Page 87 of Ten

I clambered to my feet and grimaced at the pain caused by the pressure of the dirty floor against my wounds. I nervously eyed the nearby pipe and the length of jagged metal I had hidden. Two steps to the right or five steps to the left. Whichever direction was safest, I could protect myself.

The doors lurched open, and the sound of shuffling feet filled the space. Like a paralysis demon from my nightmares, Kiki appeared in front of me. My gaze locked with his, the swirling pits of his demonic eyes boring right into my soul.

But as he shuffled into the room, the fear I had expected didn’t come. He wasn’t the big, mean monster I remembered. Gaunt, sallow, waxy—he looked like a Halloween prop.

“You really are sick,” I said, remembering what Eric had told me about the prison moving Kiki to a hospital unit.

“And you got big as a whale,” Kiki snarled meanly. “Look at you.” He curled his lip. “You’re fucking disgusting. I bet you can’t even find your pussy underneath all those rolls of fat hanging off your stomach.” He pointed a trembling finger in my direction. “This is exactly what I warned you would happen. I told you without me there to keep you in line you would turn lazy and fat.”

“Are you done?” I asked, no longer moved by his cruel jabs. “Or do you want to keep throwing verbal stones this way?”

“Well, look at you,” he mocked with a laugh. “Standing up to me finally. How much did that shiny new spine cost?”

“More than you can ever imagine.” And I wasn’t talking about money.

“I’ll never forgive you for that.” Kiki scowled menacingly. “You killed my baby.”

“Youkilledmybaby,” I corrected. “You strangled me and beat me and then shot me through a fucking door.”

Kiki rolled his eyes. “Always with your hysterics. None of that would have happened if you hadn’t tested me! All I ever did was try to help you be a better woman, but you and that thick fucking head of yours were unteachable.”

“What’s it like living in this fantasy land you’ve built for yourself?” I waved my hand in his direction. “Do you actually believe the garbage you spew, or do you just keep repeating stupid shit because you don’t have anything else worthwhile to say?”

“When you’ve spent almost a decade in solitary, locked away in a cell with only an hour of sunlight and fresh air a day, you can talk to me about building fantasies.”

“You put yourself there. Not me.”

“Loyalty, Nisha!” Kiki shouted, and I could see the spray of spittle from his lips. “You were my wife! You were supposed to be loyal to me!”

“You were my abuser! You were a murderer! You didn’t just kill my baby. You killed those girls. You cut off their penises and testicles and kept them in a fucking box in a shed in the backyard! You are a monster!” I spread my hands in front of me. “And I don’t owe you a fucking thing, least of all loyalty.”

“I was helping them!” Kiki screamed at me. “I was giving them what they wanted! I took away the most disgusting parts of them and made them the perfect little girls they wanted to be!”

I reeled back in horror. In all the years since Kiki had committed his crimes, he had never once given his reason for them. He had never said a word except to deny he had been the killer. Now, hearing it from his own mouth, I wanted to puke.

“You’re insane.”

“Probably,” he agreed and then took an aggressive step toward me.

“Don’t you come near me!” I warned, pointing a finger at him. “I’m not the girl you used to beat on, Kiki. I’m a grown woman, and I know my power.”

He laughed right in my face. The stink of his breath, of neglected teeth and rotting insides, nearly knocked me on my ass. I recoiled at the stench. “I mean it, Kiki!”

“I might look like I’m dying, and I probably am, but I can still beat the shit out of you.” He took another step toward me and then another. “I’m going to teach you your final lesson tonight, Nisha.”

A gunshot echoed in the building. Then another. And another. And even more.

Kiki turned his back and walked toward the door to see what was happening. I snatched my chance. I grabbed the metal pipe from the shelf where I had hidden it, strode toward him, and with every bit of strength I had, swung at his head as if I were Serena Williams.

He crumpled at the knees, and I took another swing, this time catching him on the side of the face. The reverberations of the impact jarred my elbow and wrist, and I was sure I had injured myself. I didn’t care. I barely even felt the pain.

All those years of abuse. All those years of swallowing the pain and the torment. It all came bubbling to the surface like a geyser.

Kiki fell forward onto his hands and knees, and I switched arms, taking hold of the pipe in my left hand this time, and began to wail on his back. Rage and fury burned through me like wildfire. I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to suffer.

“I hate you!” My primal scream echoed off the walls of the room. Outside, I was vaguely aware of gunshots. I didn’t pay them any mind. My business was in here, now flat on his stomach, bleeding out on the concrete floor. “I hate you!”

Muscles burning, I screamed again and tossed aside the pipe. Kiki was still alive and managed to roll himself over onto his back. He looked up at me—and he laughed. He laughed like a lunatic and egged me on to kill him. “Do it, Nisha. Show me what you really are inside. Show me all the dirty, dark, ugliness that I left inside you.”

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