Emily Jones was a shell of a person. Whatever spirit she had once possessed was completely gone. She shuffled her feet, kept her head down, and talked in a weak voice. Her husband, Victor Jones, wasn’t home, but Gabriel and I had decided to wait for him. I was doing my best to contain the violence that I wanted to unleash. I was angry at Emily Jones for not protecting her son and even angrier when her daughter, a gangly twelve year old that had the look of the lost, entered the home and immediately set about doing her homework as quietly as possible.
The daughter, Lauren Jones, was already starting to look like her mother. She avoided all eye contact with Gabriel and me. Her shoulders were hunched forward, as if expecting a blow to land on her at any moment. Her face was pale with black circles under her eyes. She wasn’t broken yet, but the process was in progress.
Emily kept offering us something to drink, but refused to talk about her son without her husband present. It grated on my nerves. It made my head hurt. It set my teeth on edge. I bit back on the contemptuous things I wanted to tell her. I kept having to remind myself that she was a victim too. My anger needed to be focused on Victor Jones and not Emily. It would certainly do damage to Lauren if I went off on her mother. I’d be no better than her father. Besides, it might do both of them some good to see a small woman like me put Victor Jones in his place. Secretly, I hoped he swung at me, so I would have a reason to sate my blood lust.
Victor Jones was not an imposing man. He was short for a guy, only about 5 feet and eight inches tall. He was thin with a little muscle buried beneath sallow skin. His teeth were bad. His eyes tinged yellow. He was either a meth user or a very hard drinker, or both.
“US Marshal Gabriel Henders,” Gabriel stood up as the man entered the house, I did not, afraid I would leap across the space between us and begin throttling him just for existing. “We are here because we found your son, Nathan.”
“Good, I hope the little bastard is in jail.” Victor did not shake Gabriel’s extended hand and Gabriel dropped it after a moment. The calm descended like a fog, a welcome fog, one that I had actually missed during my time with a brain tumor. It was a familiar lack of nothingness. The anger I had been feeling earlier was gone, replaced by a dark void of humanity. Even rage wouldn’t penetrate the darkness, because it was an emotion and here, I had none of those. Only the primal urge, a need too dark to have a name, remained within me.
My heartbeat slowed. My blood pressure dropped. My gaze locked onto Victor Jones, refusing to break contact with my prey. Time itself slowed, allowing me to see the world in ways that other people never would.
Victor’s heartbeat picked up. It pulsed in the veins of his neck. Tiny beads of sweat, almost too small to be noticed, began to form. His pupils dilated and his mouth opened. Whatever he was going to say didn’t come out. Instead, he made a strangled chirping sound and his mouth flapped like a fish’s for a few moments. Then he regained some of his composure and looked away from me.
“Your son was murdered, Mr. Jones. His body was found inside a well yesterday, just outside of town. Can either of you think of anyone that would want your son dead?” Gabriel sat back down.
“No,” Emily Jones started to speak, but stopped.
“No.” Victor gave her a glare.
“Did you do it, Mr. Jones?” I asked. “Did you kill your son and dump him in an abandoned well, hoping no one would find him? Did you kill the others found in the well?”
“I want you to leave, now,” Mr. Jones stood up.
“Sit down,” I told him. “You will answer our questions here or you will answer them at the police station.”
“Get out!” He shouted at me. I remained seated and turned my attention to Emily. She visibly wilted under my gaze. Her hands began to tremble.
“Do you know if your husband killed your son? Have you entertained the possibility?” I asked her. The tremble moved throughout her entire body. She had considered it. “Do you care that he was murdered?”
“Of course,” she squeaked out. Victor gave her another menacing glance.
“I said to get out!” Victor shouted again, trying to prove he was bigger than I was. His anger was directed solely at me and not just because of the accusations, but because I was smaller than him and he had felt intimidated by me. For a moment, he had lost his composure, let his terrified family see him afraid and now he had to regain it. It would be a mistake. I shot a quick glance into the kitchen. Lauren sat motionless at the table, her eyes staring at her homework, hoping to go unnoticed.
“We will be back, Mr. Jones,” Gabriel stood up. I followed his lead. We both walked outside and got into the SUV. Gabriel didn’t start the engine, but he turned the key and rolled down the windows. He lit a cigarette and handed it to me. “How long?”
“Five minutes, maybe ten, if he looks out the window.” I took a drag of the cigarette. “Drive down the block, park at the end of the street, we’ll walk back, smoking our cigarettes. It should be in progress by then.”
