“I’ll make it worth your while,” she answered, and her smile broadened. “What are you offering?” he looked over his shoulder. “If you get my car started and show me how good you are with your hands, I’ll show you how good I am with my mouth,” she winked at him.
Martin smiled, “Where’s your car?” “It’s parked around the block, but we can cut through the alleyway.” Martin nodded and walked past Ness and into the alley. He was a few steps ahead of her, and Ness had no idea what she was doing. She kept gulping and could see everything in the alleyway like if someone had flooded it with light. She had to control her shaking hands. It was then that she saw a beer bottle lying beside one of the dumpsters.
“Wait, don’t I know you from somew—” the impact sent him sprawling forward, and his head made a loud thud as it hit the ground. Martin whimpered and groaned. He slowly rolled over to see his attacker standing over him with a broken beer bottle. He could feel the warmth pulsating out of his head. “You bitch,” he muttered. Ness growled and launched herself onto his body and stabbed the broken bottle down onto his face with as much force as she could. The first blow penetrated his right eye which instantly started oozing blood and other ocular fluids. Martin screamed out in pain and tried to push Ness off him, but the second blow from the bottle was already returning. This blow slashed into his nose and penetrated his cheek. Martin’s screams were spraying blood now as it poured back into throat from his butchered nose.
Ness continued to slash at his face until it was no longer recognizable as anything human and finally stopped her slashing when Martin stopped moving. She stood up and looked at him. She could smell the alcohol in his blood that was pouring out of his mangled face. She could see a few air bubbles popping close to where his lips used to be. His breathing was shallow and labored. He gurgled as the blood continued to seep out of his wounds, until all of his breathing stopped.
Ness watched the life leave his body, and the feeling that she felt wasn’t what she expected. She expected to feel some sort of satisfaction, but now, all she could feel was cold. The rage had left it her, and it was replaced with a sense of dread. With shaking hands, Ness threw the makeshift murder weapon aside and ran for her car. She needed to get away from here.
4
“Fuck!” Ness uttered to herself as she drove on the interstate toward North Utica. She still had around 30 miles left before home, and even though she was tempted to drive as quickly as she could, she knew if she was pulled over for speeding now the officer would notice that she was covered in blood. She had to get home to think clearly because at the moment, all of her thoughts were in a panicked state. Ness looked at her hands and could see that they were much darker than normal. She rubbed them on her jeans, but nothing helped: she could still smell the iron and alcohol around her.
“Keep it together, Ness. You’re almost home,” she whispered repeatedly. 30 minutes later, Ness pulled onto her street and drove toward her home. It was already late, and she knew that her dad would most likely be asleep. Heck Elliott’s drinking habits had become much worse after losing his wife, and if he wasn’t on duty at the police station, he would normally fall asleep in his armchair with a bottle of Jim Beam in his hand.
Ness slowed down as she approached the house and could see her dad’s sheriff department Land Rover parked in the driveway. She killed the headlights of her Honda Civic and parked next to the Land Rover. The lights were on in the house, but she prayed that her dad had a few too many and passed out.
She exited her vehicle and approached the front door, but as she became more illuminated by the porch light, she could see how much blood she actually had on her—it was much more than she initially realized. If one of the neighbors—by chance—noticed her, it would be a definite death sentence. She moved out of the light and went around the back of the house. She approached the kitchen door at the back and could see that all the lights were off here, so she pulled out her keys and quietly unlocked the door.
Once inside, Ness moved quietly through the kitchen and could hear the TV playing in the living room. She had to pass by the living room on her way to the stairs. She neared the doorway to the living room and she slowly peered inside. She could see her father’s balding head hanging slightly backward over the headrest of the recliner, and she could see by his lack of movements that he was asleep. She moved past and went upstairs. She needed to get cleaned up and quickly.
Once Ness got into the bathroom, she looked at herself in the mirror, and what she saw truly horrified her. Martin’s blood had saturated all of her clothes, and it even matted large portions of her hair. She nicked one of the arterial branches in Martin’s face, and this caused a fountain of
