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How To Get Away With Mercy
There is a darkness deep in you;
A frightening magic I cling to.
- Snow Patrol
Aubrey
Your entire body is burning hot. In rage. In humiliation. In disgust. It's a wonder you don't have more serious issues with high blood pressure under all this constant stress. No amount of 'just taking a deep breath and counting to ten' could ever help you get the anger pulsing through your veins under control. It's fucking raining; to do your job right now would be stupid. There would be tire tracks. Mud fucking everywhere. Impossible to clean up. And he knows that. He taught you to avoid working in the rain. Even doing things the way you're supposed to is never correct.
He has to be looking for some sort of reaction that you just can't seem to ever get right.
You kind of get it.
The mirror above the dresser doesn't show you what you want to see either. The person staring back at you is too feminine, too disheveled, too connected to her anger. It doesn't matter what you do about it either. You could shave off all your hair, dress exactly like him, never express a single emotion – but you'd both still know the truth.
You take a second to lift your shirt and crane your next to examine your injuries. They're not as bad as they've been in the past. If they scar, they'll just mingle in with all the other ugly reminders of your perfectly executed failures. In the morning, rain or shine, you'll make things right. It won't be enough - but it'll be exactly what you're supposed to do.
Careful not to agitate your back any further, you roll your shirt back down in slow motion before looking at your own face again. Self-control, you remind yourself and resist the urge to punch the glass. They'll be plenty of ways to take out your anger in the morning. You just have to wait it out until morning. It's honestly too bad you're past the point of secretly strangling pillows – but that's the price of growing up.
You'll never maintain perfect self-control alone in this room, however. Not with the memories of the vile things that happened on that bed replaying in your mind and causing your stomach to churn. You rip the sheets and comforter from the bed and leave the room to stuff them into the washing machine on the 'sanitize' cycle, all the while considering getting right in there with them.
"I'm going out," you announce and march through the kitchen without looking at Beca or Chloe, "Take care of her."
"Wait," Beca tries to stop you, "Take care of her as in kill her or-"
You slam the door behind you.
xxxxx
The heat engulfing your entire body and the cold, wet air cancel each other out and you feel nothing. It sounds like more of a relief than it actually is. Chloe's earlier words about morality eat at you. If this job was ever about the good of the people, that was long before your time. This is a job for highly intelligent sociopaths who want to kill without ever facing the consequences of their actions. And silly childhood dreams you had about reforming the business once you were in charge seem like nothing more than a way to get yourself killed at this point.
Even Beca often lacks a greater sense of morality.
And who are you kidding? There's a thrill that comes with watching the life leave someone's eyes that nothing else in this world comes close to. The power that comes from taking a life feels like something that should only belong to God. And you fucking love it. It isn't always about making the world a better place. Sometimes it's about taking every second of pain these people caused others and watching them experience it back all at once before lights out forever. They beg you for mercy and it gives you joy beyond comparison to scoff at their pathetic tears.
You're no better than your father.
You both get off on the same high.
You slip your knife out of your pocket and twirl it around your fingers as you walk through the woods. How powerful it would feel to stab right through his jugular… "Good job, Aubrey," you whisper to yourself as you imagine his struggle to take one last breath before his eyes turn glassy and lifeless. Lights out.
The sun reflects off the metal from where it's trying to escape from behind the clouds and you turn the knife over in your hand a few times, looking at the light, before pressing the tip of it against your palm. Your blood, his blood that runs through your veins, gathers around the blade. It makes a red line that follows the blade from the center of your palm to the top of your wrist. You close the knife and tuck it away. You're not suicidal, but it'd be so easy to pretend your wrist was his neck and let his blood drain out of you. Tilting your hand, you let the blood drip over your pulse point and the visible veins in your wrist.
The sting feels heavenly.
You peer around the trees in multiple directions even though there is little likelihood anyone would be stupid enough to venture onto this private property. Satisfied that you're alone, you unbutton your jeans with your clean hand then slide your fingers beneath your underwear to a whole new kind of heat that's overpowering the numbness. Would anyone even care of you killed him? Would they kill you or label you a hero? It's no secret that people respect your father out of fear. Would killing him make them afraid of you too?
You close your eyes and imagine holding a gun to any one of his people who dare cross you as you stand next to his dead body. His men fall to their knees, trembling like your victims, and you shoot every last one of them. Your breath hitches as your hands moves back and forth. Every kill takes you closer to the edge and once you finally reach it, they're all dead – so you take Beca and you run.
Coming back down makes you feel sick to your already empty stomach. The anger dissipates into disgust. Disgust is right up there with feeling nothing and you start to dry heave while fumbling to button your pants with one hand. The taste of him still lingers in your mouth.
The tree you're standing next to knows your secrets well – this one in particular. Honestly, you're surprised it isn't dead from the amount of times you've vomited on its roots. You probably run through its veins just the same as your father runs through yours. It's bark feels familiar against your skin as you lay your forehead against it and breathe.
You must have been eight years old the first time you stood by this exact tree. After a particularly harsh punishment for something you don't even remember, your father had let you 'make it up to him' and showed you the first signs of affection you ever remember receiving from him. He claimed it was supposed to feel good for you both, but it felt worse than the beating. Afterwards, you ended up here. You put your hand where his hand had been and rubbed yourself sore while imagining him dead, and that, that felt good. Afterwards, you were mortified. You didn't even know why. It just felt so wrong and you chalked it up to the part where you imagined killing him. He showed you love, and you wanted him to die.
Then you learned.
You learned when you asked Beca's father if she liked when he touched her like that, because you hated it, and he got down to your level and told you that kind of thing was between you and your father, no one else. If you ever brought it up again, even to Beca, you would die. So you never did – not to another human anyway. It always felt kind of better knowing the tree was in on the secret. No one was going to kill you for confiding in a plant. Your father never loved you and he never would, Beca's father said, you were put here to follow orders and keep your mouth shut – and you'd better start doing a better job at it.
Beca always thought she introduced you to sex. And she kind of did. But what she really introduced you to was that it actually could go hand-in-hand with love.
You wonder how much Chloe really heard through that vent. It didn't seem like she heard much beyond you getting whipped. And you're fine with that much, really. You're proud of how much pain you can handle. It's more than most can. It's a little difficult to wrap your mind around her having heard any more than that. You just have to keep telling yourself you're not ashamed. It's just one more thing you're capable of handling.
But you left her alone with Beca and potential knowledge that could get you both killed if ever found out. Maybe you want her to find out. You kick a few tree roots, trying to figure it all out. The only thing you know for sure is that one day, this will all be yours, and nothing prior to that moment will ever matter again.
Just keep your head down.
Do your job.
And the present will become the past with enough time.
No one lives forever.
You just need to be patient.
