Redeeming Rhys (5 page)

“No, no!” the scream, the screech in her tiny voice an ominous sign.

Rhys’ free hand made its way over his head, and he slammed it down onto her face, the crack of her jaw leaving him satisfied that her implorations would be nothing more than muffled moans and gurgled sounds when the life left her. He looked at her mouth, her widened jaw clearly displaced from the fury of his fist. Again, he wanted to smile, but stopped himself. The rage that would soon ensue would even surprise him.

Violating, degrading, stripping her down to nothing but blood and skin.

Rhys’ scent was peaked, the smell of blood tickled his nostrils and made his dick hard with lust. The absence of hate was making him mad. He looked down and admired the trail of red liquid from the corner of her mouth. His belly grumbled in delight, and for a transitory moment, he contemplated what she would taste like if he took a bite from her, chewing her skin into nothing until he swallowed it into his belly to be digested by his stomach acids. He dismissed it as quickly as it came and bent down until his cut-up, full lips were near the blood leaking from the crooked mouth of the girl under him. Rhys craved her innocence, the taste on his tongue, the feeling in is soul, the fire that fed the monster. He needed it. He had to have it. He couldn’t stop even if he tried.

The girl continued to try to pull on her tight restraints, a moot point. Rhys was certain that the blood flow had stopped to her hands. They were blue and her small fingers weren’t moving at all. Desecration was foreseeable; the copper-like taste assaulted Rhys’ tongue in the most amusing way. The softness of his mouth turned into needy laps, craving more blood, more incorruptibility. Rhys thought that if he had enough of her, of goodness, rationality would perhaps return for moments.

The opposite affect occurred. He turned into a famished animal, someone else that was moving at the hands of the devil. In one swift movement, Rhys’ hands maneuvered the flip-knife, the serrated edge pressed against the girl’s sternum above her heart. Rhys was sure that his chest was hollow, occupied by nothing more than hate and disgust for the world that had done him so wrong. The one-inch area of white fabric from her bra was expurgated away with one cut, her perky breasts exposed before a beast that would take her, all of her, and leave nothing behind.

His hands were moving to their own beat, thrashing, slicing, and beating her. He didn’t even feel it when her milky skin was spliced open, the sensation of life oozing out in the air made him stop for a moment to look down at her disfigured body, marred, but still alive.

The gurgling from her crooked jaw was shallower than afore, her tiny chest barely moving to barrel oxygen as she clung onto a futile life, but she still fought. She still prayed to a God that Rhys didn’t believe in anymore. He was fighting back because of
Him.
He withheld the urge to yell out like a caveman claiming his prey, throwing his bloodied knife across the room until it hit the barely-functioning air-conditioned unit on the far side of the wall in the dilapidated motel room off 530. The mix from her blood and usual moldy scent brought Rhys back down to reality while he begged to stay in a limbo that he only found when he embraced the feral feelings.

He brought his blood-covered hands up to his face, closing his eyes, and remembering back to the night when he became the man he was then. Maddened beyond help. But, maybe not. He still had to find Wren. There was still hope, but Rhys refused to call it such a thing. Hope was for the dying. The helpless. The injured. He wasn’t helpless or dying, not in the physical sense, but his mind was on its last leg. Rhys didn’t want to believe in hope. He hated that.

He clenched his jaw, hard and dusted over in dirty-blonde stubble, and flared his nostrils, contemplating his next movements while he studied the girl, barely alive. Would he fuck her, cut her sex up and torture her a little bit more until her fruitless heart ceased? Something that he didn’t understand was stopping him. He was angered further. His bloodied hands cupped her small breasts, a faint moan escaped her lungs. In his head, he thought that she was verbalizing her appreciation. That was how fucked up he was. He cursed himself under his breath for throwing the knife across the room, realizing how good it would feel if he was able to graze it over her already cut-up skin. Instead, he lowered his mouth to her bleeding flesh and nursed it gently, sucking on an open wound that offered him more of what fed his belly along with the his need.

Her chest slowed more, and Rhys had been in this situation enough times to understand how much time he had. He hadn’t ever taken a dead girl before, though it certainly wasn’t out of the question, rather, he liked the fear in their eyes. How their pupils would respond to the loudness of his pants, the harsh hilts of his hips, and the jolt of pain from the only friend that had remained loyal to him; the sharp knife he carried on his hip.

“Oh, little girl. Shhh, now is the time for the heaven that you wish for. Proverbs 11:16; A gracious woman gets honor, and violent men get riches. Believe in this if it is your truth and I will give you an end to your heaven, darling. Close your eyes and relish what I give you before you succumb to your useless, pitiful fight.”

Rhys looked to her eyes, blinked in slow waves, and a lone tear escaped. The riches of her life were slowly depleting to nothing, all at the cost of him. But she was the cost for the God that had failed him miserably. He knew the blackness would come after he took her, violently. His words may have come out softly, but the movements of his hips that would follow suit would strip her apart and break her down to nothing, making her recognize that fighting was worthless. She became his in that moment when he took her, all of her, her soul, her purity, her lifeline, and most of all the virtue he hated most.

Hope.

Because hope is for the helpless, and she was useless. With one last thrust, the girl went limp under Rhys. He spilled himself inside of her without a care of the retribution or tying to the crime. His thinking had always been jumbled, but as of late, he was more irrational and out of context. He was the madman that couldn’t get enough until he got the absolution that he wished for. From her, the one he let live. He had to know why. There had to be a reason, and he only hoped that it meant something.

He pulled himself out of her, untied her wrists because at that time, the threat of leaving was abandoned. He pulled her naked, dead body into his, and nuzzled his nose into her blood-matted hair while he floated off to a sleep that would put most nightmares to shame.

Hurt was bestowed. Hurt would always be remembered.

