by Ryn » Mon Aug 28, 2023 2:35 pm
She relishes this. The simplicity after a night of confusing emotions and hard-fought half-realizations. But also just the purity of Doug's face derailing. Ryn does know how to put on a show, it's just not meant to be enjoyable for anyone but her. "You hurt them." A simple statement of fact as she takes the one stride it takes to stand in front of his desk. "You will stop and I will demonstrate to you why."
She doesn't wait for a response. It will be anger, denial and lies more rank than the smoke that coats the inside of his mouth. There is only one language men like this understand and it is Ryn's native tongue. In one smooth step she's crouched on top of the desk and the letter-opener that had been sitting in a mug along with pens and pencils is in her hand. She slides heel first into Doug's chest, her other foot finding the edge of the desk as she pins Doug and his chair against the wall. When his hand reflexively grab her leg she drives the letter-opener down and through the gap between the two bones of his forearm, right where Cindy's bruises were.
She allows herself a moment to savor the grunt of pain and the welling of blood before she twists the handle and leverages his arm exactly where she wants it to strike her free hand against his arm just so. Both bones snap with a satisfying crunch against the blade wedged between them and she lets the useless arm fall away. Under her foot and beneath the fat and muscles she can feel a ribcage creaking. It's enough to make her forget about the left half of her body screaming in protest.
"Ready?" she asks, apparently all this just to prepare him. She knows it doesn't matter how much she breaks his body, sooner or later his impotent rage would lash out against Cindy and the other dancers again. He might promise otherwise, maybe even believe it himself in the moment, but Ryn knows better. Some lessons need to sink more than skin-deep, more than flesh-deep. Some things need to be driven into the soul like an icicle. She grins and her lips furl back to reveal teeth too broad, too sharp. Then she lifts the sunglasses from her face and all light leaves the room. Her pitch black eyes swallow Doug's world and leave only the pale blue fires dancing within the abyss like ice that burns. There is a truth in them that most humans forget as they grow old but that every child knows. There is a darkness that lives only underneath beds and in closets at night, stands over waking minds gripped by sleep's paralysis, dances in the corners of eyes. He is so small and there is no door out of this room anymore. No weapon stashed in a drawer. Where safety and normalcy once reigned is only the empty dark. Forever.
And then the sunglasses descent again, leaving only the hint of a blue shimmer dancing behind them.