Page 92 of Resilience

She took the coverall, gloves, and booties and put them on. Then she and her father walked up to Dex together. Sam came, too, but stopped a few feet back.

“He needed a few swipes to settle down when we grabbed him,” Dex told her, “but those don’t count. You get to draw first blood.” He swept his hand over the trays like a demented game-show host. “What’s your tool?”

Athena studied the trays. Sharp, hot, blunt.

She’d wanted this. She’d insisted on this. It was too late to back out, and she didn’t think she would if she could. The best thing to do now was to lean in.

She picked up the rubber mallet. With a look, she asked Dex if that was a good choice. His subtle nod and small smile told her it was. “Use the side. The front and back will leave a round mark, but the side won’t—and you’ll get about the same power to the hit. Do you mean to aim for his head?”

Again, Dex’s signing was good enough for her to get the gist, but Sam interpreted so she got it all.

Yes, she did mean to aim for his head, but she was so fucking short. They’d have to put him all the way on the ground for her to reach him, and even then she wouldn’t get great leverage. “I’m not sure I can reach,” she told him.

“I got you, starlight,’ Dad said. He went to the side of the barn and dragged over an old metal chest. Just the right height for her to stand on.

How ridiculous that she needed a booster to be involved in torturing and killing a guy.

But she did, so she nodded at her father and followed him to Hunter. Dad helped her up onto the chest, and then she was face to face with the asshole for the first time since she’d sent him away from the cabin.

His eyes were wide and pleading. His head shook wildly back and forth. When she glanced up at his hands, she could see him trying to sign, but his fingers weren’t cooperating enough for her to understand. She could guess, though. He was begging. Maybe he was finally apologizing. Not that an apology under these conditions meant shit. Not that his apology could ever mean more than shit under any conditions.

Athena stood on that chest with a rubber mallet in her hand and watched him struggle, watched his eyes beg for mercy. She remembered how hard she’d tried to get him to stop, how he’d responded by biting her.

She raised the mallet, cocked it back, and hit him straight in the middle of his face as hard as she could. The blow caved his nose almost completely in and knocked him unconscious. As his head fell forward, a stream and then a river of blood gushed down his bare chest.

All at once, she was done.

Was she satisfied? Yes.

But not because she’d caved his nose in. Not because he was about to die. Standing on the chest, Hunter senseless before her, she finally understood: his fear had been what she’d needed. She’d needed him bound and terrified and unable to make the horror stop.

That was what she needed. The rest of it was just ... the cost of getting it.

“Done,” she signed and turned to her dad.

“Done?” he asked, surprised. When she nodded, he didn’t push. He lifted her off the chest and set her on the ground.

“You did good,” Dex told her. “That’s a great hit. An airbag or steering wheel could do that.” He removed the gag from Hunter’s slack mouth—because, Athena realized, he wouldn’t be able to breathe now that she’d ruined his nose, and they weren’t ready for him to die yet.

She nodded to acknowledge Dex’s compliment—if that was the right word—but she only cared what happened anymore insofar as it kept her family safe. She set the mallet down and walked away from the table and its trays.

“You okay?” Sam asked, peering into her eyes.

“Yes,” Athena told him, and she meant it. She had gotten what she needed.

“If you’re done,” Mom said, walking up to them, “let’s go. We don’t need to be here for the rest of it.”

“Yes, I do,” Athena countered. Going would feel better, but it wouldn’t be better. What happened next, her family did for her. She wasn’t going to walk away from the truth of it.

She stood between her mom and Sam, with Sam’s arm around her, and watched as her father, her uncles, her family, finished the job of killing the man who’d raped her.

Her father was the one who killed him. He used the rocks. He put them all in a canvas sack and swung it with all his might at Hunter’s chest, back, and upper legs. Hunter lost consciousness again at the fifth hit and died somewhere around the tenth, when Dex called Dad off.

It was over.

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