The Right Path

Chapter Five

Louisa could sense that Victor Creed was right outside her front door, lingering in the hallway he detested so vehemently. She had sensed his arrival before he had even set foot into her apartment building, she could sense his murderous mood; his anger becoming stronger and stronger as he took the winding multiple of steps up to her apartment four at a time, clearing them with ease in giant leaps. His rage was almost like an invisible radar, sending out sonic waves of fury that radiated through the air. Louisa sensed that the anger was deep seated and had likely arisen from the recollection of a painful and undesired memory, although she couldn’t pin point which one exactly.

The front door shook violently as the raging man on the other side slammed his balled fist repeatedly against the wood. Louisa thought he might shatter it with his strength, send it flying from its hinges in a shower of a hundred thousand tiny splinters. She cowered for just a moment, hunching her shoulders over, quivering in fear of his arrival; then mustering some much required strength from deep within, she crept towards the door gingerly.

“If this door ain’t open in five seconds, frail, I will rip it from the fucking frame…” Victor warned with a quiet growl, hushed but loud enough so that Louisa could hear his venomous words. His voice was low and deadly, with all the precision and lethal calculation of a seasoned assassin. Louisa felt a bolt of icy fear shoot down her spine as she took in his words with a shiver. She stifled a whimper in her chest as she stepped forward, taking a hold of the door handle; her fingers trembling as she wrapped them deftly around the cool shiny metal. Slowly but surely, she eased the handle down and opened the door very slowly, inch by inch.

Victor waited, watching as the door was prised open, sliver by painful sliver. He wasn’t about to barge in like some maniac. He wanted to wait till the door was fully open, so he could walk in like the powerful and superior man he was, he found it so much more satisfying than skulking in like some greasy little pervert visiting a filthy clandestine prostitute.

When the door was finally wide enough for him to pass through, Louisa stood away to the right of him, out of his way and sheltering herself slightly behind the open door. Her palms felt sweaty and damp; her brow was beginning to bead with the first glistening droplets of sweat, her nerves manifesting themselves all over her body in a frenzied overdrive. Her stomach was on a spin cycle, her guts tumbling and turning with unchecked worry. She tried to stay her racing mind and calm herself, but she couldn’t, not in his presence, the emotions that radiated from him were far too distracting for her to even begin to empathically blast herself. Besides, a man like Victor was far too deadly for her to ignore…even for a second or two.

Suddenly, she felt a rush of wind crawl over her body, then a sickening crack as she connected with hard wood. Victor had moved so fast that Louisa wasn’t quite certain how she ended up with her back slammed firmly against her own front door; he was upon her before she even had a chance to react. The bones in her spine ached terribly and she groaned with the force of her unexpected impact against the painted wood. She yelped with a mixture of pain and shock, her body trying to combat the extreme pain that was invading her senses. Victor’s face hovered only inches in front of her own, his ragged breaths washed over her in warm droves. He had her pinned to the door, her arms up on either side of her shoulders, his immense hands were crushing her delicate wrists as he held her tight. She squirmed uncomfortably, painfully beneath his grasp, her wrists aching terribly under the pressure of his ministrations, she could her bones groan.

“I need the glow…and I need it now, frail.” His shoulder blades were raised and rounded in an overly aggressive display of superiority. His arms were locked out at the elbow, straight and frightening; his head dipped low into his chest and with heavy hooded eyes his gaze pierced her with his feral glare. His muscles moved and rolled beneath his taut skin, following their natural line in his developed forearms and biceps. He pulled his head up and back by just an inch, allowing his steely eyes to bore into her face. Victor held her there against the door, completely captive with his gaze. Louisa tried to look away, tried to focus on anything other than the terrible look that flashed in his eyes as he stared at her with a deadly and murderous intent. She saw something savage and wild dart about deep within his irises, like lethal grey meteor showers, his black emotions and thoughts exploded in a dizzying display of anger and need.

