The Switchblade Mamma

by Lindsey Schussman

  26.

  Nervousness shook through my body like an insane twitch. I was dressed and ready for battle. Everyone was in the holding tank, rattling about. Complaining about this, bitching about that. I held my hands to my ears and tried to block it all out, I had to concentrate. I had to know my course of action. The voices kept rambling about, back and forth, about nothing. I sat upon the cold metal bench, head pointed down, eyes closed. My mind was trying so desperately to draw a blank.

  I became worried as Barrett finally received the phone call. We were summoned out onto the floor. My mind was never cleared, nor course of action obtained. As we left the holding tank and walked out into the corridors, my mind was still ablaze with a worthless banter.

  Paige, Barrett, Clive and Fitz were all there. The lights that were beaming onto the floor, were blaring into my eyes. I could not gather one completion of my thoughts. I swallowed hard as Fitz shoved the bow staff into my hand and turned me toward the metal gates. I held onto the staff hard and gritted my teeth. I took a deep breath as I watched big Beautiful Bo walk onto the killing floor. Her tall stature and her long brown wavy hair, complete with her dark eyes and firm chin structure made me shake in my Doc Martin steel toed boots. I swallowed hard. My song began to play. I dropped my staff, threw off my jacket like a rock star, picked up my staff and walked onto the floor, lights piercing in my eyes all the way.

  I'm not a slave to a god that doesn't exist... Sure, that may have been true, but I was a slave to a man with an ass load of money. As my theme song was blasting, I walked up to Big Beautiful Bo, both hands tightly wrapped around my staff.

  The fight began and the crowd rumbled with a low bellow. Beautiful Bo and I began to circle each other. I twirled my wooden staff, showing off my skills and she twirled hers even better. Twinkle toes and fancy footing, Bo gracefully tip-toed her way over to me. She made the first blow and I raised my staff high in defense making a loud clacking noise as our thick wooden sticks clashed together. I felt her strength as it crashed down on me like thunder. Her bow fell hard upon mine, nearly causing me to lose balance and to fall.

  Beautiful Bo made lunges, striking and hitting the mark every time. I tried blocking them the best that I could. Every time I could feel the strength behind her blows, thus weakening my arms. Every time that I struck back, she blocked it. My blows were nothing compared to her strength. I had nothing that I could pin against her. When at last my arms had enough, she knocked the staff from my grasp sending it under the fence and out of range. Recovery of my weapon was no longer existent.

  Panicking, I reached for my knives. Neither one was there, my pocket was empty. I felt my heart sank as I remembered, I forfeit my knives for the wooden staff. I was now completely defenseless. She was still making strikes and I was trying my best to dodge them. Every time I went in, trying my best to punch, she hit me back even ten times worse. To buy myself some time, I was using the backs of my arms as shields. I could feel them become raw and then bloody.

  I became irritated with the game that she was playing. My face, with open wounds was bleeding from the damage that she had done. My anger had finally taken over. When I transitioned into berserker mode, a mode of anger that had created itself after the great beat down from Barrett, I anticipated her thrashing move and caught the bow just as it was meant to plow into my face with my hand. With my anger in place and through with her game, I yanked the bow from her hands and threw it to the side.

  My mind was complete rage, I was pissed. With nothing more to batter me with, Beautiful Bo lunged at me with her hands. Her gigantic hands grasped around my neck. They grasped hard and tightly. Before I knew, my back was planted onto the ground and Beautiful Bo was on top of me. I could see nothing but her black eyes and insane wavy hair draping over me. I grasped both of her wrists with my hands and tried so desperately to pull them away, nothing. I even took my nails and dug them into the skin of her arms as hard as I could. The skin was breaking and blood was flowing but Beautiful Bo didn't budge. With her tight grip and non-relentlessness, I began to lose focus and darkness clouded the edges of my sight. As I was on the verge of losing consciousness, one more thought came to mind. I could gouge her eyes out, but her head was too high for my reach. Her neck was close though and out of sheer desperation, I did something that I never thought I could do.

  I raised my left hand and placed my palm onto the bottom of her chin. I forced my fingers inside of her mouth and gripped the bottom of her jaw. I reached my right hand to her neck. I gripped and like tiny daggers, I dug into her skin. With all my might, I forced my fingers as hard as I could into her neck. It was almost like pulling a cooked turkey apart. As my fingers entered her throat, I gripped as hard as I could and pulled out the insides of her neck.

  Like a waterfall, blood gushed out all over my face. It was a tidal wave of red madness. It was quick but I knew it was painful. Beautiful Bo never saw what was coming. My virtue of mercy disappeared as her heavy dead body fell limp over mine, bits of her neck still clasped in my hand.

  In complete shock, I laid underneath her lifeless body as I heard the crowd cheer and go insane with complete uproar. I laid there still and silent, until the Gates opened and Beautiful Bo's team pulled her lifeless body off of me. With her tremendous weight removed, I still laid motionless on my back, staring into the bright lights, hoping that I would wake up and this would all be a nightmare.

