I've set you free
I set myself the challenge of a 500 word fic – my usual chapters are over five thousand words each so this has been interesting!
Read, enjoy if you can and comment if you like – no obligation!
As always – these are not my toys but I'm playing nicely. Mostly.
I've set you free
She is limp and cold and very, very dead and when he sees her his first reaction is horror. There is so much blood. He can't begin to imagine how much she suffered. Then a new feeling overwhelms him, filling him with shame and shock.
Relief.
A relief so powerful that his legs won't hold him and rough hands drag him up from the floor. He can hear Hal talking, realises that the blood he drank was Rachel's and he almost laughs. How could it have been? Surely her blood would be thin and bitter, not the rich, salty liquid that he savoured, that he can still taste in his throat.
Hal's voice changes, no longer light, amused, now it's hard but it sounds so far away. He's speaking of freedom and the word echoes around his head. The concept is alien; it's so long since he has even thought of his own life, his own way and his own choices that it feels wrong. It almost hurts.
Freedom.
The mask he's worn for so long stays in place. He is shattered and grieving, his angel, his wife torn apart, all his human happiness ripped away and trampled underfoot. The world believed he had the perfect marriage, that they were happy – more than happy. He propagated that myth, cherished it and let it grow and establish. An abused wife got no sympathy or support, had no rights. He was educated, a professional man – what hope did he have of anyone ever understanding?
He feels hysteria rising; he wants to laugh and scream but he bites it down. Hal must never know. It was too humiliating, he would see sympathy and pity and he would never be able to get away from the stigma. But now he can escape. He can be free.
The memories flood in as they leave him slumped on the floor beside her, the smell of her blood and faint traces of decay as her body began to rot. Her beautiful face, the sparkling eyes and soft lips that spewed venom at him every day; the lovers she took in their bed, flaunting them, throwing scorn on his inadequacies; the bruises that no one ever saw; the burns from her cigarettes that left scars on his skin and his soul as she laughed at his agony.
He was never good enough for her; never successful enough, never strong enough. He tried, over and over and over, but it was never enough.
Now he's alone with her he can laugh, he is released. He wants to beat her body, defile it, punish her for all she'd done to him but he knows he has to keep up the pretence. So he strokes her hair and kisses her lips. He tastes her blood and it tastes of freedom and revenge.
"Goodbye Rachel. I loved you."
He walks away without a backwards glance.
Now they are both dead it's time for his life to begin.