“Okay..okay…you can have it…but you have to let me…go Victor. Not…like this…” Louisa spluttered, her half formed words dripping from her mouth, coated in fear and repulsion. She didn’t want to have to beg him, but she certainly wasn’t above it where her very life was concerned.

Victor viewed her lithe body as he held her fast against the door. Her worthless frame was languishing against the wood, shrinking painfully under his shadow. She looked so mouth-wateringly tempting, pressed up against the front door all helpless and feeble; she looked like the perfect victim, he wouldn’t want her any other way…maybe beneath him? She was just as he could wish her to be, insignificant in his presence, trembling and terrified of him, fearing his every move. He drunk in the pungent aroma of her fear in deep nosefuls of musky air; the fragrance giving him the most exquisite head rush, a potent cocktail of power, strength and sex. She made him feel like a true predator, like the worst fucking thing imaginable out there, he felt like he was the very pinnacle of the food chain.

He thought about taking her right there against the door. He could imagine channelling all his pent up rage and fury into that delicate little pink cleft between her thighs. He would force himself inside her with all the anger and strength he could summon from his body. And oh how she would scream; she would bleed to death under his savage attentions. He would drive himself into her so deep that she would feel him pounding away inside her stomach; her squishy vital organs would tear and split and rupture. He would hold her down so hard that every bone in her body would break, crack and splinter beneath him as he continued to fuck her raw. He would leave her on her apartment floor; broken, used and torn, lingering on the precipice of death but not quite falling. It could take her minutes to die, or maybe even hours if he was careful. He imagined himself then, sat on a chair before her, his unfeeling eyes drinking in the sight of her destroyed and ruined body dying out in a pool of her own stagnant blood. He would laugh scornfully at her, at her uselessness and at her stupid mortality, he would smirk at her pain and unending suffering. And in her dying moments she would reach for him, her broken hand would crawl agonizingly across the lino floor towards him, seeking a last desperate ounce of mercy. He would stand to his full height, glare down at her with all hell in his eyes, then he would kick her to death.

Victor shook his head violently to the left and snapped back from his murderous thoughts. He stepped back but an inch, allowing Louisa some space to breath and himself a moment to think. But his gaze never left her, his eyes pierced her own with a ferocity and cruelty she had seldom seen in a man like him. Then, Victor growled something low and inaudible in his chest, and slowly released his iron like grip on her wrists. Louisa a slight sigh escape her lips as she felt the pressure on her delicate bones ease, feeling the tingling sensation of life breathing back into the veins. Instinctively, her hands flew to her wrists to soothe and rub the tender area of skin that had just been abused so cruelly.

“You know that I have to do this Victor? I have to go in; it’s the only way…” Her voice trailed off, terrified to speak further lest she incite his rage even more.

Eyeing her with terrifying intensity, Victor nodded and then fired off a warning shot.

“If you fuck with anything in there, I fuck with you. And this time, no amount of hospital visits will fix you, frail.” Victor vowed with every wretched fibre of his being.

Louisa nodded and stepped forward with all the care in the world. She felt as though she were treading on a million glass eggshells that could break at any moment. She didn’t want to do this, she would do anything to escape this moment. Caught between certain death if she refused to help him, and the tiniest chance to live if she agreed to help him. There was no certainty that once she came out of his mind that he wouldn’t cut her down where she stood. Withdrawing from Victor’s mind was always the most dangerous part of her arduous task, but it was a gamble she had to take. Louisa raised her trembling hands to the side of Victor’s head and inhaled deeply. With shivering fingers she reached forward and took hold lightly of the side of his temples.

She closed her eyes and went to work.

* * * * * * * * *
(FLASHBACK)

Victor stepped into the darkened bedroom as quietly as he could. He could hear the cold winter wind rattling the single pane of glass opposite the bed, a pathetic excuse for a window. The threadbare curtains were drawn and the darkness of the outside world was shut out from his home. Victor closed the door behind him as silently as possible. He didn’t want to wake her, he mustn’t wake her now; she needed rest, her body was failing her rapidly and she needed all the strength her ailing body could muster if she was to live through the night.

