Brutal Savage Act In Motion

The drive back home is in profound silence, neither of us daring to so much as break the weighted stillness. Zayn keeps one hand firmly laced with mine, a reassuring tether as we leave the suffocating shadows of his family home in the rearview mirror. 

I steal furtive glances at him out of the corner of my eye, studying the hard line of his jaw, the furrowed brow as he stares resolutely ahead. His expression is unreadable, but there's a sense of acceptance there - the look of a man who has faced the most excruciating crucible and withstood the experience having made his choice.

When we finally arrive, the house is utterly still and dark, save for the soft glow of a living room lamp left on to guide our way. Candy and the kids must already be asleep, blissfully unaware of the maelstrom their father and I have just weathered. 

The heavy oak door groans softly as Zayn pushes it open, gesturing for me to enter ahead of him. My feet feel leaden, every step towards the sanctuary of our home weighing me down further beneath the immensity of all I've just experienced.

The second the door clicks shut behind us, the damn within me breaks. A ragged, wrenching sob escapes my lips as the first tears begin to flow freely down my face. It's as if in this place of comfort and familiarity, my mind has finally allowed itself to process the full extent of the choices Zayn has made tonight.

The deal with the devil he had refused to be with me.

"Shhh, come here..." 

His voice is low and soothing as his arms encircle me from behind. He holds me close, the steadiness of his embrace the only anchor keeping me tethered as I come undone.

I turn in his arms, burying my face against the warm, fragrant material of his shirt as I am wracked with soul-deep tremors. Tears soak through the fabric, but Zayn doesn't seem to mind, and doesn't pull away. Just strokes my hair gently and murmurs soft reassurances against the crown of my head.

After what feels like an eternity, my sobs finally begin to subside into hiccupping sniffles. I pull back just enough to gaze up at the man who has sacrificed everything for me, for us. Zayn's own eyes are reddened, but calm acceptance lives behind their molten depths.

"I'm so sorry." 

I rasp out brokenly, fumbling to find the words to convey the resounding waves of guilt that wrack me. 

"Zayn, what you did...what your father asked of you...I can't even begin to imagine how--"

But he hushes me with a gentle press of his fingers against my lips, shaking his head slowly.

"You have nothing to apologize for, my love. This isn't any of your fault." 

He rasps, voice thick with emotion. 

"The only ones who should feel ashamed are my parents, for being small-minded enough to place conditions on something as sacred as family and love."

The utter lack of anger or resentment in his tone floors me. After being stripped of his family ties, his inheritance, his very identity, how can he stand here so unruffled? So at peace with this cataclysmic life revision he now faces? I am feeling so guilty about the secret I'm keeping from him. What would happen if everything comes to light, especially after all the sacrifices he has made for me and my kids?

As if sensing my bewilderment, Zayn skims his thumb lightly across my cheekbone, leaving a path of scorching heat in its wake. His eyes bore deeply into mine, reflecting back a cosmos of fathomless devotion.

"Don't you understand?" 

His reverent murmur is barely audible, yet carries the weight of something profound. 

"You ARE my family now, sweetheart. You, our children...this life we've built together through the highest joys and deepest sorrows. That's what I choose, over and over without a second thought."

My breath hitches as fresh tears, this time of awe-struck love and gratitude, pool in my eyes. How can one person be so strong, so heroically unshakable in convictions? I open my mouth, struggling to form the words of appreciation that could ever come close to encompassing what I feel.

Zayn seems to sense this, letting out a soft chuckle before pressing his forehead tenderly to mine.

"No words are needed, my love." 

He murmurs, lips a hair's breadth from my own. 

"Just stay by my side...let me continue to drown myself in the light of your spirit for the rest of our days. That's all the affirmation I could ever need."

On a broken sigh, I surrender completely to the molten pull of his kiss - an unhurried, soul-binding brand that leaves my every nerve-ending alight with newborn revelation. 

That through trial and tribulation, anguish and joy, this man has been sculpted into something ethereal and powerful. He is at once a passionate lover and impenetrable warrior, protector of my heart yet awed acolyte sworn to cherish my very existence. 

