Page 219 of Lau Ahi
“The bloody FBI? You think I’m going to trust you lot? Are you dense? You all couldn’t save my husband but you’re trying to get me to believe you’re here to save me? I’m sure you’d sooner put a bullet in the back of my head before you let me walk away from this.” I trusted Alec but he was no longer beholden to me. Ori was gone, the tether of our mutual connection now strictly business that he could handle through Pappy. Relying on him and his word wasn’t something I was willing to chance.
“I’m not asking you to trust them. I’m asking you to trust me. Ori was one of my closest friends. My partner. If anyone is going to walk with you to get justice for him it’s me. He told you a word to use whenever you needed to trust someone. Tell me that word.”
“Why? So you can agree you already knew it and then I’m the one in a shitty situation? No, thank you,” Margo’s eyes had to be strained by the back shifting they kept doing to watch Alec and me go back and forth.
“Fine.Palekana. Does that sound right?”
I hesitated. Thinking of the night that Ori and I discussed a safe word. One that was different from when we played. One that was the promise he always gave me.Palekana: to feel secure from danger. I felt like he was trying to get me to open up and trust Alec but I almost didn’t want to. I wanted to end this myself.
“I don’t want to.” My face was scowled my furrow so deep my eyes narrowed as I watched her looked relieved that Alec was taking control of the situation.
“I know you don’t. You’re so much like your husband that you want to handle your kills for yourself. But think of how badly she’s going to have it in jail. Her being dead is too good for her. She needs to be completely embarrassed. For the victims of the girls overseas, she needs to be brought to justice there too. Your name can be kept out of it but you can have the satisfaction of knowing that everything her family built on the blood of people that look like us will be returned to the victims of her and Brandt.”
“I will only put this gun down on one condition.”
“And what’s that? Your anonymity—”
I scoffed and almost took my eyes off Margo but I caught myself. “I could give a fuck less about that. I want to hurt her. To be able to visit her periodically and beat her ass the way she’d done me while I was locked up and helpless. I know you can make that happen here and my father can across the pond but I want your word.”
It was then that I relented and turned to him. He was in a black, loose athletic shirt and basketball shorts but he had his gun trained on Margo the same way I had.
Unblinkingly, he gave me a nod as he promised. “You have it.”
“Good. It starts now.”
I put the gun down on the table that was next to me and I saw Margo visibly relax. But then it was like the realization of his words hit her now that she was no longer in imminent danger. The way she realized her crimes would be broadcast and she would have to face the embarrassment. I felt an immense amount of joy at the way her life was going to fall apart and I would be around to witness it.
“Margo?”
Her eyes darted to me looking scared and helpless. The way she was almost silently pleading for my mercy made me glad.
“Yes.”
“Do try to fight back. I’d hate to remember you as a disappointment your entire life.”
Her eyes widened and she took a step back as I rushed her and tackled her to the ground. I could almost faintly hear Alec chuckle behind me but I tuned him out as I grabbed a chunk of Margo’s hair to hold her in place as I straddled her stomach.
“Asha, please!”
My fist hit her in the nose and I felt the pain in my knuckles but I relished the feeling. For the first time in months, I felt alive. Remembering the lessons Ori gave me I adjusted the way I was hitting her in the face to ensure that I wasn’t going to break any of the bones in my hand. The second hit was to her eye and she tried to push me off her, knocking my glasses off my face but I kept tagging her orbital bone until I felt it relent underneath the weight of my fists. The crack of her bone snapping was almost asorgasmic as the feeling of a knife plunging into someone's flesh. But this truly was superior.
I didn’t realize that Margo had been screaming until I hit her in the mouth and the sound stopped. The blood leaking from her lips was smeared over her teeth and dripping into her throat. I hit her harder and harder imagining the blood filling her throat and her aspirating on it.
“That’s enough.”
I heard Alec call out to me and I knew I should heed him but I couldn’t. She had done too much damage to me for me to excuse it. My hands went to her throat as I felt her try to pull my hair but the tugs on my scalp didn’t lessen the strength that came over me when I had my fingers around her neck. I stared in her eyes thinking of the number of times she’d been over me in this same way. With total power over whether I lived or died. Watching me attempt to escape and preventing it. The glee she felt at the thought of getting rid of me. My only wish was that she hadn’t been gone when I finally had the chance to kill Brandt. I would’ve eliminated her years ago and not have had this wraith hovering over my life for more than a decade. Watching me. Studying me. A bloody mimic who would’ve attempted to colonize my flesh given the chance.
“Asha, you have to stop.” Alec was over my shoulder but not physically touching me as Margo clawed at my hands. I leaned forward increasing the pressure on her throat knowing her hyoid could snap at any second.
“I don’t know if I can. I need her to die.”
“I know that’s what you want but you’re giving her the easy way out. Let her suffer. That’s the worst punishment you can give her.” His hand was now on my shoulder, a physical reminder that I wasn’t alone and he wasn’t just an apparition.
I released the death grip I had on Margo’s neck as she began to gasp for air; the blue of her face immediately flushing red.“You’re lucky he was here to stop me. Enjoy what comes next bitch.”
I spat in her face as I stood up watching her gasp and sob on the ground as if breathing were her right. Remembering what she’d done I lifted my foot and stomped on her crotch multiple times as Alec tried to pull me away from her.
“Asha, stop!”
