And I Was Set Alight
There was blood under her nails. There was blood everywhere, slick and warm. But through her strangely feverishly narrowed vision it was only the blood under her fingernails that seem relevant and wrong. And yet she couldn't stop. Couldn't even think enough to stop. There was blood everywhere.
It's how Tony finds her, bent over what's left of the body like both a frightened animal and a vengeful goddess. He doesn't hesitate, lifting her away with an arm around her waist. His other hand pulls the thing, the knife from her hand easily, it slips through her slicken palm with a wet noise that reminds her of cheap custard or sex.
"Stop," He commands but he had never sounded so feeble or concerned. The night had turned appropriately torrential and he was soaked. With him pressed solidly against her back his cold breath and the rain water seeped through, making her shiver violently at the sudden change in temperature.
She fights and they stumble, falling to the floor in a tangle just a footstep away from a growing pool of blood. He cradles her close to him and as she pulls one large, terrible, shaking breath into her lungs something snaps. It's a little like waking up underwater she decides.
She weeps openly. It is an indulgence she had never allowed in his presence before, but now he has seen her at her worst, he had helped shape the darkness of her path. She's always been untouchable to her husband, and now she was more vulnerable than she had ever been before. She'll go to hell for what she's done. "His dead. His gone. He can't hurt you anymore darling." He brushes her sweat drenched hair away from her eyes.
She doesn't care that Jimmy is dead. She hadn't planned the extent of her brutality but she didn't care. When he had attacked her a small part of her was glad to have a reason to hurt him, because she really had been fighting for her life, every nerve set blindly on causing pain.
She thinks it was after he backhanded her and she stumbled away in trying to keep herself upright, her vision exploding into light and then darkness, that she had found a knife. It wasn't intentional; the damn thing was in the wrong place because there was no trace of her old life within this place. But confronted with the flesh instrument of her lovers murder sentiment slips away and she is streamline and powerfully lethal.
And once the blood started flowing she just couldn't stop.
Her lip curls upwards and she pushes Tony away, her hands reaching for the discarded knife. She thinks she could reach it before he could stop her. Thinks that she would kill him too but the adrenaline leaves her quickly like a puppet with its strings cut. She knows he had been the puppet master behind the attack on her life and her nails dig deeply into his wrists as she realises how they share the same sins. She hopes that in the basest level of her despair that she scares the bastard.
Maybe she'll let him live. Let him live and suffer because maybe Jimmy wasn't there anymore. He had slipped away long before she'd finished mutilating his fragile flesh and it seemed impossibly lenient.
He was dead and it still isn't enough. Her mind is still fractured, Liam is still gone. Maria was still the dull little prize of redemption and her plan hadn't worked. Nothing fucking worked it seems.
She doesn't realise she's screaming until Tony presses his hand over her mouth and kicks the knife further away. Jimmy is dead; an eye for an eye, her revenge is exacted. And yet she is still gathered in the orchestrator's deceivingly strong arms.
Funny, she thinks, it doesn't feel like any justice had been served.