Casting Shadows

Chapter 14

Chapter 14 (Ruby's POV)

"Your father is dead," Gerard says bluntly. He sits with me at the bar in the stool beside me.

"What are you talking about?" I ask, the meaning of his words refusing to sink into my brain.

"He caused something completely wrong to happen today.  I had no choice but to end him."

I listen to what he is telling me, but I seem incapable of actually hearing and understanding him. "You told me a while ago that he was already on trial for treason. Did, did you lie to me?" I stammer.

His posture is relaxed and far too casual for the information he is giving me. He does not sound nervous or upset about delivering the news either, which causes my emotion to switch to anger.

"Yes, I did lie to you," he confirms. Nothing he is doing suggests any sort of empathy or compassion. "It's almost a shame. His service was quite helpful. You know, until he totally turned his back on me."

I promised Mikey that I would try to be nice and not hurt Gerard's feelings, but after hearing this news the only thing I want to do is rip this man's head off. It takes everything in me to stop myself from breaking down at this very moment.

"On the bright side, Andy is dead," he says. "This dimension officially belongs to the Black Parade."

Andy's death is a good thing to him. The death of someone who he knew for over one hundred years is good news for him. After going over that in my mind I finally snap. I stand from the bar stool and using all of my strength, I shove Gerard off of his seat.

He manages to gain footing without falling to the ground, but I take the opportunity to pounce on him while he is still off balance. We both fall to the floor, and I land on top of him. With my hand balled into a tight fist, my knuckles pound into the right side of his face. My hand feels like it is broken, but I raise it again because the adrenaline from hurting the asshole is far too addicting.

He catches my wrist before I get the chance to punch him again, squeezing it so tightly I think my bones are being crushed. He twists it in an unnatural way and I immediately hear a snap followed by my scream. In one swift motion, he pushes me off of him and moves so that he is the one on top of me.

His weight pins me down at the hips. I reach my hand out to claw at his annoyingly attractive face, only for him to grab it, roughly move it aside, and use his other hand to backhand me hard across the face.  My vision becomes blurry from the blow and it feels like the whole side of my face is throbbing already. I can see his eyes turn yellow from his tantrum.

"You're going to wish you hadn't done that," he growls as he pulls back his clenched fist and brings it down again, hitting me right around the eye.

His one hand clamps around my throat, restricting oxygen from my brain, while the other works on pulling down my pants.  Of course, I had to choose sweatpants today, the easiest type of pants to pull down.  No part of me feels surprised about what he is doing, but panic still sets into my mind.

My legs kick around, doing nothing for me except use up my energy.  He gets my bottoms and underwear off all at once and then begins to work on his own pants.

"Stop," I try to scream, but it comes out as nothing but a weak croak because of his choke on me.  My werewolf strength is not enough to pry his hands off of me.

Once he gets his black pants down far enough to do what he wants, he lifts my head up by my neck and slams it back down.  Again, everything looks blurry and I see black spots.  While I try and recover from that, he rolls me over so that I'm on my stomach and grips my hair, aggressively pulling on it.