The resplendency of the blade reflected in the light of the quarter waxing moon. Its stainless-steel edge plunged fluidly into the solar plexus of the pile of wretched human filth beneath her. The creature was a pervert and a sexual deviant, a fisherman who had expert knowledge of luring children out from the careful watch of their parents. She too had firsthand experience forcefully gifted unto her from the now restrained, calloused hand of the sheep in wolves clothing that lay beneath her. In his eyes shone a spark of immaturity, an inability to properly associate with his peers and so turned his wicked desires to those untarnished by the vagaries of the world.
Antonia was not a victim. She was not a survivor. In this moment she was Milady de Winter, a thief of otherworldly beauty on a heist to return the innocence that was stolen to its rightful owner. Before, she was a hunter, an expert tracker, hunting for the familiar buck of last season that always seemed to escape into the depths of the coniferous forest. In this moment, the feral tiger she pursued, the machinations of a bogeyman long dreamt up by frightened infants, was no more than a whimpering mouse, held hostage from the consuming hunger aroused by a chunk of cheddar left as bait.
The angel of mercy pestered her, pleading her to cease her mission of revenge. Yet the angel held no power against the shaking hands, the waking nightmares, the panic and hyperventilation brought forth from the clumsy attempts of affection received by her first true lover at the tender age of fourteen. The angel bore no witness to the averted gazes of family friends and uneasy relatives, the almost undecipherable whispers of her classmates, the hushed whispers spread by her own teachers.
“That slut was probably asking for it,”
“Kids just grow up faster these days,”
“Oh my god, just get over it,”
Antonia learned one thing; Justice would not be delivered out of some cosmic righteousness, her attacker would not suffer some divine sense of remorse and turn himself in. No, the nightmares in which she was enraptured in the visage of a balding goblin would only be silenced by her will alone.
The digital age has been detrimental to the youth of America, however to Antonia who had held a mouse in her hand before a pen, it was just another tool. Another means to entrap the perverts of the modern West. Of course the blonde twenty-four year old thought all your jokes were hilarious. Of course she thought that your pick up line involving going somewhere to “eat out” was charming. Of course she didn’t mind that your wife was back east with the in-laws. Of course she wanted to come over right away to see all the splendors exuded by a two bedroom mobile home with a clandestine meth lab savagely obscured by the neighbors with sores and stringy hair one address to the right.
Of course he didn’t remember her face. She was only a week older than eight when his synapses fired in just the perfect chemistry to decide upon stealing her childhood. To him, it was a mere blip in his memory, a single buoy of recollection in a sea of misdeeds. He certainly didn’t remember the hazards of Rohypnol despite his frequent illicit purchase of the chemical. He certainly didn’t remember blacking out and waking up suspended in chains against a . He might have paid for the pleasure once, but not from the golden-haired femme fatale whose gaze scorched the grounds behind his eyes where his Id resided.
She ignored his pitiful pleas and bargaining. She ignored the tears and whimpering that followed. He did the same to her when he possessed power and control of the situation. She merely returned the imprinted actions of her teacher back unto him, much to his distaste. Funny that the chef should find his own soup so bitter.
As the steel submarine sank deep into the beige ocean turned crimson beneath the surface, she almost expected the flow of a lost innocence to return to her. Yet she never felt the warmth of a fumbled kiss from a curly-haired boy, she never felt the sense of wonderment from imagining her placing foot on the moon set overhead in the humid summer Tennessee night, she never experienced the anxiety of waiting to see how her girlfriends responded to the admission of a crush.
In fact, the only warmth she felt was from the crimson pool that emerged near her hand. The warmth of a criminal soul infecting another. Yet she had no regrets. She would gladly accept the sin to return the bogeyman to his closet. No brass or copper badge could’ve coerced her from taking the actions she had committed tonight.
Taking the life of a demon was easy. Learning to live as a human, now that was the difficult part.
5711 Writing 