Sweet Revenge

Sarah had scrapped a decent meal together with the food Gerard had picked up. It was obvious that he wasn’t much of a cook – most of the food was convenience, processed and packaged stuff that probably had very little in the way of nutritional value. Thankfully he had purchased some frozen vegetables, which made Sarah feel slightly better. She boiled the vegetables, stuck on some rice and fried some chicken, then searched the cupboard for anything that might be useful in making up a sauce to make the meal less dry and bland. There was a can of condensed soup, which Sarah decided would do. It wasn’t the best meal she had ever made in her life, but she had to make do with what was available. If she had realised that Gerard would be so hopeless at buying decent food, she would have followed him into the supermarket. She wondered if she would be able to convince him to go back anytime soon, though, she highly doubted it, given his general attitude towards her even speaking, never mind actually asking for something. He was much like Michael in that way. Michael hated being asked questions, whether it was personal or a request for something. Both were likely to be met with a slap to the face.

She dished the meal out, smiling when Bilbo whined at the realisation that there was none for him. She would have felt guilty if she hadn’t seen that he had already been fed not even an hour ago. The look he gave her, though, coupled with his heartbreaking cries, would have suggested otherwise. He sat on his hind legs by her side, obviously counting on persistence being the key to getting more food. She almost relented when Gerard came into the kitchen, catching her about to scrape some food into his bowl.

“Don’t,” he snapped, “Don’t overfeed him. You’ll get him into a bad habit.”

“It’s only a bit of rice and chicken.”

“I don’t care. He gets fed in the morning, and in the evening. That’s it.”

Sarah rolled her eyes, turning her back on Gerard to fetch herself a bottle of water. She could feel his heated glare on her back, which she was pointedly ignoring. She wasn’t going to let him intimidate her, especially not over something as silly as giving his dog a bit of extra food. She wondered how the poor dog didn’t fall into depression, living with such a cold, irritable man. No wonder Bilbo was sticking to her side rather than Gerard’s. She uncapped her bottle, taking a sip. She nearly spat the liquid out when she heard a muttered ‘thank you’ from Gerard, albeit laced with a little resentment. She wondered how long it had been since Gerard had a cooked meal that didn’t come from a container. She doubted it had been anytime in the not so distant past.

“You’re welcome,” she told him breezily, tucking into her own plate with vigour.

She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it wasn’t until she had started cooking that she registered how hungry she was. She rarely recognised the feeling anymore. Between Michael’s frequent beatings, which left her unable to eat,and spending days locked in a basement, she had learned to ignore her stomach’s grumbling pleas for food, and it no longer cramped when she went too long without food. She often forgot to eat, even now – if it wasn’t for Charlotte, she wondered if she would just wither away from the lack of proper food. Charlotte kept her human, and sane. If she didn’t have Charlotte, she would have ended her life a long time ago. The scars that riddled her body were the physical reminders of the mental agony she had gone through, and the sight of them when she got dressed every day brought the pain back. She never looked in the mirror, unless she was fully dressed. Charlotte had questioned her over them, and Sarah knew that there would come a day when ‘I’ll tell you another time’ wouldn’t work anymore. She hated the thought of revealing the truth to Charlotte – no parent wanted to tell their child such an awful truth about half their parentage. Sarah wished that she could hide the truth forever, shield her from the pain the knowledge would taint her with, but Sarah knew the truth would be revealed one way or another, and ultimately it would be better coming from her than from a secondhand source that would distort the truth.

Gerard’s chair scraping against the floor brought her out of her reverie. She watched him drop his plate in the sink, not even rinsing the plate before he grabbed another beer from the fridge.

“Oh, I’m expected to clean up then?”

Gerard’s straightened his back instantly, facing her swiftly with an eerily calm face. Sarah could tell that she had really struck a nerve. His eye was twitching, and though his expression was otherwise calm, there was a blaze behind his eyes that betrayed exactly how he was feeling. She felt a strange sense of victory every time she knew she got to him.

“You made the mess.”

