NEVER mess with a human who's got nothing left to lose. You'll be lucky if it's just your life they take from you to get everything back. -- Anon Guest
[AN: This work contains copious references to domestic abuse, as well as violence and murder]
Their god told them that vengeance belonged to the divine. If they had faith, then the deity would see to it that terrible people got what they deserved. Unfortunately for the divine, the Humans that worship it are impatient.
Many Humans contain a great anger, but stop themselves from acting on it. Some rare few lose any reason to contain themselves.
When all love has been hollowed out of a life, all that's left is hate. And in those cases, there is only one consequence: someone is going to die. In this case of adult versus abused and weak child, one might be justified in predicting the winner. One's justification is entirely wrong.
J waited, pretending to be asleep. The old bastard had made them bleed, so there wouldn't be any further beatings. Not tonight. They listened. Counting as cans of beer cracked and hissed inside the house. Listening to the old bastard belch and cuss.
Waiting.
Waiting for him to start snoring.
Only once the first gurgling snarl sounded was J free enough to move. They dug under the corner of the doghouse in which they slept. Under the concrete slab where the old bastard had buried mom. Where J had hidden a single strip of metal they'd worried off the fence.
It was enough to unscrew the shackle, so J was loose from their chain. It was enough to lever up the latch to the workshop, so they could open up the door just enough to squirm inside.
If the door opened too far, it would creak and wake the old bastard up.
He never locked the doors inside.
J stepped carefully between buckets of junk. Finding the oil where they'd hid it the last time the old bastard made them fetch it. Just enough, in an old medicine bottle with a dropper. Just enough to make sure the inside hinges didn't creak.
It was always hot, indoors. At least, compared to the outside where J had to sleep. J picked their way around the garbage and found the carving knife. It felt good in their hands.
They followed the snoring to the old bastard. He'd passed out half on his bed and half in his piles of garbage. This was it. Do or die. Or die while doing. J didn't have anything left, including shits to give about keeping the old bastard around.
They didn't need him and, to the point, things only ever got worse when the old bastard woke up. So the knife flashed, and blood flowed, and J stabbed and stabbed and stabbed until they couldn't lift the knife any more. They had a white-knuckled grip on the handle.
They napped by the front door. Waiting again. Waiting for the people who told the old bastard that he had the right idea in 'taming' J. Beating the fight out of that brat, as they put it.
J hid. Let them come in, looking for the old bastard. Let them get deep in the trash before they sprang. A cut to the back of a knee, to stop them running. A cut across their arm to stop them making a fist. A cut to anything they tried to use against them. Then stab and stab and stab until they were silent at last.
One by one by one... all the old bastard's allies fell. Until the bodies were thick on the floor.
J stripped them for money. Stepped out into the cruel world for the first time in years. Watched the public news feeds about the 'tragedy' that had happened in the old bastard's house.
Saw a fancy man dictating how the murderer would be found and punished for the rest of their life.
J had another target. They would kill that man. And all their allies. And anyone who tried to stop them along the way.
They got quite far before Pax Humanis found them and took them in.
[Photo by henry perks on Unsplash]
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