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Everything made sense after the incident.

Rick looked at his close-cropped head and the great big scar on his skull, outlining what his bitch of a wife had done.

He’d been found by one of his mates—who’d seen his car hooting off down the road at some ridiculous hour of the night—and taken to hospital, where he’d laid in a coma, apparently. Until they came.

It had just been darkness for Rick while he was out of it. He’d heard the doctors and the nurses dimly, but he’d been smothered by this heavy layer of gloom, unable to respond, to form a thought, anything. And then somehow, that changed.

The red lights were what came first, just points of glowing red in the seamless black.

He stared at them with his mind’s eyes for what felt like days, because what else could he do?

He couldn’t breathe unassisted, couldn’t piss, shit, do a bloody thing but stare.

And after a while, the red lights stared back.

Rick couldn’t remember the moment it happened, when they resolved themselves from the darkness, emerging as two of the biggest black dogs he’d ever seen.

That made him chuckle hysterically inside his mind, remembering how his mate Macca always talked about getting a big black dog up someone when he was pissed off.

The dogs didn’t respond, didn’t do anything but stare at him.

The weird thing was they didn’t go when he woke up.

That was a slow, painful, shitty process.

He’d still been pissing and shitting into a bag for a bit as they got him back on the mend, much to his disgust. What use was life if a man couldn’t have a smoke or a beer whenever he fucking wanted?

None of his mates turned up either. Macca did and Gus, who’d reported his car stolen for him, but it seemed taking one look at him, with the scars and the drool pooling in the side of his mouth, was enough to keep them away.

That was fine, they weren’t his focus, anyway.

Since waking up, it was her and only her that clogged his mind. He pictured her falling down, crushed by his punishing blows, the crack of her bones as he kept on punching, her blood running and matting the carpet, only stopping when her face was so fucking rearranged, she was barely recognisable.

That’s when he’d know it was done—when she looked like that.

His cock only got hard when he thought about that now, while the pretty nurses giving him sponge baths did nothing for him. When they weren’t looking, he gave the old fella a stroke, thinking of his wife’s destruction, those big black dogs looking on.

But he was out now, after some long, painful rehab. He strode out to Macca’s car, a few of his mates summoned by a series of angry phone calls. They’d passed him a beer as soon as he got in, trying to be all jovial and shit, but he’d shut that down pretty quick.

“I need a fucking car and a tank full of petrol. I’m going after that bitch.”