He slammed the fridge door with vehemence, more than likely wishing he was taking his anger out on her instead. He stared her down for a minute, though it felt like an hour, both of them determined not to break the battle of wills between the two of them. The tense atmosphere between them reached its peak, and it was wound so tightly that anything was likely to set it off. It was Bilbo’s whining that cut through their intense show down, and the yelp he let out drew both of their attention to the animal who was becoming increasingly distressed by the ill-feeling that engulfed the kitchen. Sarah let out a sigh, mentally shaking her head to calm herself down. She shouldn’t let herself get riled up so easily. She hated that Gerard was able to provoke her with the simplest of actions; most of them were probably not even deliberate. He got under her skin, raising her defences without even trying. Everything about him, from the way he talked, to the way he walked, even the way he breathed, grated on her nerves.

She kept her mouth shut, deciding that she should be the bigger person and just let it go. It wasn’t going to help their situation if she rose to the bait every time – it was tough enough for them to get along as it was, and she wasn’t going to give him more cause to be an asshole. She cleaned up the dishes, leaving Gerard to do whatever the hell he wanted to do. She just hoped they wouldn’t be stuck in the cabin for too long.

Gerard went through his bag, finding his gun and the ammunition he had brought with him. He had brought a spare gun along too, deciding it was better to be cautious. His jaw was still set too tightly, his teeth grinding in frustration at the women downstairs. He was bitterly regretting doing this. She was goading him, waiting for him to snap, though for what purpose, he had no idea. He was aware that he was letting her toy with his emotions far too easily. She had a knack for tapping into the worst part of him, something that worried him greatly. He was normally better at containing himself. He never let his job get to him, no matter how many dead bodies he had to search and look at over and over again to find a piece of the puzzle he had missed. Even when a rookie was being thrown at him, making him responsible for training the unfortunate rookie up to standard, he never lost his temper when they messed up standard procedure or asked the most inane, stupid questions he had ever heard. He could count to ten, take deep breaths in, and release his agitation and annoyance out with his exhaled breath. He hated that she was able to get such a strong kneejerk reaction from him without even trying. No other person had ever been able to provoke him with such intensity, and it only fuelled the anger he felt towards her. He needed space away from her, so he avoided trekking back downstairs. He had taken a six pack with him to his room, the one he would occupy as a child when he would spend summers here with his parents and Mikey. It was a lifetime ago, but the memories were as sharp as ever. He didn’t revel in the memories. They only reminded him of what he had lost, and being back in a place that held so many good memories wasn’t good for his head. He had avoided coming back here for a reason, but he knew that Mikey wouldn’t come here. He was so young back then, being four years Gerard’s junior, that Gerard would be surprised if he had any memories of it at all, let alone know what state it was in. He drank himself into a happy medium that night. He was a bit tipsy, but not drunk enough that he wouldn’t be able to function in the morning. Sarah wanted him to teach her how to defend herself, and he would stand by his promise to do so. He hadn’t promised that he would go easy, however, and he smiled when he thought about bringing her down a peg or two.

Sarah slept uneasily that night. She had let Bilbo out to do his thing before she crept into the large bedroom she had dumped her clothes in earlier. She was glad to see the place was well kept over the years. The sheets smelled fresh, and the large bed was fit for a king, or at the very least a big step up from sleeping on a couch. It wasn’t until she had shed her clothes and slipped on a tank top and short shorts that she realised there was no radio to be seen, or a television, to drown out the silence. She let out a sigh, knowing that it was going to be a long night. She wouldn’t sleep, and even if she did manage a few minutes of rest, the panic attack she would suffer in its wake would pretty much void any benefit it should have given her. She curled up in bed anyway, in the hope that maybe the light from the lamp would be enough.

