RUSTY | frank castle

FORTY ONE

Frank roared, his arm stabbing Rawlins's shoulder so quickly, you wouldn't see it. Orange screamed, and Rusty's beating heart and the rush of blood in her veins seemed to deafen her momentarily. 

The commotion got louder as Rawlins was slammed on the table and Frank bit into his neck. The two men toppled over, landing on the hard concrete. Frank held on, almost like a wolf would do to its prey. 

Billy acted, using the back of his gun to strike Frank in the head. The ex-marine fell disorientated at the blow, and Rawlins was rescued from his grasp. 

Rusty wanted to act, but the zip ties held her to the chair. She struggled against them, but it didn't do much good. 

Groaning on the floor, Frank was kicked by Rawlins out of anger. Rusty screamed, trying to get the attention away from Castle, who seemed to be flowing in and out of consciousness. 

Then, after Frank was strapped back to the chair, the beating started again. 

 •••  

Rusty was suffering from dangerous blood loss. She was covered in the stuff. Her shoes, her hair, her trousers, her shirt . . . everything was soaked with ruby red. It was just everywhere.

Rawlins was now having his go at beating Frank half to death. "You don't leave me, Frank. Don't you leave me."

The man was a maniac; a psychopath; an utter lunatic. 

"You will say 'please'."

He pushed his fingers into Frank's bullet wound on the side of his head - the one he had gained from Billy - and the suffering man screamed in paralysing pain.

The sound made Rusty focus more on the light than the blackness as her eyes faded in and out of the two states. She saw the blurry shape of her boots and her legs which were completely soaked in her own blood. 

It seemed like Russo had had enough. He grabbed onto Rawlins's shirt and pulled the maniac off his friend. 

"This doesn't serve me."

"You serve me!" Rawlins fired back. "You're a tool, you understand? Just like they were."

Billy seemed unfazed by the man's shouting, and just stared at him. "You've lost your mind."

Rawlins panted. 

"I was out of Afghanistan clean. None of this would be happening if you hadn't gone after him. You pulled me back into the mud."

"I pulled you out of the mud, gutter rat!" Rawlins yelled. "Billy, don't get confused. Men like me make the plans. Men like you shed the blood. You think you're clean? Who killed Homeland agents, huh? Not me. No, I--I have everything. I have your doctor discharge papers, the money transfers. You're only as clean as I let you be, because when it's all said and done, you're just a stupid grunt, too."

Billy Russo was furious, he hated people speaking to him like that. Despised it. "I should've let him kill you in that tent."

Rawlins scoffed. "But you didn't."

"No."

"Hmm."

"I didn't."

Billy pulled his gun, walking behind Frank and pointing it at his head. Rusty saw a figure walk past her, but she didn't have the energy to even raise her head. She feared for Frank's life. 

"No, Russo. I will burn you." Rawlins pulled his gun out now. "You will stand down, Lieutenant. You will not deny me this." 

Billy, unknown to Rawlins (who's gun was trembling in his gloved hands), cut the zip tie bounding Frank's wrists. The man slowly opened his eye, feeling the cold metal of the small tweezers at his wrist. Russo didn't cut the zip tie completely, but enough so that it could be ripped apart with a sudden movement.

Billy stopped pointing his gun. "You're a sick man."

"He owns me an eye."

  •••  

Nothing seemed worth it. 

Nothing in this world. 

Rusty was a millimetre away from just letting herself die right then and there. 

All the punches, all the slaps, they were now nothing but numb pain to her skin cells. She was dying, and she could feel it in her brain. Her body was so exhausted she could no longer think at all. 

'I'm dying', she thought, 'I'm really finally dying.'

The vision in her rusty eyes faded to black, and took her consciousness with it. 

Frank Castle, on the other hand, was dancing on the thin line of reality. His wife stood before him, her small and gentle hand outstretched to his bloody and beaten figure. Her words echoed in his muddled mind: "Come home, Frank."

He wanted to take her precious hand. He wanted to touch her skin again so much. Tears welled in his tired eyes as he looked at her; he was completely torn emotionally. This is what he had been waiting for for so long, yet he hesitated. 

Why did he hesitate?

His body then shuddered with the rush of hormones, Rawlins had just injected him with a dose of adrenaline that heightened all his senses at once. There was way too much input in his brain, and he was starting to panic at the slight disorientation. 

Then, he saw he beautiful brunette again. She was still holding out her hand as she smiled. "Come home, Frank."

Frank's breath shuddered, letting his arm slowly raise so that he could place his hand in Maria's. The blood soon smudged from his hand onto hers, but she smiled nonetheless.

"Let's go home."

She started to turn the other way, but her face fell into confusion when her husband didn't follow. He couldn't look her in the eyes, which were torn and conflicted. Frank didn't know why he was refusing to pull away from reality to follow his family, when he had been dreaming for it for so long. 

His eyes looked into hers, guilt and sorrow brimming within the hazel-green colour. Swallowing deeply in an attempt to hush his screaming mind, he spoke the words he would either regret forever, or not at all.

Because Frank loved his wife. 

But he also loved Rusty Mallard.

". . . I am home."