Page 193 of Broken Lines
“I know it was you.”
My voice is pure hatred and vengeance as it rasps from my lips. Kurt frowns, shaking his head.
“I don’t know what you—”
“She was thirteen, motherfucker.”
He screams when I punch his shattered nose again. And again, and then I hit him in the mouth until he’s blubbering and sobbing pure blood and spittle.
“And in the very likely case thatdoesn’tnarrow it down for you,” I snarl. I grab him by the collar, yanking him up as he flinches away from me.
“I’m talking about Melody.”
His eyes go wide with abject fear.
“Jackson, please,” he blubbers. “You don’t…it wasn’t like that…”
“No?”
I smile as I punch him again, relishing the way he sobs.
“What was it like then, shithead? Tell me therealstory about a thirty-four-year-old man using touch as a weapon on a fuckingthirteen-year-old kid.”
He trembles in my hands, shaking his head.
“Jackson, you know how these girls get with guys like us. You know the attention they want—”
This time, I don’t stop hitting him until part of me wonders if he’s actually dead. The man is limp in my arms, shuddering and flinching.
“Jackson, please!” He sobs. “Please, man! C’mon, it was years ago! Like you never—”
“No,” I snarl. “Because I’m not a monster like you.”
“It was just…just rock ’n roll, man…” he mumbles through his shattered teeth. “Just rock ’n—”
“No, it wasn’t.”
I drop him into the puddle of blood and piss on the floor beneath him. My eyes scan the room, until they land on the guitar propped against his dressing room table.
“Jackson…”
“Oh, don’t you worry,” I hiss as I march over and grab the guitar. “I’m not leaving just yet.”
He whimpers as I march back over, holding the neck of the gleaming gold and silver Fender guitar in my hands.
“You silenced her.”
He cries out in pain as I kick his hand to the side and step heavily on his wrist. His eyes widen in horror as he looks up at the way I’m raising the guitar.
Like a hammer.
“Jackson—!”
“I’m silencing you.”
I’ll be honest; the screams as I bash one of his hands, and then other, into pulpy, shattered, nightmarish claws are pretty blood-chilling.
But oh-so-fucking-satisfying.