Chapter 14
Foolish, foolish girl.
Frank, for once, doesn't know what to do.
There's a kind of horror in the dim hallway, like a tomb. Karen breathes slowly, her eyes blue and wide. Frank doesn't lower the gun. Of course not. But he also doesn't like pointing it at Sky's head.
Sky takes a step towards the kid, her feet hesitant, her arms raised in a smoothing manner, palms up. Her focus never waivers from her brother. She trusts Frank won't hurt her. Why would anyone trust the Punisher?
"Jose."
There's nothing it seems. He doesn't even flinch.
"Listen to my voice."
Maybe the funeral has already happened. Frank blinks but it's still there. The reality of what's happening. They never had a funeral for his wife, daughter, son. Or maybe they did, but he was supposed to be dead too. He can't stop seeing it, them. Their bodies, dead, dead, dead. They're dead because of him, because of him.
Karen's lips part like she wants to say something. Frank can't hear her, can't understand what she's telling him. He can't choose between them. He can't. Losing his family – he can't do it again.
But either way, by his action or his inaction, one of them dies.
"Sky get the fuck out of the way."
She lifts her head, her eyes bright, she addresses her brother. "Come on you dumb fuck. You're the one who insisted on getting two jobs and doing illegal shit on the side to buy Asadero and Eggos for us. Don't do this to me again."
He's sweating, his head twitching now. He's probably hyped up on the drugs that made him this way. It's not a good sign. If he's getting agitated he might hurt Karen by accident. Even if he doesn't mean to, she would still die.
"Sky."
She doesn't listen.
"What about all the times you'd read Puff the Magic Dragon to me after Mama and Dad died? Or how you taught me to write my name in cursive? Or how you could spit your watermelon seeds ten feet?"
He doesn't move. Doesn't breathe.
Sky takes a step towards him.
"You know it's me, you fuck. Now let her go."
She leans.
"Let-"
The bullet knocks his head back, spreading the contents on the pavement.
Sky just stares at him for a moment.
Karen screams before covering her mouth with her hands. Her eyes go to Sky, her concern for Sky always ahead of her own.
Frank swallows hard, a crazed look in his eye. He holsters his gun.
Sky does nothing. She just stares at the pool of crimson forming around her brother's head. His eyes are still open, but the bullet made a hole in between them. It looks like a gaping mouth, or a third eye. She sees his dead fingers, curled slightly, stop moving. So mangled and distorted he looks. Like he was dissected and put back together. Everyone knows that Frankenstein was the real monster, not his creation.
Sky turns ever so slowly, to face Frank.
There is no expression in her face.
Everyone is silent.
Finally, she drags her eyes up to his.
His eyes are only remorseful, hers are wet with tears. They start slowly as tears usually start. Then, like a river blocked of obstruction, they come all too quickly.
"I had it." Her voice breaks.
He doesn't say anything. What can he say at this point?
She sniffles, wipes her nose with the back of her hand.
"Where are they?"
At first neither of them know what she's talking about. Frank meets Karen's eyes over Sky's head. She looks just as confused as he feels.
"Sky, who?" She says finally.
Sky turns to her, dangerously poised. "The men who did this to him."
Karen shakes her head slowly, a frown between her eyes. "Sky, I don't think-"
"Down the hallway where he and I came, they went down a set of stairs, it'll be to your right, first door."
Sky gives him one look, one look that burns deeper than any festering wound, that hurts the heart more than any holes. She gave him what she couldn't say in that moment. There was no snarky remark, not now. Not anything to say about it.
She takes off at a sprint.
Karen runs over to Frank.
"Shouldn't we go after her?"
Frank turns his head to Karen, nearly forgetting why they were there.
"Karen."
She looks at him, a fiery determination in her movements.
He breathes for a moment, her scent so near to him. He couldn't have imagined ever being this close to her. Wasn't this some rule of nature being broken? That the devil could fall in love with such a beautiful avenging angel.
He couldn't see that she thought the same of him.
She places her hand on his cheek, in that moment they were both so exhausted of the constant struggle. He couldn't tell what she saw when she looked at him. He thought, after a time, that she never wanted to see him again. It was barely enough to keep living, after he had killed all the people who had killed his family, and had alienated Karen past her ever being able to look at him again.
Then Rawlins had come out of the woodwork and here they are.
He can't say the words, not now, not properly. How long had it been? Did he even qualify to experience something so human when he was nothing but a monster?
"Frank."
A scream comes from down the hallway.
They exchange a moment of horror before following it.
Sky finds it easily enough.
She walks leisurely down the stairs. Her eyes are foggy with tears, but her teeth are grinding. She places her feet carefully and enters their den.
