“Taking back what’s mine, you low-life piece of shit,” he sneers.
“Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it? She’s the one whoring around this bar, showing her tits off to anyone with eyes.”
Soren seethes, his eyes shading over, no longer gray but an intense charcoal that obscures his pupils.
He grabs the man’s wrist, his fingers digging into his bloated flesh. “Apologize to her,” he says, his voice low.
The guy tries to shrug off Soren’s grip, but to no avail.
“Listen, man,” he says, suddenly backtracking, his eyesgrowing wide. “There seems to have been some kind of misunderstanding. I didn’t know she was with you.”
“So, if she was by herself it would be okay for you to sexually assault her with your little friend here?” He frowns, jerking his thumb at the large guy’s acquaintance who is still cowering in the corner, watching everything with wide eyes, his breath stilted.
“Well, I mean… you don’t come to a place like this to play Barbies, do you?” The creep has the audacity to grin, as if he’s some type of comedian.
When there’s no response from Soren, he glances over at his friend. “Right?”
His friend averts his eyes, suddenly not so sure about their acquaintance.
“Why is it so hard to act like a gentleman? To not be an absolute creep around women who are just trying to go about their lives and not have to deal with freaks like you?”
The large guy frowns at Soren, but then his expression morphs into something darker, his mouth curling at the side. “You’ve really got it bad for this stupid bitch, don’t you. What? Is her cunt made of gold? Is it dripping with diamonds?”
Soren changes his grip on the man’s forearm, momentarily pulling him closer before shoving him away and spinning him around so he faces the grimy mirror in front of the sink.
His voice, usually quiet and controlled, is a roar. “You donottalk about her like that.”
He curls his hands into the hair on the back of the guy’s head and slams his face into the mirror. The glass shatters immediately, slivers of it embedding into the guy’s forehead, cheeks and chin.
He squeals as he sees his reflection, blood starting to seep out of every micro-crack, some larger fragments of glass protruding out of his face like something from a grotesque horror.
Soren doesn’t stop there.
He maneuvers the guy slightly backward, then uses hisleverage to smash the guy’s head down onto the sink so hard that the porcelain splits clean in two.
The guy is quiet now, as Soren continues to smash his face into the once-white surface, now smeared with sticky crimson.
“Holy fuck, nope!” A voice whispers loudly from the corner.
I glance over, and the smaller guy scrambles to his feet and shoves his way out the saloon door. I hear his footsteps running out as he flees the dive bar.
I’d forgotten he was there, my focus on Soren and the justice he’s enacting on his friend.
He pulls the guy’s head up and forces him to confront the mirror. “Look,” he commands.
Barely conscious, his face mangled beyond recognition, the man averts his eyes.
“I told you to fucking look.” Soren’s voice is dangerous.
The guy somehow manages to focus.
He gasps at his own reflection.
“Apologize to her. Now,” Soren growls.
The guy glances behind himself in the reflection and his eyes meet mine, a blood vessel burst in one of them. “I—I’m sorry, ma’am,” he coughs out, a little blood shooting out and hitting the mirror, adding to what’s already there.
“Don’t youevertreat another woman like that again.” Soren spits in the man’s face, and it co-mingles with the abundance of crimson that makes him look like his skin has been flayed.