A Partisan's Fight - COMPLETED!

Chapter Fifty-Three

Content Warning: Graphic Violence; Torture.

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The morning light shimmered on the fresh blood dripping from Aldrik's knuckles. He didn't know when it had happened, but somewhere along the way he turned off a switch. He went from being angry and pent up to a monster tearing anything apart that he touched. The man hanging in front of him was barely recognizable. Somehow though he still managed to taunt Aldrik.

Raising the wrench high, Aldrik picked the spot on Lehmann to break next. Another rib seemed beneficial. He was sure he'd at least fractured four or five in the short period of time he had with him.

"You... are... are just as much... of a traitor as... as Hirsch." Lehmann's voice was strong considering the condition he was in.

Aldrik ignored the missing tooth he had punched out earlier. "I might be a traitor, but at least it is for the right reasons. You decided to be judge, jury, and executioner for the wrong reasons and with no proof. You get whatever you have coming. May God make it slow."

Spitting out a wad of blood saturated saliva, Lehmann let out a broken laugh. "Whatever God does to me, He will make it worse for you, my friend. Braun was the judge and jury. I just followed orders." He sneered much more clearly and confidently then his last statement. Somehow he was feeding off Aldrik's words and growing stronger from them. It was irrational. Two could play off that game.

Aldrik swung the wrench hard, feeding off the scream and the crunching bones. It gave him a high he'd never felt before. He almost didn't want to admit that he was enjoying this. "That maybe so, but you enjoyed hurting my friend. And I do not condone that."

Wheezing, Lehmann pulled his gaze up and focused on Aldrik. "Can you honestly tell me that... that you are not enjoying what you are doing now? What... what makes us so much different?"

The words made Aldrik pause mid-swing. He was right. They weren't much different right now. He was pulled out of his thought before being able to do anything more by a bullet zipping by his ear.

The bullet came into immediate contact with Lehmann's head before he had another chance to say anything. The man hung there dead as Aldrik swung around, wrench still in hand. His gut dropped the second he spotted Mina.

Slowly, she lowered her gun. Her face went from pure anger and vengeful horror to being completely unreadable. Before she turned to walk away she gave him a look he wasn't sure he understood, but it chilled the blood running through his veins.

Looking at his blood saturated uniform, he swallowed hard. Reaching down to grab the few other things he had brought with him, he made his way back to the truck. Tossing the tools in the bed of the truck, he didn't look at her as he got in the vehicle. He couldn't. Her expression wasn't one that he wanted to see again. It stirred something in him. She had seemed disappointed in him. Disappointed in his decisions. Disappointed in how he handled himself when she hadn't been there.

Normally silence was a good thing, but he couldn't handle it while they drove. Guilt seemed like it was consuming him. "Look, I lost it out there, Mina."

"Mmm." He chanced a glance over at her, but she refused to look at him with her simple mumble.

"It will not happen again." He tried again, praying she'd actually take the chance to acknowledge him.

"I trusted you to do the job that needed to be done with Lehmann. You abused that." She finally looked at him, but it was far from being friendly.

He couldn't keep the irritation from his voice. He'd just come from an extreme anger high, it wasn't like he could just flip the switch and pretend he could be mellow and submissive. "I did what you asked. I made him pay."