Page 90 of Tear Me Down
‘Far From Home’ – Five Finger Death Punch
I'm waiting outside of the dark room while Alex and Carter are getting the three hostages ready for me. It’s taking every ounce of strength I have to not barge in and start beating the answers I need out of them. Every second that passes and she’s not with me only serves to drive me deeper into insanity, pulling me downward until I eventually reach the entrance to Hell. I can’t help but stare at my phone, continuously going back and forth between her last text and our pictures.
Eleven forty-six… That was when she found out she’s pregnant… I know it. That’s what time she texted me to tell me she loves me. Not that she doesn’t normally do that, but I can feel the significance—the endearment behind it. I should’ve checked my phone… I could’ve been home. If I wasn’t so selfish, I could have known somehow that this was a trap. I should’ve taken the risk and sent Zeke with her… There are so many things I should have done…
The picture I keep going back to is the one Linette took and sent to us. She had snapped a photo of us dancing at the Dust party before they walked up. She looks so beautiful… I don’t tell her that enough… There’s so much more I could’ve said and done. Why can’t I be what she deserves?
I feel like I'm going crazy, and I can’t tell what I'm feeling. Physically, mentally, emotionally… It’s all jumbled together. My chest feels empty, but my breaths are heavy and rigid. There’s ringing in my ears, yet I can still hear her screams. My whole body is shaky, but my limbs feel restricted. The outside of my body is hot, while I feel a cold stream run through my core. I need to feel her next to me. It’s almost as if I can feel the tingle from her hands on my scalp, only this time it’s eerie and cold… It sends a wave of dread down my spine as if she were a ghost, or never existed and I just made her up in my mind... I want to look into her gorgeous brown eyes and get lost in the depths…
Is this what withdrawal feels like?
I just want to think of her and our intimate nights together—her soft voice telling me she loves me, but those thoughts are now tainted with her horrified screams… She’s not calling out to me in pleasure anymore… She’s begging for me to save her, and my hands aren’t caressing her luminous body, they’re begging for crumbs in the spaces she haunts.
I can only imagine all of the things I can do to these men—the vicious ways I can tear them apart, but not soon enough. She’s not safe, she’s in their grasp, looking and waiting for me. What are they doing to her? I’ve seen the dead bodies they leave behind, and the pain they inflict on their living victims. Heard the screams and witnessed the deformed corpses they leave out in the open. More chills run down my spine at the thought of it… She could be beaten… Raped… Tortured… And it all could be happening right as I sit in thisfuckingchair…
I have to find her…
Them…
How far along could she be? I remember a couple of days before the Battle of the Bands she was on her period, but she hasn’t had it since… How did we not notice? Was I that negligent with her? So concerned with the puzzle of her recovery that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me? I know her body better than my own. How did I not see this?
She couldn’t be that far along could she? She was on birth control, which is not always effective, but we went that whole week she was in the hospital without having sex.
Another time she was hurt because of me…
The poison… That explains it. It’s why she was so sick, by the time it developed into a pregnancy symptom and not a piece of her recovery, we couldn’t tell the difference. That’s why she’s been so exhausted, it all makes sense now… I know that the first three months are the most fragile… They don’t know she’s pregnant right? I can only imagine what they’d do to her if they knew…
“Your dad is almost here, D,” Zeke says, pulling me from my thoughts and reminding me that’s he’s been sitting next to me this entire time. I can’t think straight. Everything is moving so fast, yet torturously slow, and even though I can hear everyone and everything around me, I can’t listen through the voices echoing in my mind. “We’re going to get her back.”
“We have to…” The door to the dark room opens, and I sharply look up to see Alex and Carter walking out.
“Okay, D, they’re…” My feet move on their own, darting inside the room before he can finish. I walk up to the man on the right, pull my pistol, and shoot him between the eyes—reveling in the scream of one of the other hostages. I need to show the other two that I don’t plan on wasting time, and that if I deem them useless, they’ll be treated as such. No one else could get them to talk, and I don’t have time for anything less than vile means.
I then swiftly move to the man in the middle, grasp him by the throat, and lift him up, hoisting the chair he’s bound to along with him. Fire courses through me as I finally have the opportunity to do some real damage, and I’m not going to waste a second of it. I shove him back into the wall behind him, pushing him so forcefully that I can feel the iciness of the concrete on my knuckles. The chair beneath him shatters and falls to the floor, creating a bone crushing sound as I unsheathe my knife and hold it to his throat.
“WHERE THE FUCK IS MY WIFE?!” I can’t see straight. The earth itself is quivering beneath me—shaking everything in my field of vision. Not only was this piece of shit a part of this trap, but he kept me from my little wolf, and that in itself is a reason for him to die. The man is trying to say something,but can’t through my hold… I want him to burn in hell for what he’s done, and I can feel him slipping as I tighten my grip…
I hope suffocating is a fear of his.
“D! Stop! You can’t get answers if you kill them!” Zeke yanks me back and the man falls to the floor coughing and sputtering as he tries to suck in a breath. As I stand angrily, I step up to Zeke, staring eye to eye as I contemplate unleashing my rage on him. “You’ve got to stop! Look at him!” He thrusts his hand in the dust bunny’s direction, and as I look, I see that a piece of the broken chair has lodged itself into his side through his back, most likely piercing a lung. I take a step away from him as Zeke pulls out his phone and shows it to the man. “What is this symbol?” he asks, any ounce of concern for the bunny long gone.
“I don’t… know…” The man rasps, clearly struggling to breathe.
“Either you tell us, or I let Damien tear you to shreds. I suggest you talk,” Zeke seethes.
“I don’t…” More rasps, and I can’t take anymore. The sound makes me cringe in aggravation, if he won’t tell us when he’s on the brink of death, he won’t talk at all.
I walk up to him and kick his face into the wall, feeling a satisfied wave wash over me as the sound of cracking bone rings out. He tries to scream, but is gasping for air behind his deflated lung and now broken jaw. A couple of teeth run out with his blood and drool, creating the most pleasing image. To add to my creation, I reach down, yank the broken chair arm piercing out of his side, then drive it through his open mouth to the back of his head.
The gurgling as he fades would normally satiate me, but not this time. Right now, all I feel is the escalating anger from the lack of answers. The obvious void that her absence has created. I turn to the last one’s horrified face, and that only infuriates me more. He has the audacity to be afraid? What about her?! WHAT ABOUT HOW SCAREDSHEMUST BE!?
I start to storm over to him, but Zeke and Alex pull me back by my arms, while Carter shoves me back by my chest.
“You need to calm down, D! Killing them is not going to help!” Zeke shoves me aside and walks up to the last man, shoving his phone in his face. “What is this symbol!”
“YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS!” I yell, and the man shakes his head in large, desperate movements.
“King has one just like it. It’s not on his neck like this guy, but it's on his arm. I don’t know what it means, and he doesn’t like to show it, but when a girl ripped his shirt, I saw it,” he desperately reveals. I move the moment those words leave his lips, but Carter and Alex continue to keep me at a distance.
