Protector - Laurel Dewey [44]
“You keep playing where you shouldn’t be playing
And you keep thinking that you’ll never get burnt (Hah!) . . .”
“What the fuck are you waiting for, you little cunt!” Dale yells over the music. “Go on. Pull the fucking trigger! I dare you.” Jane slides her finger onto the trigger. The workshop rotates around her. “You don’t have the guts,” Dale screams.
Jane can hardly see out of her right eye which is now completely flooded with blood. She blinks hard in a wasted attempt to clear it. “You don’t . . . know me . . . very well,” she manages to get out.
“I know you better than anyone. You think you’re tough, but you’re nothing! You think you know how to win, but you’ll always fail.”
“I’m going to kill you now,” Jane utters, with no emotion.
“Is that so? You’ll go to prison.”
“I’ll go to ‘juvie.’. . . I’ll fake insanity . . . I know the ropes. . . I’ll be out. . . when I’m 18 and you’ll still be dead.” Jane feels the sweat of her finger against the steel trigger and starts to put pressure on it.
“What about Mike!” Dale yells. “When you’re stuck in juvie, who’s gonna watch out for him and protect him?” Jane stands firm, still pointing the barrel at Dale’s head but saying nothing. “You don’t have an answer for that, do you?!” Dale screams. “Stupid bitch didn’t think about that! You know where the little fuck’s gonna end up? . . . A foster home! And the guy who runs it will butt fuck him every night because he knows Mike won’t fight back! You want that on your head the rest of your life? If you do, you dumb bitch, then shoot me! Shoot me!”
Jane can hardly see through the blood. The more she tries to think rationally, the cloudier her perception gets. Dale’s face waves in and out of focus as the gun becomes heavier. And through it all, the song plays against the moment.
“These boots are made for walkin’, and that’s just what they’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.”
Jane strains to focus. She can see that Dale is slowly moving toward her. As the blood clears from her eye, she can clearly make out that he is smiling.
With a sudden jolt of movement, Dale slaps her arms off to the side. Jane pulls back on the trigger and blows a hole in the ceiling. Dale grabs the revolver from Jane’s weak hands and throws it on the ground behind him. It falls against the rectangular mirror that leans against the wall, forging a deep crack in the glass. Jane stumbles backward. With his right hand, Dale grabs her by the throat and pulls her upright. She gasps for breath as she attempts to pull his hand away. “You are nothing! You understand me?” he screams. “You understand me?”
Jane manages to pull several of his fingers away from her throat. She looks Dale straight in the eye. “Fuck you!”
Then, another power suddenly enters Dale’s body—a power so destructive that it will stop at nothing until it shatters its target. Dale balls his fist and nails Jane hard against her cheek, sending her to her knees. Before she knows what hit her, she feels Dale’s boot kick her hard in the stomach. She falls to the side, trying to protect her body. But no matter how much she tries to take cover, Dale is relentless. He kicks her hard repeatedly in the groin.
The pain crescendos and then . . . nothing.
Jane opens her eyes and sees her reflection in the cracked mirror. She observes her father’s boot contacting with her body but