‘Heeere’s Johnny!’ Tippawan shouted with sadistic glee as he kicked open the door and stomped into the bathroom with his sleeves rolled up and his hands balled into fists.
Adriana did not hesitate. She swung her cupped palm, with its load of sloshy shampoo, straight at Tippawan’s face, slapping the stinging liquid into his eyes. He yelped with surprise and shock, but Adriana didn’t give him a second to react; she followed up her first attack with a soccer-style punt, kicking him in the testicles with as much force as she could muster.
He grunted as her foot slammed into his groin, and the force of the kick lifted him completely off the ground, but with the impact came a muted crack, and a jolt of pain rocketed up Adriana’s leg a second or two after her foot connected with Tippawan’s crotch. He howled hoarsely and stumbled back, clawing with one hand at his burning eyes and gripping his groin with the other.
Despite the stabbing pain in her ankle, Adriana did not let up in the ferocity of her attack, for to do so would be to relinquish whatever flimsy advantage she now held; she surged forward with a primal scream and smashed the wooden handle in a windmilling blow across the side of Tippawan’s head as he flailed and stumbled in pain. The blow connected with the side of his skull with a jarring impact that sent a shock wave up Adriana’s arm, but if it did anything to Tippawan he didn’t show it. With drool and spittle flying from his mouth, and his eyes reddened with the burn of the shampoo, he roared and flew into a counterattack, charging at Adriana with his hands outstretched.
She dodged his grabbing fingers and hit him again with the plunger handle, this time delivering a backhand blow and smashing the solid wooden handle across the bridge of his nose. That stopped him. He stumbled forward, raising both of his hands up to his blood-gushing, now-broken nose and screamed with pain. Adriana stepped swiftly to the side and crunched the plunger into the back of his head, hitting him as hard as she could. Then, as he crumpled to his knees, she prepared to hit him again. This time she gripped the plunger handle with both hands, raising it high above her head, and she brought it down in a wood-chopping blow that caught Tippawan right on the top of his skull.
The impact of the blow snapped the plunger handle clean in two and sent a numbing shock wave ripping up both of Adriana’s arms, causing her to drop the weapon. Tippawan grunted and shuddered, but there was still fight left in him despite the damage done. He had fallen to his knees right next to the toilet, and he gripped the edge of the bowl to try to get onto his feet again.
In spite of the pain that was blasting waves of fire through her ankle, Adriana aimed another soccer-style kick at Tippawan, this time punting him in the side of his face. The blow connected solidly, and the impact rocketed his head out to the side, causing it to smack against the rim of the sink with a sharp thud that cracked a big chunk of porcelain off.
That was it; all the fight seemed to slip out of Tippawan’s body, and he slumped to the ground, groaning, bleeding and gasping for breath.
Adriana, however, was not done yet. She needed to finish this now, before he recuperated, because if he did, he would surely kill her; she had seen it in those reddened eyes of his: murder. Murder.
Tippawan was on his back now, groaning and flailing feebly with his arms like an overturned tortoise. Adriana had one shot to end this, so she took it. She jumped up into the air and came down with both feet right onto Tippawan’s throat. She felt the sickening sensation of something living and organic being crushed beneath her feet, but she immediately slipped and fell, coming down hard on her side on the bathroom floor. She ignored the shooting pain that blasted through her ribs and backpedalled hastily, getting herself as far away from the man as she could.
Tippawan turned his head to the side to glare at her, and sheer hatred remained in his gaze, but something else was starting to enter his eyes now: terror. A strange gurgling sound came from his mouth as he opened it to say something, but no words came out, only a wash of frothy blood. He struggled to his knees and tried a feeble half-lunge towards Adriana but crashed face-first onto the floor instead. With a gargling groan he rolled onto his back, clutching at his throat with both hands. He began to make garbled retching and choking sounds and writhed in agony on the floor. He looked up at her again, but now the murder had fled from his bloodshot eyes and all that remained was a plea, childlike in its rawness and sheer desperation.
‘Adriana,’ Tippawan rasped through the froth of blood coming out of his mouth, his reedy words almost unintelligible. ‘Adriana … please … he- … help…’
She got up on shaky feet, avoided making eye contact, and started limping out of the bathroom, leaning on the wall for support until she was out.
‘No,’ Tippawan gurgled behind her, desperate and terrified as death approached. ‘No … please … help…’
She shut the door quietly behind her, blocking out Tippawan’s weak, strangled pleas. As her pulse thudded with all the force of a thundering metal drummer in her temples and ears she fell to her knees, breathing heavily, her conscious mind swamped by the overwhelming surreality of this moment.
All of a sudden, a gush of nausea blasted its crippling wrath through her body, and the realisation of what she had