“And if she doesn’t scream?” Gabriel asked.
“Lauren will. Victor will be shouting down the walls.”
“It’s good to have you back, the real you back.”
“That’s twice I’ve heard that today,” I said as Gabriel started the SUV and pulled up the street. He hid the SUV on the wrong side of the street, behind a large truck. There seemed to be several of those. We both got out, closing our doors quietly.
As we moved down the street, we didn’t talk. The only sounds were our feet against the pavement, a quiet thumping noise. Gabriel had drawn his gun. I had not. I wanted to feel the blood seep through my fingers. We stopped near a large tree. Gabriel leaned against it as he finished his cigarette. I kept my ears tuned for the sounds of distress.
The tinkling of breaking glass drifted to me. I tilted my head and tossed my cigarette. Gabriel pushed off the tree. We began moving again, getting closer to the house. In front of the neighbor’s, we heard a muffled scream. I broke into a jog, Gabriel followed, not daring to step in front of me. The calm had not lifted and Victor Jones was about to meet his own personal demon, up close. Another cry, this one louder than the scream, reached me as I jumped onto the porch, skipping the steps entirely.
Victor Jones was unprepared for me to burst through his front door. It shattered and cracked as I put my full weight against it. The hinges squealed as they were pulled out of the frame. Victor had a belt raised over his head, caught in mid-strike, he didn’t know whether to follow through with the motion, drop it, or change his target.
I didn’t give him time to make a decision. My shoulder caught him at diaphragm level and my momentum picked him up. His feet dangled for a moment, before he slammed into the wall behind him. The sheetrock cracked and caved in where his body landed. I drew back and landed a blow squarely on his jaw before he could gather his breath. He yelped. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt, twisting it around my hands, and yanked him out of the broken wall.
Lauren Jones rushed into the room. She grabbed her mother and the two huddled together near the chair I had vacated minutes earlier. They both sobbed. I looked at their tears and felt nothing.
Victor struggled to get his footing, as I jerked him around by his shirt. He tugged against me in futile spastic motions. His hands flailed at my face and arms, trying to stop me from manhandling him. I grabbed one of those flailing arms above the wrist. It twisted in my hand and I yanked, feeling the bone snap beneath my hand. Victor cried out in pain, his flailing becoming more desperate. His hand, limp and useless, was already showing signs of swelling. The remaining good hand clawed at me, raking dirty, broken fingernails across my skin. They created welts, but didn’t draw blood.
I punched him again, this time connecting with his ribs. The air exited his lungs with a great whooshing noise. His knees buckled and his back arched. I landed another body blow that forced us both to the ground. My hand untangled from his shirt, letting me stay on my knees as he curled into a fetal position. I stood up and stared at him. He was injured but not bleeding. The darkness wanted blood. Without thinking, I raised my steel-plated boot up and brought it down on his lower leg. There was a snapping noise followed by a scream. When my boot hit the floor, it left a bloody footprint. The bone stuck out of the leg. Blood and marrow oozed from it.
Gabriel touched my shoulder, cautiously. I turned and glared at him for a moment. Then the darkness lifted as Victor Jones began sobbing at my feet. He blubbered unintelligibly through snot and tears. Emily and Lauren stood up, both seemed afraid to approach. They clung to each other.
“I don’t think he’ll be hurting either of you again.” Gabriel took them outside.
I stooped down, getting as close as possible to Victor.
“Not so big and tough now. You got your ass kicked by a girl. The front page tomorrow will read, ‘US Marshal Aislinn Cain takes down abusive husband’, and it’ll have a photo of you, being wheeled out on a gurney, and me, standing beside the gurney, putting you in handcuffs, you son of a bitch. I know you didn’t kill your son, but you created the circumstances that made him vulnerable to attack. Every time you even think about raising your voice let alone your hand, I hope you remember how much that broken leg hurts. Because next time, I’ll break open your fucking skull and scoop your tiny, warped brain out with my bare hands.” I stood back up, checked my clothing for blood, and made room for the paramedics.
“Wow,” one said as he looked at Victor’s leg.
“He resisted arrest,” I answered.
“Did you kick him with lead boots?”
“No, I stomped on him with steel-plated boots.”
“Sir, I’m going to roll you onto a board,” the paramedic said. I’d seen it done plenty of times, but never as roughly as these two did it. When Victor cried out in pain, I would have sworn one of them gave a small smile. I guess I wasn’t the only one that thought he had gotten what he deserved.