IPKKND New FF: The Redemption - Chapter 5 : Concern

He was in hell.

That was the only way he could explain what was happening in that moment, what he was feeling.

The pain he felt was so acute that he couldn't breathe. Maybe he was dead? He wished he was. Maybe then, he wouldn't have to remember what he had seen just now. Maybe then, his mind would stop playing the scene in front of his eyes, over and over and over again. Maybe then...just maybe, the shards of ice running through his veins, ripping him apart, would stop.

He didn't realize he was in his bedroom until his knees hit the edge of the recliner and made him stumble. He collapsed into it and rested his head against his hands, hoping it would slow the rushing blood. Pulling in a lungful of air, he tried to ease the tightening in his chest. His hands felt clammy, cold. Sweat was seeping down his forehead. He tried to lift his hand to wipe it away, but even that small act left him feeling drained.

Closing his eyes, he tried to shut out the world around him. However, he failed to shut out the memories his brain was pelting at him. His throat ached from holding in such intense emotions and his head pounded in tandem with his racing heart. It felt like the broken pieces of his heart was clanging against each other, tearing into him.

"She doesn't mean anything to me."

"Then why do you stay with her? Leave her!"

In an uncanny moment of clarity, his eyes snapped open as he remembered what this would do to the one person that he loved more than anyone else in the world.

"Di," he breathed, as if speaking any louder would attract her attention to the abhorrent situation.

At the thought of his sister, he felt his pain increase tenfold. This would kill her; destroy the little parts of her he had been able to scrape back together after their mom's death.

"No," he shook his head vehemently, refusing to believe that. "No, I won't let them hurt you."

With that thought, he felt his heart start racing again, in anger this time. The sensation of ice that had settled over him was replaced with the fierce fury running through him.

He would show them who they were messing with. He would make them pay. He would turn their lives into living hell, just like they had done his sister's.

They had evoked the demon in him, and they would suffer the consequences.

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"There is nothing like wounded affection for giving poignancy to anger."
- Elizabeth Gazkell