new and interesting places to stick my sharp little friend in his plump body. Eventually, I thought to check for a pulse, and when I heard only silence, I knew my reaping had come to an end.
I watch curiously as she takes inventory of the gruesome scene laid out like an unwelcome gift. Her gaze travels along the punctures that litter his body. I was thorough and left very little skin unmarred. His shirt once white, now an ugly red from the ocean of blood that seeped from multiple lacerations. Her bottom lip begins to tremble when her line of vision lands on his mangled genitalia. It was a rather nasty, but necessary piece of business.
Silently, mouth agape, she stares at the letter opener now sticking halfway out of his eye socket. Only the jewel encrusted hilt can be seen.
I remember the day we found it. The first time I showed Andrew my stomping ground at the abandoned house down the street. We couldn’t have been more than ten. He found the letter opener in a desk drawer hidden under a stack of papers. Of course, at that age we didn’t know what it was for, all we saw was a miniature sword with a sharp pointy end. I thought for sure he would want it, being the monster slaying prince and all, but he told me to keep it and hide it in case I ever needed to protect myself from the dragon. So, like many of my prized possessions, I hid it in the loose floorboard next to my bed. The gaping hole in the floor where I pried up the board is what helped capture Trent’s attention so that I could make the first move.
I take another large bite from the apple, the crunching sound snapping her out of her trance.
“What have you done,” she whispers.
I shrug. “He was going to kill my baby.”
Well, that was to date, the strangest sentence to ever come out my mouth.
She clenches her jaw and takes a step inside the room. “You little—”
Sticking the apple in my mouth, I lunge forward. With a squelching sound, I yank the replica sword out of Trent’s eye and slide back to the wall. I balance the letter opener on my knee and continue eating as if nothing happened.
I fucking dare you, get a little closer.
But she doesn’t. In fact, there’s a flicker of emotion I’ve never before seen on her haggard face.
Fear.
She’s afraid of me, and fuck, if it doesn’t feel grand.
Her eyes drop back down to Trent, and her face scrunches in despair. “We were going to be a family. . .”
“Yeah, I’m sure Norman Bates’ mom was excited about her pregnancy too.” I deadpan
Her eyes harden. “You’re gonna pay for this,” she spits.
“Maybe. For now, you’re gonna keep bringing me food or else this baby you want so bad is just going to wither away. No more second chances, no family, no nothing. Just you, all alone in this desolate house.” I know now that’s why she kept stringing Trent along all these years. I always figured the dragon didn’t have any weaknesses, but I was wrong. She’s terrified of being alone, with only the voices in her head to keep her company.
I should have guessed it earlier, considering we share that same fear.
“I knew you were evil, even when you were growing inside me, I felt it. I thought you were just a bad egg, but no, not just a rotten egg, are you? You’re a demon. A monster. A murderer.”
I look up to the small faded scar on her forehead just between her eyes. “I showed you mercy once. I promise, Mother Dearest, I won’t be making that mistake again.”
Her eye twitches as she backs out of the room without another word.
I move quickly to check Trent’s pockets. I let out a scream of frustration when I don’t find any keys on his body—I kick at his useless form. My arm brushes against my wet shirt. Looking down, I see that my clothes are also drenched in blood. I strip down to my filthy underwear and sag against the wall.
“You’re not going to be very good company, are you?”
The corpse doesn’t respond.