The stench of illness in the air was so thick, Victor though he might choke. He breathed it in deep, the foul smell filling his nose then travelling swiftly down into his lungs. To anybody else who cared to visit her, the bedroom would have smelt absolutely normal; maybe a little musty and stale, but nothing more. But to Victor, the smell of disease was as potent and as recognisable as burning wood, it consumed the entire room. The fragrance that ill health brought with it was a sickly sweet one; it hung in the nose and throat for days afterwards. The odour was like honey, mixed with black molasses and fresh tree sap; it polluted the very air you inhaled with its saccharine aroma. Victor blew out sharply but silently through his nose, trying to expel the stench from his senses, lest he be bogged down the syrupy stench himself.

He crept quietly to the end of her bed, the floorboard beneath his feet groaned under his weight; he stood as still as a statue, just looking. He watched her through devastated eyes, utterly destroyed as he watched cruel Master Death drag his innocent mother down into the depths of his murky world. Even in her own home she was not safe from him, he called for her still, beckoning her to join him in his Underworld. The rural doctors could not help her any more; their foul medicines and unfeeling instruments only causing her further distress, so Victor had her returned to their little cabin high in the Canadian mountains where he could tend to her needs. He had done all he could for her, but it still was not enough, she was dying and there was nothing in this world that Victor could do to halt the process.

His eyes ghosted over her ruined form once more, his eyes watering as he drank in the sight of her disease ravaged body. Her skin was almost translucent, it clung to her bones like parchment, lacking flesh beneath it to give any illusion of plumpness. Her brow was fevered; little droplets of fresh sweat dotted her forehead and trickled down her pale temples into the rank pillow beneath them. Her eyes were clenched shut, flickering occasionally as a dreamlike thought disturbed her sleep. Her body spasmed at regular intervals, a flick of the wrist, a twitch of the leg, convulsing subconsciously as the evil illness raged through her ruined body like wildfire.

* *

Victor was sad for his mother. He wished this life could have been better for her. She had married too young, wed to a man so wholly unfit for her it was a sin. Victor imagined it would have been preferable for her to either abort him as he grew in her belly, or give birth to him as an unwed mother. The shame and indignation of the two combined would have been nothing compared to the pain and suffering of living with Victor’s father.

His father, Thomas, was a large man, 6’4 tall and just as broad across. He was physically intimidating and it was a brave or foolish man that crossed him. He was also a very cruel man; a gambler, a womaniser and a foul drunk with an even fouler temper. He was quick with his fists and usually inclined to fight, whether he started it or not. Any money he earned as a lumberjack he spent on strong liquor and loose women, sparing the meagrest of amounts to feed and clothe his pathetic and pitiful family. He had many women outside his marriage, seeking succour and pleasure in the breasts of pretty ladies that took his fancy. He never even bother to try and hide his extra marital affairs, he flaunted them openly to whomever would listen to his lewd rantings. He had little or no respect for his long suffering wife, paying her no mind and using her as a figure of complete ridicule and sexual entertainment.

Victor had seen his cruel father beat his beloved mother on many occasions; with his fists, the fire irons, chairs, plates or anything else that happened to be close to hand during the sustained and vicious attacks. He had seen him strike her over the smallest of things, things that to anyone else would be so insignificant they would go completely unnoticed. The wrong drink, incorrectly made bed, food that was too cool, un-ironed collar on his shirt, all earned his mother a severe beating, the attack she suffered never a comparison to her ‘crime’.

