My first sensation upon waking was of feeling freezing and lying on a cold hard floor. Then surprise that Robert hadn't drowned me in the bath after all. He was going to string this out for as long as he could, I knew it.
My head thumped with an aching pain twice as much as the rest of my body. I felt the hard, dry blood on my face pulling at my skin. I kept my head on the floor as I strained to get my vision back.
I saw Chris come into focus first, sitting with her head between her knees against the closed bathroom door. Her shaking hands held the back of her head and she rocked slightly back and forth.
I was then aware of the now familiar sound: the angry thump of work boots pacing from one wall to the other. The loud booming voice had now become a hushed monotone as Robert, the idiot, attempted to sort out the bare essentials for himself. He wanted reasons from her, answers that he was too much of a monster to understand.
My body was limp, and I felt that this ordeal could last forever.
And then it finally happened.
A fit of pure rage as cabinets were kicked, walls were punched and glass was broken. Chris screamed for forgiveness and Robert replied only with threats of more torture. He lunged at her as she darted up and turned desperately for the door knob. He turned her back around and hit her. She hit the ground with such force that I thought she wasn't going to get up.
The things that happened in the next few seconds went by so quickly that I barely had time to breathe, then and even now when I think about it.
As Chris grabbed his leg to get up, Robert drove his fist into her stomach. At least, I thought it was just his fist until he brought his arm up for another strike. The bloody dripped off the glistening metal with a vengeful malice that matched the look on his face. He sent the sharp point down again as she screamed in agony, arms flying.
With energy that I never knew existed in the human body, much less mine at the time, I picked myself up off the floor, swooped for the gun and aimed blindly. The roar of pain I heard told me that I had hit my target. I stepped closer and fired again, and again.
Arms outstretched, hands holding the gun, I watched as Robert's eyes met mine with a stare that instinctively told me to be ready to move.
In the next instant he was up and for me. I stumbled back into the still full bath as he slashed my right arm with the knife, and then the final shot rang through the room.
I looked up.
My eyes met the sight of Robert being thrown violently against the wall. His body dropped onto the floor and the trail of bloody following his head down ugly old tiles told me that he was finally dead.
My erratic breathing became calmer as I flopped my arms down into the freezing water, submerging the smoking gun with them. I looked away from the corpse that I had ever so proudly created, down to the frozen image of my pregnant sister. She lay in blood that once swam in her body, eyes open gaping at me. I surmised that she was dead, until she spoke.
"It's over."
© Cynthia M. Piromalli 2002
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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