“J’ai entendu dire que ton père était un porc. C’est vrai, Souris?”
My gut twists when he calls Papa swine.
He is becoming annoyed at my refusal to respond, but he is unable to see how my fists ball and unfurl with each passing second. Or how my muscles are tightening as I wish he’d shut up before I lose myself, death be damned.
The alcohol makes him meaner. “You understand me, stupid little cunt? I heard il a pleuré comme une chiffe molle quand il a été renversé.”
I look down at my hands. No, Papa did not scream like a little bitch when Paul had him run through.
“Your brothers also squealed like dirty pigs when Attah and his men fucked them. Est-ce vrai?”
Lies. Attah and his men murdered them. Took my father’s head.
He sneers. “La tête de ton père aurait été belle sur mon mur de trophées, non? Même si ce n’est pas moi qui l’ai tué.” Your father’s head would have looked nice on my wall of trophies, yes? Even if it wasn’t my kill.
Then Monsieur begins to laugh at me.
So far, nothing he’s said has moved me to act, not even when he grips my thigh so roughly a bruise immediately begins to form. A bruise on top of a bruise on top of a bruise. My molten rage at the lies about my family is white hot, otherworldly. It is a feeling I have never experienced, a feeling that is awakening me from the deepest of slumbers.
My family died honorably. They gave their lives for me, for me to live this damnable life as someone’s mewling pet. No, this cannot be what their deaths end up meaning. I, in this place, cannot be the legacy of the Asyms of N’nkakuwe.
My fingers grope the floor around my feet.
His laughter sends me back to the village, to the laughter of the men when they violated me. The sound of him drowns out all logical thought. He is all I hear when I snap.
I round on him, bringing up the wooden chopstick in a swirling rush.
“Ne parlez jamais de mon père ou de mes frères. Fils de pute.” Never speak of my father or my brothers. You son of a bitch.
His eyes are so huge they are nearly all white at my speaking in his language.
My arm arcs and, with all my might, drives the chopstick into the closest thing. Robach’s right cheek. The cheap wood pierces his flesh, snapping when it hits teeth. He is too surprised to react swiftly, and it is all I need.
Before Monsieur has a chance to recover, before he becomes the predator and I the prey again, I pounce on him. I am a primal, animalistic creature grabbing one of the knives from the bloody plastic sheet. I stab him, pushing the blade to its hilt. He reels, lashing out at me, catching me on the cheek with the back of his hand. It destabilizes me, but only slightly. I am back on him quicker than he can recover.
He rolls, bellowing and knocking the knife from where I impaled him. I leap on his back, wrapping my arm around his neck, trying to choke the life out of him. I cannot. He is too broad, his throat too thick, for my malnourished body. But the rage his laughter incited breathed new life into me. I do not release him.
The knife is on the floor, unreachable. He grunts, whirling in dizzying attempts to get me off. I cling to him, safer on his back than at his front. I claw at his face, my grunts matching his. We crash backward into his worktable.
I ignore the pain, daring to let one hand scoop up the closest instrument within my reach. I plunge scissors—long, shiny, silvery, extremely pointy ones—into his exposed pink neck, into the artery pulsating against his skin.
I pull the scissors out. And drive them back in.
Again.
Again.
I do not stop. I jab their sharp edge into every soft part of him. I force myself to continue even while my strength is draining. It is not easy, killing a person. It is exhausting work. But I must finish him because to let him live is not an option.
He staggers, dropping heavily to his knees, pitching me forward. His blood spews and drips all over us. He topples forward, clutching himself, writhing, grunting curses.
I scamper on all fours toward him, climb onto him, and straddle his upper chest, slicing, stabbing. His curses turn to groans for mercy. How dare he ask me—Souris—for mercy, after what he has done to me. After what he did to the woman. After what he made me do to her.
I carve deep trenches into his skin. He grapples for purchase, but his strength is nearly depleted, and his fight against me is feeble. We are bathing in his blood. There is so much of it. I do not stop until his arms fall to his sides with a wet splat. I lean forward to watch his eyes darken as the last vestiges of his evil soul leave his body.