2019-04-11 - Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

The words spilling out of Alex were nonsense. Rage. They had killed his baby, murdered her, her blood was on their hands! His Sophia was gone, obliterated, and the fleshy neck in his hands felt so fucking good when he squeezed, feeling warm skin rubbed raw by the pressure of his fingers.

Dimly, through a red and furious haze, he could feel hands on his shoulders, trying to pry him off this monster he was choking to death. Their words and pleas and sobs came as if from a long, dark distance away. "Alex, stop! Alex, don't! Alex, you're killing him!" And Alex was killing him, was squeezing the life out of him second by second, as if that would make it better. Flailing, desperate hands pushed up at him, trying to shove him off, trying to get a grip on his own neck, and terrified eyes were bulbous while the face they occupied went red... dark red... purple... soon it would be black, and he would be dead, and it would be what he deserved.

"Alex, STOP!" They managed to pull him loose, sent him stumbling off to one side, and he whirled on both of them. No le pegues, his father had told him over and over again, don't hit, especially don't hit a woman. But Alex back-handed her anyway, felt the sting against his hand when it knocked against her cheek. This was no woman. This was a mercenary in the employ of Satan. She - she and he, this man now gasping for air and coughing and choking on the floor - they had conspired toward the death of his baby, his Sophia, that remarkable person for whom he had taken every step since the moment of her existence. Convinced and coerced until capitulation, and they led her like a lamb to the slaughter.

They had butchered his daughter, unborn, and now they had the gall to tell him to stop? Oh no, there would be no stop.

Alex would murder them all. He would send them to the hell they deserved, and then he would go there with them. He could hear their sniveling, their pleading, how he had to understand that it was for the best, it was the only right thing to do, they were so young, they couldn't raise a child. Then he could hear the hysterical notes of those cries when they knew what was coming for them -

"Doctor Reyes?" He has the sense that someone has been saying that for a while, has come into the room looking for him once before and been surprised that he isn't here. And now she is back, confused, peering, because he is here. It's late, and the nurse is tired, and she must've just overlooked Reyes before. An easy thing to do.

The room is dark. He had traded shifts earlier, given up his cushy daytime gig and taken this midnight-to-midday schtick for a couple of days so he could take off Monday.

Because Violet.

And now he is getting jolted out of what he thought was a dead sleep in the on-call room. He can't even remember the last time he slept in an on-call room; it must have been during his residency. His hand throbs, red-turning-blue across the knuckles from where he'd back-handed -

Had he back-handed Amy's mother? Because... they had... breathe, Alex, Sophia is fine, she happened, he'd won that argument against Amy's parents, put away that flash of raw, murderous hate.

"Doctor Reyes." The lights flip on. Harsh fluorescent tubes. Car accident. It's time to do doctor things.