Gerard was asleep when the familiar sound of scratching pulled him out of his fitful sleep. He blinked twice; his eyes growing accustomed to the darkness while his brain discerned dream from reality. It was a yelp that brought him crashing back to the present. Without thinking, his threw the covers off his boxer-clad body, rushing out of his room within seconds. Even in the shadows, he could see Bilbo’s paw swiping at the door down the bottom of the hall. Bilbo jumped up, clearly in some kind of distress. Gerard felt slightly calmer, seeing that it wasn’t an intruder. He had a feeling that it was another one of Sarah’s panic attacks. Part of him wanted to turn back, go back to bed and forget about it. It wasn’t his problem, and he wasn’t her keeper. He sighed, running a hand through his hair in frustration when he realised that he couldn’t walk away. He was an asshole, but he wasn’t inhuman. His bare feet sounded loud, treading the wooden floor down the hall. He opened the bedroom door without knocking. His eyes burned.The lamp that filled the room with light was brighter than the sun, or it may as well have been, with how it stung his eyeballs. His eyes automatically found the large double bed in the middle of the room, frowning when he saw Sarah on the bed with the covers kicked off, her body twisting and writhing on the bed with pained moans emitting from her mouth. He swallowed when he saw her tank top had risen up, exposing her stomach. The silvery white lines were faded, and yet they stood out clear as day to him. They were dispersed over her lower abdomen, and her left hip, in jagged lines that marred what was otherwise perfect, pale skin. He felt ice cold, seeing the startling reality of what Mikey had inflicted on her on the night that he had stabbed and almost murdered her.

He was taken aback by the sight. He had read her file; he knew the details. She had been stabbed five times in the stomach, almost dying from the blood loss and it was nothing short of a miracle that she hadn’t miscarried her child. He knew that she had been raped that night too, something that had been a regular occurrence for her during their marriage. Knowing, and seeing, were two different things, though. Seeing the damage Mikey had inflicted, having the scars shoved in his face unexpectedly, stunned him. His years of reading graphic files, looking at photos of crimson covered bodies and graphic rape reports had desensitised him to words and pictures. Seeing it in the flesh still affected him, though. Part of him was pleasantly surprised by that fact, and maybe even a little bit grateful that he wasn’t completely hardened by his job. When the shock wore off, he began to recognise another feeling that he wasn’t happy with. His eyes racked over her body, and he felt a stir in the pit of his stomach that he hadn’t felt in what was probably a long time. Her tank top had risen up, exposing her scarred flesh, and the low cut gave him a glimpse of her ample chest. Her shorts were indecently short, barely covering her bottom and showing off her long legs. He let himself admire the sight for a few seconds, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight. Her presence in his life was unwelcomed, but he was a man, and one that appreciated the female form. He got himself together, with a shake of his head, and rushed over to the bed. She wasn’t having a panic attack as he feared, but she was clearly having a nightmare, and an intense one at that. Now that he was in better control of his faculty, he could hear how laboured her breathing was, how distressed it sounded to his ears. Her face was scrunched up in pain, and he felt a pang of sympathy that didn’t sit well on his chest. He sat on the edge of the bed, calling her name in a loud, clear voice. He hoped it would be enough to wake her up and pull her away from her world of pain, but even when he repeated in a louder voice, it didn’t work. He was about to shake her awake when Bilbo jumped on the bed, licking her face. Gerard was about to grab the dog, but after a few seconds he saw Bilbo’s attentions were calming her down, without waking her. He didn’t know how she was sleeping through it, but her breathing slowed down and her tossing and turning had stopped. He watched, fascinated by the sight. She rolled over onto her side, letting out a loud sigh, but otherwise she was calmer. Gerard sat there, waiting for her to start twisting again, but, when Bilbo lay down beside her, cuddling close to her body, he realised that he should leave before she woke up and caught him.

“Bilbo,” he whispered with authority, taking a few steps towards the door. He stopped at the doorframe, looking back to see that Bilbo hadn’t moved a muscle. He frowned, completely surprised that Bilbo ignored him, when he was normally an obedient dog.

“Bilbo,” he whispered louder, an edge of anger to his voice. Bilbo raised his head, looking Gerard dead in the eye before laying his head back down to rest on his paws.

He sighed, recognising defeat when he saw it. He shut the door behind him, trying to erase the image of Sarah sprawled on the bed, her skin on displayed for his eyes only.

Notes

Sorry for the delay, I got lazy with writing over the last week. Forgive me.

Feedback is welcomed, as always. Thanks for reading!

Lyra