It's a large basement, all cinderblock and not as dark as she expected. It's one large area with the support beams naked throughout the place. To her left it goes on for a long time, rows and rows of hospital beds that are as orderly as they are insidious.
Half of them have a victim.
She turns to look to her right. There are men on couches, eating, there's some cooking what look like scrambled eggs. They chuckle and a few of them play cards. She looks at them for a moment. Foolish, foolish idiots. They don't realize that they didn't close the hatch. Maybe they're just overconfident assholes who thought her brother was enough to stop them.
Another wave of emotion hits her with that thought.
She chokes, her hand flying to her mouth. She's going to be sick. Or she's going to rip their throats out with her teeth.
Slowly, like every supervillain in every movie, she makes her way over. They don't realize what they've done. Not yet.
She's ten feet from the first cluster when a couple guys look up.
"Hey, are you one of the new nurses? You look young."
That brings the attention of a couple others, but it's when a guard she recognizes looks up that she realizes it's now or never.
"You!"
Her nose scrunches up, and she grabs the first guard closest to her by his blond hair and smashes his face into the concrete. There's a crunch as his nose and the bones in his face break with the collision, blood covers her hands.
There's shouting.
They come at her.
She kicks the leg out of the next one, her hands naturally wrapping around his throat as she breaks it easily. He sags down and she just steps over him. The next throws a punch, his tanned skin makes contact, fracturing his hand to his wrist. He screams and pulls back his limp wrist, but Sky is already there, twisting it. He falls to his knees with the pain, his eyes nothing more than creases of agony. She pulls back and slams down against him, killing him instantly.
She feels the warmth of a bullet graze her skin and the bang of the gun, but her feet down falter. She kicks him, a freckled and thin kid, in the stomach before taking his own gun in her hands, pressing it against his temple and firing.
The men back up, the ones with guns have them out. She has her weight better placed this time though, so when a couple bullets make contact she doesn't fall over. They fire a couple, hitting her in the shoulder, leg, two in the stomach. The metal ping of them hitting the floor is the only sound for a second.
She looks up and screams. "You should never have fucked with my family."
The gun in her hand is a weight as she brings it up, just like how Frank taught her. Both hands pushing against each other, then sight, and squeeze. She unloads the magazine into the twenty men left, killing maybe seven.
The rest come for her, some slightly injured. They start shooting, if only to slow her down. But there is nothing like sheer, unrelenting rage and grief to make a person not feel the bruises forming. She grabs a knife from one of the dead and slices. The guy holds up his arms in defense, but she cuts straight through his fingers and plunges it into his left eye. Pull it out, stab through the brain.
She's screaming as she throws punches, stabs, the bullets hitting her, she just screams. Her whole body is covered in blood, but whenever they land a punch it just succeeds in getting them close enough for her to snap their neck.
Finally, there's one left.
A few had tried to flee but she grabbed them by their ankles and pulled them back. Now the last guys, also covered in blood, is on his knees, hands in the air.
He won't meet her eyes, blood glistens on his bald head. It looks like some kind of modernist painting. She sneers down at him.
"Don't ask me for mercy."
"Please-"
He wanted to say more but she placed the gun against his head and shot him before anything else could be said.
When there were no more to kill, Sky had to stand there and think what to do next.
There seemed to be no more options, maybe because her goal this whole time was to find her brother and now that that was gone – now that he was gone – she didn't know what to do.
Karen and Frank run down the stairs, him first, her second.
Both have guns drawn, but it doesn't take long to realize that they aren't needed.
Sky stands, hands loose by her side, with about thirty bodies around her. Her arms and clothes are wet with blood. She doesn't move, only stares down at one of the dead men, his mouth open.
"Sky?" Karen's voice is quiet.
She startles and shuffles away.
Karen's heart breaks when she looks at the child. She knows the kind of horrible loss that she faced, but could never imagine the extent. Karen's lip quivers and her eyes overflow with tears.
Without thinking Karen runs and grabs Sky in a hug.
Sky stands rigid for a moment, all the muscles in her body tensed. Then, she collapses into Karen. She weeps loudly, holding onto Karen's arms tightly. Karen pulls her close, feeling the blood soak her clothes. There's a moment where Karen supports Sky entirely or else she would fall, an angel and a newborn child fresh with blood.
Although Sky is far from a newborn, and the blood is not her mother's.
In a way it's her brother's blood that steeps through.
Then the most unexpected thing happens.
Frank gently engulfs them both.
They Karen looks at Frank, Sky between them, supporting each other.
One fucked up family.
Author's note: I'm sorry it took so long but here it is! And don't worry, Chapter 15 is the finale I promise. Hope you're having an amazing day!