Page 66 of Forever We Fall

“This ends tonight. You end tonight.” He grins, and it’s haunting because it’s hollow. “My voice will be the last thing you ever hear besides the rattle of your last breath.”

I pull out my grandfather’s wakizashi. When my father announced that I’d be going to boarding school, a similar place to the one where my mother had been assaulted repeatedly, I nicked it from the study and hid it in the bottom of my bag for protection.

And this, this is protection.

I remove it from the sheathe and hand it to Arlo by the handle.

Our fingers brush. Even his gloved touch makes my heart skip a beat. His eyes go wide while his lips press into a line. He nods his thanks at about the same time his uncle’s gaze finds the blade.

He dances, trying his best to wiggle out of the way.

I set the sheathe on the bag, then hoist his uncle to his knees. The shriek he lets loose rattles my eardrums.

Arlo sets it to the side and kneels in front of his tormentor. They’re eye to eye. At that moment, I realize how much Arlo has grown in the past few months. He reaches and jerks his uncle's boxers down without looking away from the demon’s eyes.

When Arlo reaches for the short sword, his uncle sobs.

“What did you tell me?” Arlo whispers. “Open wide, or I’ll make it hurt?”

Though my hands are full of hot, sweaty skin, chills race up my spine. The Arlo I knew, the scared and traumatized boy, has been replaced by a commanding and ferocious man.

“Please, I won’t contact you ever again.” His head shakes violently back and forth. “You’ll never see me again.”

“You had your chance to do that and didn’t take it. I didn’t care about the money. All I wanted was my freedom from you.” Arlo’s head does a slow back and forth. “You didn’t give it to me. I’m taking it.”

The menace in Arlo’s eyes and the calm precision of his wrist should terrify me. The blood that pours from his uncle’s body should revolt me. The severed dick he places in his uncle’s screaming mouth should make my own shrivel. The sounds of gagging and choking, the flail for oxygen, should make me puke.

My gaze slides off the macabre and lifts. I focus on Arlo.

His shoulders are back. His chin is up. As his uncle fights harder against my hold and the chains, as he struggles for breath and loses the battle, the corners of Arlo’s mouth lift.

“I took your grubby pecker. I’m taking your miserable fucking life. You will be no more because you fucked with the wrong guy. You’re dying because you’re a blight to this world. No one will miss you.”

Arlo sets the sword beside him. His fingers twist a hunk of the man’s hair at the top of his head. He grabs his uncle’s chin with his other hand, uses all the strength he’s gained, and presses the two tight.

The wet gargling sounds stop. The thrashes crescendo.

“Die, motherfucker.”

Pride plumps my veins. Hope mends my heart.

Sure as shit, there will be demons to follow him. There will be an ugly fallout from this trauma we’re subjecting ourselves to. The nightmares won’t vanish because his uncle is no more.

But with his uncle dead, hope is a beacon. It shines bright in this gritty darkness. Winding and scary paths exist between us and the destination. And there’s no one else I’d willingly travel that road with.

By the time we climb into the window of my room in fresh clothes and shoes from my bag, the sun is due to color the sky in less than an hour. Every sign of what we’ve done has been thrown away. The body and chains have been doused in bleach and are hidden in a well so abandoned, we had a hard time finding it even though we knew where it was on a map. The clothing we’d worn and tools we’d used were bleached and distributed among various bins along a meandering route back to school. The journey took us several towns away from the scene.

I wipe the sill clean with a towel I placed near it before we left, and then close and lock the window. It’s still dark, but the distant footpath lamp light gives enough illumination to see.

When I finish, I find Arlo standing in the center of my room watching me. We haven’t said more than a couple of words to each other since everything went down. I know how much races through my brain. I’m sure his is a messier place.

“Why don’t you hit the shower first?” I point toward the bathroom. “Knock when you’re done, and I’ll grab one.”

His hands shake by his sides, and I want nothing more than to pull him to my chest and tell him that everything will be good now that his uncle is gone. Things will be better.

I have a feeling they won’t be good. Not for a long time.

“Go,” I urge him. He complies with weak movements as though all the fight has drained from him.

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