End of Innocence

Chapter XV, Insanity of Grief

With blood dripping down Ashley's face, Derek ripped at her clothes. In his mind, he had claimed her as his property and therefore entitled to consummate his covetousness towards her in any way that he desired. He was in control and this had always been his destiny. She would understand and accept him afterwards. With women, sometimes a little assertive behavior was all that was needed. He would be the bigger man with her brother, explaining graciously that in the jungle, sometimes the larger cat wins. Right now, he was the apex predator and Ashley his beautiful prey.

As Ashley fought to gain her senses, to realize what had happened to her, an instinct to defend and attack her assailant gripped her. Her garments had been shredded leaving only her panties fully intact. She flipped to her knees and attacked with a viciousness that only a rape victim can fully comprehend, nearly blinding Derek with an assault to the left side of his face that ripped and gouged from the lower part of his eye socket straight down his cheek. Ashley had removed a quarter inch of flesh in a gash that extended five inches. Derek immediately pulled back, flashing lights behind his eye; blood splattered the bed, but instead of disengaging, rifled forward hitting Ashley with a closed fist with all of his enraged strength directly into her mouth, splitting her lips, blood now pouring from her mouth. Derek shrieked in agony and fury as he began to beat Ashley to death.

Ashley's brother raced home. The panicked distress was increasing and he hoped, prayed, it was nothing but some sort of psychological episode brought on by stress and the move. His mind begged that the police would follow him home. He would face the consequences only to know that Ashley was safe. No one stopped his mad dash and he continued driving with abandon. His conviction that something was seriously wrong pushed him to greater speeds and higher levels of terror that he became a danger to those sharing the city's arteries with him. As his heart thudded in his chest, why could not this damn vehicle go any faster, the grip on the steering wheel tightened to where the blood in his hands were forced back leaving them clenched and white.

Muscles throughout his body were taut, ready to snap, or to unleash with such violence that destruction would be the wake and waves of unbridled ruin. He neared his neighborhood, then the roads connecting to his street, then his street, why was not he home besides the love of his life, why did he leave her for this night instead of insisting that he stay by her side, the whys coming one after the another, finally his street, and then the sharp turn to the right, the house, whose car was this, and to a full skidding stop, nearly crashing into the other car and the garage. He leapt from auto barely shutting it off and leaving the keys in the ignition, the door open, running to the front door yelling her name, "ASHLEY!"

Upstairs, the violence continued. Ashley beaten into oblivion, she was nearing her own death. A seismic blow to abdomen and her panties began to spread a red wet color. Welts were raised from her angelic face, her chest down her legs. Derek had been consumed with evil and a vengeance born of demons that truly hate all that is sweet and uplifting in this world. He would kill her and force her brother to suffer for the rest of his life. If Derek could not have Ashley, then no one deserved her either.

Ashley's brother slammed open the door with such force, panes locked in place shattered. He frantically searched the house, calling her name, and then the shock of realization, the broken wine bottle, and the blood on the wall. Any sanity of reasoning that still functioned left him. His purpose was to defend, find, and destroy. A blood-shift occurred in his vision, the cortex in his brain painted a crimson hue over his entire chromatic field. Part of him still held out the hope that this could be explained, that it was nothing more than a minor accident, but that last glimpse of false belief imploded when he heard the torrent of ferocity from above him. Without thought or decision, Ashley's brother bounded up the stairs.

It is hard to know exactly what information compressed into Ashley's brother's mind. As he reached the top of the stairs, the light from the hallway illuminated his silhouette from behind as he rapidly approached the room shared in one form or another with his sister for most of their lives. The one place where the ramparts provided safe solace, the fortress to which they called their own, the place untouched by evil, and their haven. Motion had not ceased for him, he continued at a breathtaking pace, to the outsider, he was at a full-tilt run but for himself, he was processing information at a tremendous speed so that everything seemed to move in slow motion.

As he crossed the threshold of the room, Ashley's beaten body lay upon the soaked sheets drenched with her blood. Her lifelessness reached out in appearance. Her right arm dangling off the bed, her face bruised, eyes swollen shut, mouth split with her teeth stained a bright red. Ashley's virtually naked body, her panties darkened in the dimmed light, and the sadistic apparition standing over her careened through his awareness. In the recesses of his mind, he knew this person, why was he here? At that instant, Ashley's lover, her protectorate, her committed soul, lowered his shoulder and impacted with all that he had just below the chest of this evil personified as both of them left the confines of terra firma, through the window, and out into space. The ragged edges sliced into them both, floated in an embrace of a deadly ballet, until gravity signaled their fall towards destiny.

Looking with hatred into each other's eyes, they fell the distance of over twenty feet accelerating continually along the way. Each fraction of a second increased the momentum and energy until the impact released the destructive force. The detonation arrived with Derek crashing abruptly on a wooden decorative fence that hedged in the landscaping in front of the house. His spine snapped in six places severing his cord rendering him instantly dead. Ashley's brother slammed on top of him breaking three ribs of his own. He somersaulted over the fence and landed on his back, his wind forced out of him from the collision with the ground, and his own internal damage. In excruciating sobs, the brother that swore to protect Ashley for life moaned, "I am so sorry Ashley, my dear sister, I am so sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen" over and over again.

During the commotion, the sounds of violence were noticed by the nearby neighbors and the police had been called. The first cruiser that arrived was greeted to the tragic and surreal scene of a man straddled lifelessly over a fence, his body twisted and hugging the rails in the opposite direction than designed, and another in obvious pain, bloodied, and crying out something over and over again. The front door open, both officers entered the home, guns drawn, and the scene of obvious distress with blood on the walls, they slowly crept up the stairs. The first officer into the room noticed the lifeless young woman on the bed, the broken window with its ripped glass, approached her and checked her pulse. "Damnit Mike, she has a pulse, call for the paramedics and backup NOW!" His fellow officer complied immediately and raced to the squad car and summoned for help.

The emergency crews arrived in minutes. The officer that had waited for them indicated that they were to go into the house first and tend to the critically injured woman. Overhearing the cries of the brother on the ground, they immediately went to work. Ashley was in dire straits. She had lost an incredible amount of blood and her lungs had begun to fill with fluid. The destruction wrought upon this innocent caused a newer crewman to become sickened. He rushed to the bathroom and vomited. Setting IVs in place, equipment attached to vital areas, the paramedics placed Ashley gingerly upon the gurney and carried her to the back of the transport. Once in with two of the crew, a pound on the door indicated it was time to rush to the nearest trauma center. The vehicle sped into the distance with sirens blaring.

Ashley's brother was in agony. The fractured ribs had caused a lung to collapse and the crew forced a needle into it to inflate it. Not nearly as critical as his sister, nonetheless, he was severely injured with lacerations that needed professional suturing. Without ceasing, without thinking, he continued with his cries of how he did not mean for this to happen. The police and detectives misread his insanity of grief, wrote in their logbooks all what was expressed, and formally arrested him for the murder and beating of Derek and his sister at the hospital.