Victor recalled a time not so long ago when he was awoken by the sound of raised voices on the floor below. He crept quietly down the stairs and hid outside the kitchen, once again listening to his drunken father screaming at his quivering mother. His father was in a blind rage again, the red mist of rage covering his eyes and cloaking any semblance of reason her may have possessed; his mother was weeping uncontrollably as his vindictive words stung her deep. Victor peered round the crack of the slightly opened door and saw his mother on the floor clutching her stomach with one frail hand, the other tucked firmly between her legs. She was crying hysterically, her sobs coming in long, drawn out, painful wails as she grasped at her belly. His father was above her, over her, reigning blow after blow of his thick leather boot into her abdomen, cursing wildly as he swung his foot viciously into her tender belly. She was curled into a tiny ball, obviously making herself as small as she possibly could to protect herself against his blows. His father was bent over her now, his large fingers twisted into her yellow hair, forcing her look at him through bloodshot eyes. He was screaming into her tear stained face; he was screaming about how he didn’t want another child, how the first one was so fucked up that the thought of having another made him want to end her worthless life, lest she give birth to another freak.

Victor remembered his father wrenching the kitchen door back so hard he dislodged the brass handle. Thomas stormed past him down along hallway without even noticing his presence; he grabbed his tatty old brown coat and took off into the darkness of the night without a single word. After what seems an eternity of sitting with bated breath, Victor finally crept into the kitchen; he was crawling along the crockery littered floor on his hands and knees so he could be by his injured mother’s broken side. She looked into his grey eyes with such pain and sorrow that tears began to flow openly down Victors face. He recalled how he stroked her back as tenderly as he could, how he tried to sooth her with his little words and hushed tones. He remembered how after the longest time, he eventually coaxed her shaking hand from between her legs and gasped in sheer horror as he saw her delicate fingers covered in her own sticky blood.

It wasn’t till a few weeks later that Victor learned his mother was three months pregnant with his baby brother or sister.

* *

Victor shook the dark memory from his weary head now, forgetting his worthless and wretched excuse of a father, instead trying to find comfort in the face of his beautiful sleeping mother. He watched the rhythmic rise and fall of her fragile chest beneath thick animal skin that blanketed her frail body. Her fingers twitched and curled into the flattened pillow her head lay on, groping in her sleep for something to cling to.

Victor crept around the side of her bed silently and crouched down low beside her. He smiled at her as he watched her; she was so striking, even if she was ill, she was exquisite. She reminded him of an angel, her thin blonde haired haloed around her head as she dozed. Next to her bed was a large ceramic bowl full of cold water; Victor dipped his fingers in carefully and retrieved a soggy piece of hessian cloth. Wringing it out with his hands, he placed the cool damp material on his mother’s forehead, hoping he might stem the rising heat that flashed through her.

His small and meaningful gesture awoke his mother from her sickly slumber, her eyelids fluttering open gently like the wings of a newly hatched butterfly in the heat of a summers sunshine.

“Thomas? Is…is that you?” His mother croaked with a dry chesty cough; her voice all but a whisper carried upon an exhalation of precious breath. Even in her last minutes of life she called for her absent and hideous husband. He evaded even in her final moments on this earth, preferring to drown himself in the deepest bottle of whiskey and in the company of cheap whores.

“No mother, it’s me…its Victor.”

His mother turned her head towards him weakly and smiled deeply. With eyes of glass she gazed at her only son’s face, his handsome features filling her with maternal pride. Her thinning hair was stuck to her face in long strands of sweat and clamminess. She tried to raise her hand; but her body, ravaged by disease and illness, failed her, her arm slumping back against the bed upon which she lay. Victor reached out carefully and took his mother’s hand in his own, careful not to nick her with his developing claws. He raised her hand to his face slowly, placing her fragile fingers upon his warm cheek and holding her hand there till she realised what was happening. For the longest time, her frosty gaze pierced his own with an intensity he knew the dying not ought to possess. She coughed again, dry and painful, her chest heaving under the strain. She settled within a moment or two then spoke softly into the ether of the candle lit room.

“Victor…my beautiful Victor.” She whispered.