  It was Barrett and Clive who finally lifted me to my feet. I stood there wobbly, weak and in complete shock, still holding the innards from Bo's neck in my hand. Feeling a complete sickness and disgust inside my stomach, I threw the neck parts from my hand and ran to the side of the cage. Grabbing the chain links with my right hand to prop me up, I expelled all evils from my stomach. I vomited on the killing floor. The exiting bile from my stomach was greeted by the crowd with a loud laughter.

  I fell to my knees. Right hand still grasping the metal chain links of the fence, I felt it being pulled away as Clive and Fitz dragged me away and carried me back to the waiting room. I closed my eyes the whole way and barely walked. The two men held my lifeless body, but mostly drug me.

  As we entered the room, I rushed to the corner where the shower was. I continued to vomit. I continued to be sick to my stomach. I stood on my hands and knees trying to retch out everything. I looked up and saw Barrett, anger in his face.

  "Fix this, please. You know where we will be." Barrett's face was expressionless but Stern as he spoke the words to Paige. He turned and went to the door. Clive and Fitz followed suit.

  As soon as the boys left the room, Paige rushed to my side, her hands holding

  mine, still covered in blood. I was out of it and shaking uncontrollably. "Lillian, please look at me. Snap out of it baby, please let me see your beautiful green eyes."

  I did, I looked at her, but I couldn't face her with what I had just done. I pulled my hands away from hers and raised them up, slowly. Looking into her eyes, I quietly muttered words. "I killed. I spilled blood, I killed." I lowered my eyelids and shook my head. Blankly, staring at the ground, I spoke again. "There is no turning back now."

  Paige leaned in closer to hug me and to hold me closer to her. She planted my head on her shoulder and quietly shushed my ear. "It's okay, you had to. Everything will be okay."

  I wanted to believe that everything she said was true, but I knew it wasn't. I had a black mark placed upon my soul. The evil that was dwelling within me was tightly packaged. Now that the package was pierced, the evil was free to run its rampage within my mind. I swallowed hard and ingested not only my blood and remnants of my vomit, but the particles of her blood and bits of her soul. I took in a deep breath and tried to regain my collective conscience. If I was truly evil, I would have no doubts nor remorse for what I had just done. My mind was plagued with the replay of my hand tearing out her throat, over and over again. My sanity was stained by the fact that I could be going crazy. My soul was frightened by the fact that I could be evil.

 
Paige, with her beautiful tenderness, coaxed me from the ground. She got me to my feet and talked to me into a shower. I was covered with blood and could use the warm streams of water to wash away my guilt and the remnants of a dead woman. Paige helped me. Gently, she peeled off my blood soaked shirt. She lowered herself and pulled the strings from my steel toed boots, slowly lifting both legs and pulling off each boot. She then raised herself and placed her face in front of mine. She took her hands to my belt, undoing and removing it. She made sure her eyes were in contact with mine as she slowly undid my button to my pants and pulled down my zipper. Paige slowly pulled off my pants and threw them in the corner. Caressing and with finesse she slid off my panties. At my lower portions, she wrapped her hands around my ankles and slowly pulled off my socks. Paige trailed her hands all the way up my body until she reached my shoulders. She slid them slowly down onto my back and undid my bra.

  I stood there cold, naked and vulnerable. She gently pushed me into the corner and turned on the shower. I could feel the mist from the cold streams, prickling over my skin, as it slowly warmed up.

  When the shower was finally at temperature, Paige gently coaxed me in. The heat penetrated me instantly. I felt the pain as the warm water encompassed every open wound on my body. I closed my eyes as I tried to fight away the pain. The blood washed away, but the memories would always remain.

  I was cleaned, clothed and wounds mended. As Paige and I waited for the boys, we sat in the corner of the room, huddled together. I closed my eyes at first, just to let Paige think that I was sleeping, but I wasn't. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could think of was her. All I could see was blood spilling. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt nauseous.

  I felt like I needed some time alone, I wasn't going to get it with Paige, so I made up a lie. I shook Paige lightly until she woke.

  Her eyes slowly rose, tired and filled with sleep. "What is it?"

  "I don't feel too good, can I use the bathroom?" I knew there was a bathroom on-site. We passed it every time on our way in from the outside. It wasn't too far, it was probably about 15 steps, left turn and then another 10 steps.

  Paige took in a deep breath, slowly stretched and then exhaled. "Okay, give me a sec, I'll come to."

  I gritted my teeth and shook my head, holding my stomach I spoke. "Oh no, Paige. I would rather you not. I feel something tremendously disgusting brewing within my insides and to have you there would only cause me more pain." It was a 50-50 shot. I knew and Paige knew that all doors that lead to the outside were locked and could only be opened by key. A key which only belonged to the doormen and the very people that bring their fighters in.

  Paige thought about it for a moment. She nodded. "Okay, then make it quick. Do not let anybody see you."

  Graciously I nodded, turned and slowly departed out the door.

 

  .