Taste of Fury by M Comley (dark academia books to read txt) 📗

The man continued to yell at her, his tone a pathetic mix of fear and desperation. Then a foreign language emerged which caused her to pause for a moment.

“You fucker. You come to our shores and kill people. You’re all the same, you come from war-torn places where losing a loved one is to be expected. It means nothing, does it?” She didn’t have a clue what she was spouting, it just sounded feasible to her. The rage inside her bubbled to the surface, it guided her thoughts and her aggression. There was no holding back, not now that she had begun.

She bashed both of his legs, one after the other, with several hard blows. He howled in pain and tried to use his arms to defend himself, but she clattered his hands with the bat. A few of his fingers were now hanging at awkward angles. He placed his hands on the ground behind him and tried his hardest to crawl away, to escape her. But she was all over him, bashing him continuously with the bat.

Defeated, he pleaded with her to stop and then said one word, “Why?”

She paused mid-air and glared at him. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

He frowned and, after a few moments of thinking time, he shook his head. “No. I’m sorry. I think you have the wrong person. Tell me what I am supposed to have done,” he said, his accent thicker than before. Maybe that was the pain reflecting in his words.

“Don’t take me for a fool.” She battered his arm with several fierce blows.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, tell me.”

“Eighteen years ago, does it ring any bells?”

His eyes widened and he instantly bowed his head in shame. “I regret that incident. It wasn’t my fault. Anyway, I was punished for my part. How does it affect you anyway?”

“You killed my mother and father.”

He gasped. “You’re the little girl who survived.”

“Yes, I’m the little girl who survived and has lived a life of torture. Reliving the crash time and time again in my nightmares, but that doesn’t matter. This isn’t about me. You killed them and left him… incapacitated,” she screeched.

“Who? I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

His continuous denials made her blood scorch her veins. She sneered at him. “There were two children travelling in that car that night, not just me. Daniel was in a coma for months. When he woke up, he was no longer the boy I used to chase around the garden for stealing my notebook and crayons. He was rendered brain damaged. You have no idea the suffering he has endured since then. His life expectancy has been cut in half. All because of you and your friends.”

Fear widened his eyes. “No! It wasn’t me. I had no control over what happened that night.”

“Bollocks! You got in the car, didn’t you? Out for an illegal ride in a stolen vehicle, never considering what the consequences might be driving a strange car.”

“That’s true. We were idiots. I’m sorry for your loss, for how your brother is now. If you let me go, I’ll try to make amends. I have my own business, I can contribute financially to your brother’s care. Please, let me do it. I’m not a bad person, I swear I’m not. All that happened in my youth, had it occurred today, I would have offered you and your family support. Take it, I’m offering it now. I can make sure he has the best nursing staff available to him.”

Megan was seething inside, her lip curled and she spat at him, hitting him full in the face. “As if I’d ever take blood money from you. Daniel has the best care possible. We do everything for him, see to his needs, what’s left of my family and I would never desert him. He’s a part of us, no matter what state his body and mind are in now. We love him, he’s still Daniel to us, that will never change.”

“Good, I’m glad he has you to fend for him. Please, I want to help financially, to ease your burden a little. Won’t you let me?”

“To ease your guilt, you mean. We’ve done all right without you up until now, what makes you think supplying us with money will do any good in the future?”

“It can help. Take it, take all I have. I can start over. I’m successful, I have the knowhow to create another business. Please, listen to me. If you love your brother, you’ll accept what I’ve just put on the table for you, without question.”

“How dare you! If I love my brother… what a thing to say after what I’ve already done for him.”

“What’s that? You care for him, yes?”

She leaned in, looked him in the eye and sneered, “I’ve killed for him and I’ll gladly do it again, until I have avenged our parents’ death, and how you and your friends left him.”

The man shrank back, horrified by the impact of her words. “Isn’t there anything I can say or do to make you reconsider?”

She shook her head, the anger building to a crescendo now. With the bat extended, hovering over his shins, she extracted a knife from the back of her trousers and raised it high above her head.

He held up his hand. Tears poured onto his cheeks. His lips trembled and his head shook. He pitifully pleaded for his life. “No, don’t do this. Let me make it up to you. I have the money to give you everything you want in this life.”

She’d heard enough. Megan screamed and plunged the knife into his chest, over and over again. She had no concept of time as she stepped back from the bloody mess. Surprisingly, there was no great sense of pleasure. She picked up her belongings, leaving the wire in situ, and ran out of the forest.

A couple rounded the corner and wished her a good evening. They got closer and stared at her and then