“I’m here mother, I won’t leave you.” Victor whimpered; his resolve beginning to waver as his mother uttered his name from her dying lips.

“You are everything to me; you have been my sole reason for continuing on in this life. If it hadn’t had been for your birth, I would have exited this world a long time ago…” Her soft, tender smile remained on her pallid lips.

Victor was battling with his emotions, they waged a terrible and fierce war inside him as he grasped his mother’s hand. He wanted to be strong and keep his resolve so that his mother would cease to be sad; he needed to be strong for her now, his strength could not wane. But the other half of him was cracking and faltering as his emotions took hold of him. Tears were balancing on the inner rims of his eyes, threatening to betray him and trickle down his face in a flurry of emotion and sadness.

“What would you have me do mother? Tell me…anything…I’ll do anything!” He wailed as he threw himself to the floor, clutching her hand as if his very life depended on the strength of his grip.

“I would have you endure, my darling child. I want you to live strong and to carry on in this life. Try to forget the horrors you have witnessed in your young days and fill all the rest of your time with as much happiness as you can find. Remember that I did all I could for you, I only ever tried to be the best mother I could be…” Her breath was failing her now; her coughs becoming increasingly ragged and strained. Her chest rose and fell painfully, her lungs filled with the catarrh that was killing her from the inside.

“I will mother…I promise. I will live my life as you would have me live it.” Victor cried openly now, his tears falling down his face and melting away into his shirt as they dripped from his jaw.

She coughed one last time, spluttering in her death throes. Her emaciated frame quivered slightly a few times, stiffened for a second or two and then slumped back as the her miserable life eventually left her body. Her frosted eyes closed for the final time and her lips slackened as all her control vacated her. Victor felt her sickly hand go limp in his own, cooling quickly as her heart failed to beat; but still he held onto it for all his life was worth. Tears streamed down his face as he wept with abandon, his shoulders shook as he buried his face into the side of her bed.

His beloved mother was dead and the pain of her passing was more than he could bear.

(FLASHBACK ENDS)
* * * * * * * * * *

“GET OUT OF THERE, EMPATH!” Victor screamed at Louisa, the sheer rage of his voice filling her tiny apartment.

Louisa knew Victor’s mind, she remembered it fully and with frightening clarity from the last time she helped him. It was bad back then, twisted and mangled with dreadful memories and shocking emotion and thought. But this time things were different; his mind had plummeted to new depths of depravity and despair. Although Louisa lived most of her life in a constant state of some kind of fear, it had been many years since she had been truly terrified. But what she saw and felt in that terrible moment as he stood before her, disturbed the quaking girl to her very core, she had never known true terror until now.

Victor’s mind was like a scene straight from the ninth ring of hell in Dante’s Inferno. It felt like Louisa had been flung callously from the celestial heights of her own temperate mind into the raging, contorting pit of Victor’s thoughts. The inner sanctum of his mind was akin to Lucifer, the greatest traitor in all existence. His three bottomless foul mouths chewing ferociously at his hideous memories that hung from its jaws like slabs of decaying flesh. Satan’s immense red wings thrashed and flapped wildly, sending vile thoughts and horrifying memories blasting through his mind on a searing breeze of hatred and utter rage. It was a horrendously nightmarish scene where rhyme and reason held no court, unbridled anger and unadulterated rage were the only constants. It was a knotted and repellent landscape of terrifying emotions, heart wrenching memories and vague aspirations. The whole lot snarled together in one huge boiling pot of wrath and ire.

His thoughts were akin to a tangled pit of vindictive thorny vines, each one a memory or feeling that was vying savagely against the others to secure a place near the very forefront of his conscious mind. Each vine seemed to strangle the other that wriggled next to it, choking back an emotion or recollection as the stronger of the two took over. The whole cavern of his mind was of the deepest black and harshest red. It was as if someone had splashed buckets full blood onto the sides of his thoughts, it ran down the walls in long terrible lines and pooled murderously in the base of his skull.