“BUT HE’S JUST A
boy, Charlie.” Rhys’ mother, Julianne, called out between sips. Sips of her happiness. Rhys’ dad had went away six years before when he was just four-years-old. Rhys listened closely behind his scratched-up wooden door while Wren huddled in the corner with her skinny, scraped knees drawn up to her chest. He wanted to comfort her, but words never came natural to him.

“You put your hands on him, Charlie. He’s just a boy,” Julianne muffled again, her voice a bit more stern than before.

“That little fucker deserved every bit, Julianne. Every fucking bit. Probably more,” Charlie returned, turning to unfasten his leather belt, his hard features turning into stone before Julianne.

Rhys continued to listen behind his door where he was safe from the world. Where hard fists and nasty words wouldn’t rain over him like a torrential thunderstorm. Unwelcome, but unavoidable. Destructive. Forceful.

Wren’s dark hair fell over her shoulders gracefully, her cries a gesture for help. Rhys wasn’t good at help. He wished he could be, but he was merely a ten-year-old boy who was still trying to figure out the domain around him. The world that had proved to be nothing more than yells, fists, and confessional booths on Sundays where he was the bad boy who had to spill out all his infractions.

“How can I make that little shit straighten up, Julianne? How? Pushing him around isn’t doing any good. Be a goddamn mother for once and put down the bottle!” Charlie yelled, his voice loud enough to shatter the windows of their mediocre two-bedroom home.

“He’s just a boy, Charlie.”

It was as if Julianne had trained herself to repeat that. She wasn’t able to say much more. But there was truths to her words. He was just a boy. A lost, little boy. Nurture molds one into who they are destined to become, or is it nature? Perhaps a little bit of both. Whatever the cause, Rhys was fucked, having a drunkard as a mother and a step-father that hated him for the little boy he was.

“Say something that will do some good, Julianne! Do something!” Charlie screamed louder.

His anger was climbing higher with each passing second, the rage spilling from the mouth of the devil himself at that time. Rhys stumbled back away from the door, Wren’s soft cries like lullabies from angels themselves. Rhys was never too sure about heaven. He was never given a reason to believe in it. But her voice, that sweet little moan, made him think that heaven could be for real.

“Shhh, my darling,” Rhys cooed like he was trying to hush a colicky baby, stepping closer to Wren.

She huddled deeper into the cluttered corner of their shared bedroom, her small fingers turning a paler shade of white than her skin. Rhys eyed her carefully, the beating he received thirty minutes ago nearly forgotten. The swelling over his right eye was growing, but so was his heart. Maybe there was hope in the godforsaken world he was thrown into. Birthed by parents that were distorted and fucked in their own ways. His eyes raked over her shaking body, and again, he wanted nothing more than to hug her. To tell her not to be fearful, but it was a lie.

There was a lot to be scared of. It was standing in the other room, shouting what a bad boy he was. Everything wasn’t good. The world wasn’t made up of cherry blossoms and flower petals. It was made up of priests that turned a blind eye and told people to pray away their pain. Their sins. Their misfortunes, because there was never any room for mistakes when you were striving to be the good Catholic boy.

Rhys gazed at her red dress that fell just below the knee. Her white, lacy socks were dirty. His mind flashed back to her on the swing-set earlier. He almost smiled, but joy was never something he was able to hold onto. Nothing good stayed in this world. His father went away. He was left to pick up the pieces of crazy and be reminded why the world was so bad.

Back and forth, she swung, so elegantly, gracefully, so angelically. They had lived together for over four years, but Rhys didn’t talk often. He did with his eyes and wished that she would be able to understand that he wasn’t as bad as Charlie said he was, but her tears made him second-guess that too.

He was a bad boy.

He stooped down, touched her scratched-up knee, recollections of her falling down from the swing-set invaded his tormented diminutive mind. Rhys tried to shake it free, the bad memories that were nearing the surface, because in his world, they always won. Just one moment is all he wanted. One second of decency to make him realize it would be worth it. Being good.

“Wren,” he breathed, her sobs getting harder from his words, “Don’t be afraid of me. I’m not a bad boy. I promise.”

Wren didn’t offer him a return. Instead, she continued to cry into her chest, hugging her legs and wishing for her safe place to return. Rhys became angered, a regular sentiment for him. He grabbed onto her injured knee harder. He only wanted her to pay attention to him. To notice him. To understand that he wasn’t what Charlie said.

He was just a boy.

A lost boy.

“Wren,” he tried again.

Heavy footsteps threatened his moments of goodness as he stared at the angel before him, her black patent leather shoes dusted with dirt from the play area in the back yard. Gone, they would be gone soon. He had to let her know he wasn’t a bad boy. Bad boys don’t say sorry. Bad boys don’t kiss scrapes. Bad boys don’t hold your hand.

Rhys bent his fat lip down to her scraped knee and pushed his injured lips onto her skin. Her tears stopped. In that second, he realized maybe his mental chants were right. He wasn’t a bad boy. He could be capable of goodness. The world wasn’t all that bad because Wren was pushing his away, shouting at him.

No.

She stopped crying.

She stopped trembling.

The soft strands of her hair swept over his skin as he imagined he was healing her split forehead, too. Rhys parted his lips from her knee, feeling a wetness over his lips. He scrunched his eyebrows, confusion bathing him as the warm liquid settled on his lips. Wren slowly looked up at him, her brown eyes meeting his blue ones. Rhys grabbed her small hand and clutched onto it hard like his life depended on it. His tongue moved over his tattered lip, lapping up the blood from Wren. The copper taste was something he would never forget, so unique. So beautiful. So pure. So Wren. He gulped hard, the gurgling from his belly ceased because the hunger he didn’t know existed had been fed.