The hangman's first love

12 Burn it down

Jay's head ached when she woke up and somehow she wasn't able to open her eyes. Nevertheless her nose functioned very well.

'Did I forgot the cake in the oven?' was her first thought while the second thought called herself a fool for thinking she could have left something in the oven over night. At least Cole would have found and saved it, or not?

No, maybe not. He tended to forget and burn food quite often. But nevertheless something felt off. She had the strange feeling that she should hurry and wake up, so she forced herself to open her eyes. The light dazzled her and her mind couldn't grasp why she was laying on the kitchen floor.

She struggled up into a semi-sitting position and realized that her stomach and rips ached. It took a few seconds more until her memories came back.

Nardakhan!

Her heart stumbled with horror and, despite she was still on the ground, she felt like she was falling.

He had tried to sleep with her and then had knocked her unconscious!

Jay's gaze wandered around fearfully but she couldn't see him anywhere. He must have left before she had woken up. Relieved but still on guard she looked down and found half dried blood on her apron.

No, he wasn't there and, as long es she could tell, he hadn't touched her. It seemed like her clothes were still in place. But why? Hadn't it been her body that he had desired so much? So why hadn't he taken the opportunity? Sure, she was glad that he didn't, but something seemed fishy.

As quiet as she could she got up and looked around. It was in fact the cake in the oven that was burning to coal but at the moment she decided to ignore it. Wherever Nardakhan was, he was not in the kitchen and she didn't want to risk him coming back by making noises.

Her heart hammered in her chest and she heard her blood rushing in her ears while she was sneaking to the window. No one seemed to be outside, so she opened the door and left the house. She thought about going to the city but she couldn't be sure that Nardakhan hadn't noticed anything after all. What if he had told someone? What if they would chase her and ...

No! She wouldn't think about that now. But an other good reason for not going was that she must look horrible. Beaten, frightened and bloody. The people would talk and cause a lot of problems for her and Cole, that was for sure.

Suddenly the chickens on the other side of the house began to cackle, and made her flinch. It wasn't their usual cackling and squawking, more of panicky and ominous shrieks Jay only had heard once when a fox had entered the enclosure. Torn back and forth between the urgent need of looking after her chickens or running away (but still: where to?) she froze on the spot. What should she do? What did Nardakhan expect? The last thing she wanted to do was to play by his rules!

With trembling limbs she put one foot in front of the other. He surely didn't expect her to stay!

It felt like forever until she reached the corner of the house and lurked around it.

When she saw the horror at the enclosure, one of her hands darted up and pressed itself against her mouth to avoid any noises . Nevertheless it seemed to take a few seconds for her brain to process what she was seeing. It was just too absurd and horrific but no matter how hard she tried to deny the truth, it was real: Nardakhan held one of her brown feathered chicken at its throat. It didn't move and there was so much blood everywhere. An other chicken, the white one, was lying on the ground and didn't move either. The two remaining fluttered around nervously and screamed and shrieked terribly.

Nardakhan laughed and threw the motionless chicken at the panicking birds. Jay expected he would go after them too, but he just turned around and left the enclosure, locking the gate carefully.