Victor lunged instinctively at Louisa’s throat, catching her off guard and wrapping his clawed right hand around the full circumference of her skinny neck. Louisa’s hands flew to Victor’s arm, grasping at it wildly as his grip tightened further and further. His grey eyes bore into her own with a murderous intensity, rage and anger seething in his very skin. She saw a terrifying flash of his absolute fury burst behind his eyes then fall into shadow, dangerous and fatal. His anger knew no bounds, his fury had no limits, he was going to kill her and let her die out beneath him and he would laugh at her mangled corpse as she heaved her last strangle gasp of air.

“Please Victor…let me…go…” Louisa managed to choke out. She could feel the pressure building in her face, behind her pale eyes; her skin starting to turn red under his brutal ministrations. She tried in vain to adjust her position beneath his grasp in a vain attempt to breathe easier, but to no avail.

“I warned you…I’m going to fuck you up so bad, you’re gonna scream for me to end your miserable little life…” Victor’s voice had never been so lethal, and Louisa truly feared for her life. He squeezed his fingers even harder now, directing every ounce of fury into the fist closed around her throat.

“I was…just…doing what you…asked…me to!” Louisa managed to splutter out; her throat constricted to such an extent that she was really struggling to breathe. He was crushing her wind pipe and it felt like her cervical vertebrae were being pulled into her oesophagus. After another few seconds the pain in her lungs was becoming all too real and she was truly struggling to breath. The shallow gasps of air that filled her body were not sustaining her and she was fighting a losing battle. A dry gasp escaped her throat, followed by a few arid wheezes. She was beginning to feel dizzy, white flashes and spots blurred her vision as she tried to focus her eyes on Victor’s furious face.

“Please…” Louisa whispered with her last gasp of air. She was under no illusions that she was now pleading for her life in the grasp of an extremely deadly mutant.

With a flick of his great wrist, Victor sent Louisa crashing to the other side of her apartment. Her little body connected with the back wall of her living room with a deafening and terrifying crack, sending picture frames tumbling to the floor in a shower of glass shards and broken wood splinters. She cried out as her fragile body slumped to the floor in a tangle of trembling limbs and aching bones. Rolling from her side onto her back, Louisa’s hands shot to her burning right side just beneath her breast; she had felt the pain of broken ribs before and the agony she was in now felt very much the same. She arched her back slightly as she writhed in pain, her head lifting from the floor then falling back once more. Her breath was catching in her throat in dry wordless sobs, she was gasping slowly for air. The pain was causing blinding white spots to dance behind her eyes; she wailed once more, a plea for mercy mixed with a declaration of stinging pain.

“Please…Victor…” She choked out in a feeble beg. Her voice was so faint that it almost escaped Victor keen hearing, almost but not quite.

With watery hooded eyes, she cowered slightly as Victor came towards her; warm tears streamed down the sides of her temples as she lay beneath his feet. He crouched to the floor, low and still, predator like. His shadow enveloped her as she lay before him, utterly helpless and defenceless in her pain. He grinned at her, flashing her a deadly glimmer of his sharp white fangs. The look in his eyes was shamelessly feral, the animal deep inside him taking hold of him once more, shaking the bars of its internal cage violently within. Without warning, he placed one of his massive hands in the centre of her sternum and pushed down hard, pinning her to the floor. Louisa cried out in agony, the feeling of something in her delicate body giving way causing her more pain than she knew she could handle. He held her there against the floor, like a gloating, sadistic hunter standing over his well earned prey. He had her where he wanted her and he was never letting go. He lowered his head and hung his mouth just inches from her bleeding ear. He growled deep in his chest, letting it vibrate its way through his body and pass into Louisa’s. She felt the terrible tremble hit her and more tears slid from her eyes.

As he spoke, the toxic words dripped from his mouth like arsenic, poisoning the very air around them.

“We’ve tried it your way little girl…” He breathed deep in a deadly purr, “…now we try it my way.”