I hear the threat, the sound of footsteps pounding with only a slight pause in their progress across the stage, before I see the source. Since everyone else has disappeared from the wings, those angrily rushing footsteps can only be coming for one person: me.
The plastic arm of my prosthetic becomes the perfect blocking device as I whirl to face my attacker, my shoulder recoiling as it absorbs the percussive force of the tire iron.
“You sonofabitch!” Jessup shouts at me, swinging the tire iron at my other side.
“Actually,” I say, deflecting the tire iron with the plastic arm of my other prosthetic, “my mother is a fine woman.”
I don’t even mean it to be funny. But if I am to die tonight, I will not have this cretin defaming my mother before fate and circumstance turn out the lights on my life. My mother is a fine woman, who has only been hurt by me. Really, most of the people in my world are fine people, also hurt by me.
Jessup is swinging wildly at me now.
“This is all your fault!” he says. “If it weren’t for you—”
“If it weren’t for me what?” I continue to deflect each blow, no matter how quickly they come. “If it weren’t for me, you would be a better person than you are?” Really, I am so good at deflecting, I think maybe I should give up pool and take up martial arts. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t do terrible things?”
Jessup lunges at my stomach with the tire iron and I leap backwards.
“We are all responsible for what we do,” I tell him. “If I didn’t exist, you would still be you.”
This time he comes down straight toward my head, and this time when I deflect, I do so with such force, it knocks the tire iron loose from his grip.
He looks so vulnerable without his useless weapon.
In that instant, I hate him for all the unnecessary harm he put Aurora through. I could kill him for that, even make a menacing step in that direction. But in the next instant, I take in the sound of Aurora’s voice. She’s yelling something, yet all I can make out is the sound of my own name. And when I look over, I see her straining toward me. She is struggling to get free from the arms of Mr. Belle, who is holding her tight from behind. I don’t blame him for this. It is exactly what I would do: protect Aurora from any and all harm.
The fight leaves me then.
I no longer want to kill Jessup.
I no longer want to be a monster.
Bending, I pick up the tire iron with my hook, offer it to Jessup. I am thinking I should have died in that explosion. I am thinking, if he wants to kill me, this is a fine enough night to die. I would rather be killed than to kill.
“Go on,” I say.
But apparently the fight has gone out of Jessup too, because all he does is stare at the tire iron in my hook, horrified at the sight of it.
“Come on, Jessup,” I hear the voice of Mr. Belle, speaking with more gentleness, grace, and forgiveness than I would be able to muster were I him. “You need to get some help.”
Then they’re gone. Everyone, save one person, is gone.
In this light, my Dark Angel looks amazing.
In any light, really.