Two hours later, Dutch and Rock waited outside the Lagoon. The sky was cloudless and the full moon loomed overhead.
"It's a good night. Full moon oughta bring all the crazies out for our little party." Dutch commented and turned to Rock, "You sure you're ready for this?"
Rock smiled slightly, "I've never been a violent man. Look at me, shirt buttoned and tucked in properly, full Windsor around my neck, $150 belt around my waist; I'm a suit, a pencil pusher. But living here, it's only a matter of time before all the shit we put up with on a daily basis boils to the surface. When that happens, all that's left is a sadistic fuck that gets his kicks from watching another man beg for his life. Am I ready for this?" Rock chuckled, "I could practically taste his blood."
Dutch paused for a moment before responding, "That's pretty fucked up Rock."
Rock took a long drag off a cigarette and replied, "But its rather poetic isn't it?"
As Rock finished his thought, two Mercedes and one of Balalaika's vans rounded a shipping container and headed towards the dock.
"Here comes the party now." Dutch replied.
"What is…" Dutch cut him off, "You really didn't think Boss Chang would stay mum on this little get-together did you?"
Shenhua and Eda exited the back of a van holding the man who had attacked Revy. He was bleeding, bound and gagged as they dragged him to the dock. Sawyer too exited the van, and Boss Chang himself as well as Balalaika exited the two Mercedes.
Rock smiled and pulled one of Revy's Cutlass from behind him. Since they'd been together, Revy had showed him all the workings of her two favorite weapons just in case he one day needed them. He pulled the slide back to check the chamber and cocked the hammer.
Seeing as how he was standing right next to him and saw Rock prep the gun, Dutch asked, "You cool Rock?"
"Just being prepared."
As they came closer to the Lagoon, Rock commented on the man Shenhua and Eda carried, "To think, of all the people we've dealt with and this piece of shit did so much damage."
"He probably had two dozen men with him Rock. Revy's quite a girl, but sometimes raw luck just runs out."
Eda and Shenhua boarded the Lagoon and dropped the man on his face, his bound and wounded hands unable to catch him as he fell.
"Where you want him?" Shenhua asked as the rest of the party joined them on the Lagoon's deck.
Rock looked down at him and slowly knelt beside him. He was still conscious as Rock spoke to him quietly, "Tonight, you're going to die. My only regret is that by sunrise, we'll have finished with you. For what you've done I only wish I could keep you alive for days."
He raised his hand and smashed the Cutlass down on the back of his head knocking him out.
-
At the church, Revy was awake while Ricardo and Yolanda tended to her dressings. Her head was slumped to her right side, the regret of what she had said to Rock earlier eating away at her second by second.
As Yolanda was about to leave the room, Revy asked, "Sister?"
"Yes Rebecca?"
"Rock, is he…" She paused in her guilt, "…is he here?"
"Rock, Dutch and Eda have all left for the evening."
"Where did they go?"
"I believe they've arranged for several of your friends and accomplices to treat the man who did this to you to a long night of pain before they send him off to god."
Revy smiled slightly, "Sister? What do you think of me?"
Yolanda returned to Revy's bedside and took her bruised hand into hers, "Why do you ask my dear?"
"I've done nothing to deserve your care sister. I don't believe in the god you cherish so dearly. Shit, you tell me that my friends and the man I would die for are about to torture and kill the son-of-a-bitch who did this to me, and look at me; I'm smiling. What does that make me sister? What does your god have to say about me?"
"The Lord forgives…" Revy cut her off quietly, "That's not what I'm asking sister."
Yolanda paused as she thought of a suitable passage for this situation. She raised her eyes to meet Revy's, "And I shall carry out great vengeance on them and punish them in my wrath. Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon them."
"Ezekiel 25:17?"
Yolanda smiled, "I didn't suspect you to know the bible Rebecca."
Revy coughed out a few chuckles as she closed her one good eye, "I don't, but I've seen Pulp Fiction about a hundred times sister. Hate to burst your bubble, but I'd say 90% of the world knows those words because of Quentin Tarantino, not god."
Again Yolanda smiled, "The means by which you know them is irrelevant so long as you understand their meaning."
"And what meaning is that?" Revy asked.
"The Lord too knows vengeance and too carries out retribution on those whom need it delivered."
-
Aboard the Lagoon, Shenhua stood between Rock and the man who had assaulted and nearly killed Revy. The floors of the Brig were prepared for the evening's festivities, a layer of plastic covering nearly every surface.
"What you want cut off first?" Shenhua asked Rock.
"First, I want his name."
"You…" She grabbed his jaw bring his eyes to meet hers, "…stupid fuck! You tell me your name!" Shenhua ordered.
She pulled the gag from his mouth and as soon as his mouth was free, he spit at her, her eyes closing tight. Wiping his spit from her face, she raised one of her blades to his throat and bent down to his level, "You tell me what I ask you or I say 'Fuck this party' and make small holes till you bleed to death."