A partner carved from the cosmos themselves, delivered unto me for the sole purpose of showing that any crucible, no matter how scathing, can be overcome through the sacred alchemy of resilience and devotion to one another.

We may have been forged in fire, our bond thrust repeatedly into the white-hot kilns of heartbreak and injustice... 

But like the splendorous Damascus blades of yore, only one immaculate truth has been revealed in the process - that we have emerged annealed, unshatterable, keen-edged, and magnificent in our eternal, transcendent love forever more.

Candy had to drive past her apartment because she had forgotten some documents there. We'll meet at work. I cannot wait to tell her about everything that went down last night. I'm so glad she is slowly but surely getting back to being the forever smiling , full-of-jokes Candy I know.

The frantic call from her sends chills down my spine. Her hysterical screams leave little doubt that something horrific has occurred at her place. Zayn and I rush over, my heart pounding violently against my ribcage as a thousand worst-case scenarios play out in my mind.

But nothing could have prepared me for the traumatic scene we stumbled upon.

As soon as we enter Candy's kitchen, the overwhelming stench of copper and iron assaults my senses. I gag reflexively at the unmistakable metallic scent of freshly spilled blood permeating the air. That's when my eyes finally focus on the source...and I feel my stomach violently recoil.

In the center of the room, sitting contorted in a desk chair, is the decimated, mutilated form of what I can only assume was once Alex. His...his head is shockingly absent from his shoulders, which are twisted at an grotesque angle.

The visceral evidence that some kind of unthinkable evil has played out here makes my knees buckle. I can't tear my gaze away from the nightmarish scene no matter how hard I try. Alex's blank eyes, frozen open in a rictus of fear and agony, seem to bore straight through my soul with their accusation.

Then my eyes drift downwards further, and a strangled sound of revulsion tears from my throat. Candy's own undergarments, shredded and stained crimson, have been apparently used to immobilize Alex's corpse in that horrific seated position. The blatant degradation and violation of using her intimate clothing as restraints upon her deceased ex boyfriend is almost too much for my mind to process.

The room begins spinning violently as I feel my grasp on reality slipping. Zayn's strong arms are suddenly there, enveloping me before my trembling legs can give out completely.

"Oh God...oh God, no..." 

I hear myself repeating in a litany of numb horror. Bile burns at the back of my throat as a primal part of my brain screams at me to look away from the grotesque tableau of death and defilement. 

But I cannot un see what has been consumed into the very fabric of my psyche. This waking nightmare of savagery that seems to make a mockery of any semblance of humanity.

Candy...where is she? Was she present for this sickening mutilation? Is she injured, or worse? I feel as though I've been plunged into a void of existential terror for my dear friend's safety.

Zayn holds me fiercely, murmuring raw reassurances against my ear even as I sense the bone-deep shudder rippling through his own frame. It's suddenly all too real, this atrocity - and even someone as unflappable as my boyfriend cannot fully retain his own composure.

"We have to call the police." 

He grits out, every syllable laced with a scorching fury directed at whoever or whatever is responsible for this depraved act. 

"We have to-"

The sound of a muffled sob from somewhere within the house cuts his words off abruptly. Both of us freeze, whipping our heads around until we pinpoint the source...

Huddled beneath her desk in a trembling, contorted heap - it's Candy herself. She's physically unharmed, but the thousand-yard stare of blank horror in her eyes indicates tremendous psychological trauma. 

Whatever she witnessed was enough to render her nearly catatonic, curled up in the fetal position as if trying to make herself as small and invisible as possible to the sickening evil that played out all around her.

It's a profoundly disturbing sight...and the beginning of what I know will be a long, torturous road towards uncovering the truth and seeking justice.

But most harrowing of all? 

The sick realization that for me, for all of us...there can be no unseen memories now.

The images of this nightmare have seared themselves permanently into the backs of our minds, a black branding that can never be covered over or forgotten.

In that moment, a part of our souls, our very perceptions of the world and humanity itself have been irrevocably, horrifically shattered into pieces upon the brutal sacrificial altar of depravity incarnate.

And I fear that no amount of seeking retribution will ever make any of us whole again.