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“You think you’re tough shit, don’t you?” I say. “Bet you thought I’d quake at the sight of you and hand over whatever you wanted.”
I give him a shove that sends him rocking back on his heels. His arms pinwheel as he tries to maintain balance. One of his hands knocks against my face, so light I hardly feel it.
“You just fucking hit me.”
The man’s face goes slack with shock. “I didn’t mean—”
I interrupt him with another shove. Then another. When the man crosses his arms, blocking a fourth push, I drop the purse and start to swat at his arms and shoulders.
“Hey, stop it!”
He ducks away from my blows, dropping to his knees. Something tumbles from his jacket and plops onto the path. It’s a pocketknife, folded shut. My heart seizes at the sight of it.
The man reaches for the knife. I slam into him, hip against his shoulder, nudging him away from it. When he stands, I start slapping at him again, swinging wildly, hitting his chest, his shoulders, his chin.
The man lunges forward, pushing back now. I fight him off, still swatting, kicking at his shins.
“Stop!” he yelps. “I didn’t do nothin’!”
He grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks. The pain tugs me into stillness. My eyes close against their will, lids dropping. Something flickers in the sudden darkness. Not a pain, exactly. A memory of it. Similar yet foreign to the one I feel now as the man pulls me backward.
The memory pain explodes like fireworks across the backs of my eyelids. Bright and burning hot. I’m outside. Near the trees. Pine Cottage vague in my muffled vision. Someone else has grabbed my hair and is pulling me back while people are screaming.
My fingers wrap around the man’s jacket collar, dragging him to the ground with me. We hit the ground hard, me on my back, him on my chest, both of us puffing out shocked breaths. When he goes for my hair again, I’m ready. I roll my head along the ground, evading his tug. Then I tilt forward, slamming my head against his own. My forehead connects with his nose, the cartilage bending.
The man cries out and rolls off me, a hand to his blood-gushing nose. He rises to his knees. His fingers are stained red.
Real pain and the memory pain spark through me like live wires on a car battery, jump-starting my muscles. It cracks the brittle shell around my memory. Tiny flecks of it fall away, beneath which are shimmering glimpses of the past.
Him.
In a similar crouch on the floor of Pine Cottage.
A bloody knife within His grasp.
Although I’m vaguely aware this is a different place in a different time, I see only Him. So I dive on top of Him, curled fists smashing against His face. I punch Him a second time. A third.
Rage takes over. Like a black ooze that’s filling me up, spilling out of my pores, covering my eyes. I can no longer see. Or hear. Or smell. The only remaining sense is touch, and all I feel is pain in my fists as they smash into His face. When it becomes too much to bear, I rise to my feet, directing a kick at His skull.
Then another.
And another.
Each blow comes with a name, bubbling forth against my will. I spit them out as if they’re poison, spewing them onto Him, covering Him.
“Janelle. Craig. Amy. Rodney. Betz.”
“Quincy!”
That’s not my voice. It’s Sam’s. Suddenly, she’s right behind me, crushing me under her arms, dragging me away.
“Stop,” she says. “For God’s sake, stop.”
I spend a few seconds fighting Sam’s grip, thrashing and snarling. A feral dog trapped by a leash. I only ease up once I see the blood. It’s a smear on Sam’s hand, slick and dark. Seeing it makes me think I’ve hurt her. The very thought saps the rage out of me.
“Sam,” I gasp. “You’re bleeding.”
I’m wrong. I realize that when I glimpse my own hands, seeing them soaked with blood. The same blood that got on Sam. The same blood that trickles down my arms, stains my clothes, splatters my face and neck in hot dollops.