Again he spit in her face. She backed away from him, and again wiped his spit from her face. She pulled her other blade and whipped them away from one another in a spray of blood. She had cut from his lips into his cheeks nearly two inches on both sides of his face and he screamed in agony.
Through his screams and cries, a name could be heard, "WILLY!!"
Balalaika took the gag from Shenhua and pulled it tightly against the fresh wounds of his now widened mouth, his muffled screams growing in intensity. The gag quickly turned red as his blood drained onto it and Rock quietly continued over his screams, "Thank you."
"My pleasure. Would you mind?" Balalaika asked as she lifted a switchblade into view.
The torture continued all through the night, each of those who had come to take part in the killing taking the time to say their piece to him.
Chang took Willy's hair into his hand, using it to pull his head back as he calmly addressed him, "That girl is like a daughter to me. Rest assured you're getting off easy you fucking bastard."
He pulled one of his guns, pressed it to Willy's collar and blew all the bone and tissue in its path apart.
Dutch didn't need a gun when his turn came; his fists were all he needed. Of all that had been done to him, Rock couldn't help but watch on slightly unsettled as Dutch pummeled him. One thing was for sure, he'd never piss the boss off again.
"Easy now Dutch. You wouldn't want to end the party early would you?" Balalaika asked bringing Eda to the plate.
Eda stood before him and it took him nearly a minute to raise his head to see her. He was nearly incapable of breathing he had been beaten so badly. Nearly every inch of his body was stained with blood and Eda would certainly only make those stains darker.
After he had raised his head, she simply smashed it back down with the butt end of her Glock.
"To make this even I'd have to kill you and your kid. Do you have a kid you fuck?"
He swung his head side-to-side and Eda merely punch him in the face knocking the chair he was tied to back, eliciting a groan from him.
"Rock?" Dutch asked.
"Yeah, it's time."
Rock stood from the back of the room and Eda backed away from Willy's body. He closed in on the man who lye on the floor of the brig all-but-dead. The Cutlass shook in his hand as he cocked the hammer. His sweat soaked fingers squirmed on the grip and trigger he tried so hard to pull. His eyes filled with tears and he lost it. Rock could never be like them. As Yukio had told him months ago, his place would always be in the twilight.
He lowered the gun and decocked it as Chang and Balalaika stepped forward, their weapons raised in search of his permission.
He closed his tear riddled eyes and nodded, the multiple gunshots ceasing Willy's moans and groans, bringing a cold silence about the room.
Rock fell to his knees dropping the Cutlass to his side. His head fell into his hands and his tears flowed harder than ever. Every person in the room had been on the dealing end of death hundreds of times. Some of them were capable of things far worse than what had happened here tonight entirely on their own. But above these things, they all knew loss. The feeling of crippling emptiness that came with great loss and under the full moon of this cloudless night, the cold blood of Roanapur's criminals warmed to offer their friend comfort.
-
Rock returned to the church as the sun rose.
He snuck into Revy's room and walked over to the bed to find she was asleep. On a table at the side of a bed was a letter, written in barely legible script by a doctor. Yolanda must have had a professional examine her. While Rock was no doctor, he could make out bad news when he saw it.
"…future conception will be impossible…"
Just as his tears had ceased, he once again began to cry at reading those words. He dropped the letter back onto the table and sat on her bed while she slept. He could see just by the color of her face that she had been crying intensely, there was no doubt in his mind that she knew as well.
He took her hand and he quietly spoke, "It's done. The guy that did this; he's dead. You know how you said I'll never know what it means to be you? I really thought tonight I might get a glimpse of that, but all I found were more questions. I can't even begin to comprehend how it can be so easy for you to pull a trigger."
He closed his eyes, "I wanted so badly to punish him for what he did to you, but I couldn't do it. He took something from us, something we'll never get back, and I still failed to do what felt so right in my heart."
His tears ran down his cheeks, "In New York, you asked me how I could love you after the things you've done. How could you love me after what I've failed to do?"
Her hand gently tightened around his as she spoke, "Did you forget what I told you in the alley?"
"Wha?"
"I need you to be you…" She turned her head to face him and opened her good eye, "…so I can want to be normal."
Rock leaned down to her and gave her a gentle kiss. A few seconds later, he pulled away from her and knelt at the side of the bed, her head just barely able to follow him.
He pulled a box from his pocket and as he opened it Revy quickly commented, "Rock, no, no…" He cut her off, "For once, you shut up."
Revy closed her good eye and Rock continued, "Do you love me?"
She was silent for a moment as tears filled her eye, "I do."
"I'm crazy about you Revy. If something happens to one of us, I want the other to know how important they were to the remaining. I want you to marry me."
"Rock…" Her tears fell down her cheeks, "…I'm worthless. I've got nothing left to give you. Nothing a wife should give a husband. I can't give you a kid, I can't give you a happily ever after…"
Again he cut her off, "I don't want a happily ever after Revy, I want to be happy right now."
Revy's tears continued to pour down her cheeks and Rock asked, "So what do you say?"