Frankly Told: Here I Am
The ropes burned at the wrists. The skin around them had long gone raw and the pain, almost numbed to the finger tips. She couldn’t see them but she could feel how her nails were caked in muck. The stone wall where she rested, soothed the side of a head, swollen in bruises. Her right eye teared but she did not cry. Her bottom lip felt heavy.
Beside her lay the body of another. She could tell by the slow, quiet, raspy breathing, they were on their last legs. She felt more pain in her heart than she did from the battery. The pain of watching her partner go through all that. To watch a woman who she cared for like a daughter beaten and bruised. How could she get them both out of here? She looked around the cell that had been her abode for the past close to forty-eight hours. A little strip of moonlight that slipped through the small excuse of a window high up on the wall was the only tell of the passing of time.
In the hallway outside the cell she could hear them. Her captors all jovial, talking about how they had one down, one to go and congratulating each other on the stokes and blows. Ever so loudly their locker room talk, sprinkled with misogyny and masochism cut through her ears and although the ringing in her ears had not desipated, it fuelled her rage. Every breath she took, she took deeper and deeper with purpose, with resolve. In her mind a plan began to formulate as the sounds of footsteps grew louder and louder.
Metal on metal clanged and the metal grill door screamed open. She looked up at the three figures that towered over her. They laughed maniacally, their bellies fit to burst through their shirts bouncing up and down. She burned holes into their eyes with the one eye that was capable of fully opening.
“Madam, understand here eh? You can look at us badly all you want… We do not fear you,” one of them spoke up. “You are just but a little weak woman. A woman should not be thinking she can run a man’s business. She should be at home caring for children and the home.”
She silently took in their words and laughter, using them to fan her resolve and twisting her wrists through the knots. With every little turn she felt the hold getting a little weaker. She began to assess her options. She had seen them in their last round of attacks put aside a metal rod just at the edge of the cell and they hadn’t claimed it. They had not paid much heed to her companion laying beside her and perhaps that was for the best. The numbers adding up in her plan surged energy through her starved and dehydrated body. As if uncomfortable with the silence, the men began again.
“Haiya, now you are silent eh?” the smallest of the three spoke up. “Me I liked the one over here, she was screaming so well. I don’t like the ones who keep quiet.”
With a single swip he swang his batton at the limp body. No response but a soft thud. He stepped back, dissatisfied with the effect of his efforts. He had hoped for some kind of better response. He studied his batton and shook his head in disappointment thinking it was all for naught but he had stirred a pot. A pot he would soon wish that he hadn’t. As if feeling the sheer hatred spewing, he turned to the lady who did not for a second move but her eyes remained trained on him.
Behind her back she had managed to free her hand, owing to the blood turned lubricant that now coated the rope. Her jaw clenched so hard she could taste iron, her teeth felt like they melted into each other but she kept her eyes locked on her mark. She knew who was going down first without an ounce of doubt. Every muscle in her body flexed in preparation. Her face softened to the amusement of the men who smirked thinking she had given up the fight. She counted herself down to brace for movement her body hadn’t tasted in many days.
“Knees don’t fail me now,” she thought.
“Ah madam-” before the one in the middle; who spoke first when they walked in, could finish his statement, she bolted off to the side narrowly avoiding her partner’s motionless body. In one graceful motion, she grabbed the rod and lunged at the three men.
Before they could scream for help, down rained blows that dripped with intent to kill. She lashed out without a care for where the blows landed. Even through it was three to one, the battlefield was definitely swayed in one direction. The men were pushed on the defensive and there was nothing to their defense but their backs against the wall and a tsunami of rage before them that threatened to engulf them. The one who lashed at her partner was the first one down, with a soft yelp his bulk fell to the ground with a thud. Motionless.
On to the next one who had began the taunting when the group entered the cell. He took three or four more blows than his predecesor before he went down too, with a high-pitched scream that left his lips like his masculinity. In those swings, she seemed to say all she needed to in response to his comment. One to go. This one was tough to have held on with the thrashing she had offered so kindly to all of them. In his size, she knew this one would be an easy take down but still she paced herself like a lioness in her prime and launched her final attack straight for his head.
There was a loud bang, a flash of light and she paused. A searing pain emanated from her chest but she only grimaced. Her eyes traced down to the epicentre of the pain to find blood already blotching the already dirtied blouse. The faux energy she had expressed drained from her body with quickness and she collapsed. The man lay petrified in the corner with his shaking gun still pointed at her . The fear in his eyes yelled regret and confusion in his silence, from his swollen face.
The blood she shed pooled on the concrete, joining hands with the pools from the prey she had taken down. With her energy, left her anger. She had made peace with this outcome of this endeavour before she even took the first step. A piece of her was relieved, she had put in one last hoorah to her legend. For the children these men had taken from her, for her own infants they slaughtered in cold blood, she prayed one last time. Cold slowly wrapped around her in a hug.
As her eyelids slowly slid shut, she heard the voices of her children calling out for her. Their joy as innocent as the day they met their demise.
“Here I am.” A mother whispered with her last breath, to her avenged children.
