Page 98 of Cain

“You never bothered to check if your gun was loaded. You never felt the weight of a real round in your hand.” I grab him by the collar and hoist him up in the air. “You paraded that hollow piece of metal, thinking it made you a man.” I land my head on him, breaking his nose. “But you were just a clown holding a fucking toy.”

“What?” His voice trembles as the blood floods his mouth.

I kick his crotch and toss him to the ground.

“I never gave you a loaded gun. You wanna know why?” I ask, kicking the gun farther away. “Because you’ve always been a useless, spineless piece of shit. And I was sick with the need for this moment to finally crush you.”

He struggles to stand, trying to support himself.

“You failed the fucking test,” I growl. “Mistake number two.” I grab his shoulders and drive my knee into his stomach. “You touched what’s mine.”

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers, taking a few steps back before spinning around and scrambling toward the kitchen.

This is getting annoying already.

I prowl after him like a predator. He yanks open a drawer and grabs a knife. His hand shakes as he points it at me, desperation burning in his eyes. “Stay back!”

“That’s charming.”

He lunges with the knife, but I pull back. God, I love the despair in his eyes. I love how scared he is.

With a sharp motion, he tosses the knife aside and flees to the garden.

Straight toward his demise.

“No!” he pants, trying to look back.

That’s when he stumbles and falls. Right next to my favorite weapon.

Just what I wanted.

I pull the axe from the log of wood next to him.

“No, wait, Cain, please!” he begs.

He’s crawling backward, his eyes wide, scurrying across the grass like a rat in a trap. Pathetic. I can still picture her face. That thought sears through me like fire.

I raise the axe, my fingers trembling with a kind of sick excitement. My heart hammers so loudly that I can’t hear anything else.

He touched her. He put his disgusting fingers on what’s mine. He defiled her air. He tainted everything about her. I need to fix it. I need to cleanse it.

“As if she didn’t like it!” he wails, tears running down his reddish cheeks.

“What?”

“She clearly did the first time I touched her.”

I’ll split your skull open and watch every filthy lie spill out like meat.

And so I do. I bring the blade down repeatedly, blood spraying across my face as I swing.

Bone cracks and blood explodes across my chest. His scream fades halfway out of his throat. I strike again. And again. Each hit resonates inside my skull like a holy chant.

She’s pure. She’s perfect. I will protect her from worms like him. I am going to protect her from everything.

Finally, his head drops forward and rolls across the grass like a fucking bowling ball.

I watch it stop, eyes frozen wide in shock. My chest rises and falls, each breath labored and ecstatic.