35(S3E9)-Knight in Blood Soaked Armor

35

(Season 3, Episode 9)

Knight in Blood Soaked Armor

Rockwell had come to his conclusion.  It had been a simple one on how to proceed with the immediate situation.  The situation had ceased to be about the senator’s protection or even Shaky, though he still planned on finishing the job he and Stone had started in Afghanistan.  Now, this was about the girl.

Maude.

“One more time for both our sakes, leave her alone.”  Stone’s image spoke with force but it fell on deaf ears as Rockwell pulled himself to a sitting position on his bed in the guest room.

“How many bodyguards?” Rockwell asked the darkness, quietly.

“Four.  This is a bad idea.” Stone repeated his warning and met the same response.

Rockwell, instead, pulled open the drawer of the night stand and found a pen next to a notepad.  He pulled the pen out and popped the cap off.  He then walked to the door to his room and opened it.  The lone sentry posted outside his door to keep him from misbehaving turned.  His big broad shoulders tensed and he scowled.

“Get back in there.” He said in a low rumble.

“No.” Rockwell said with a grin.

The bodyguard grabbed his Hawaiian button-up by the collar and took three steps forward, pushing him backward into the room.  After he crossed the threshold of the doorway out of the brightly lit hallway, Rockwell mocked a stumble.  The big man reached out his other arm instinctively to catch Rockwell.

At this point, Rockwell brought his right hand up with the pen in hand and drove it bluntly into the guard’s neck, puncturing his carotid artery and punching the pen through and sideways into his windpipe.

Rockwell knew the move had silenced and killed the big man.  Blood pumped out of the man’s major artery and into his own throat, unable to cry out, he only gurgled as he choked on the blood that raced out of his neck.

Rockwell made cooing, shushing sounds as he lowered him to the floor, then watched him die within two minutes.

When the spark had left the guard’s eyes, he arose, his right hand dripping with the blood of his victim.

It would not be his first kill tonight.

****

As if subconsciously feeling eyes on her, Maude came out of a deep sleep opening her eyes to see Rockwell staring down at her.

He was standing on the right side of her bed looking down on her, unmoving.  She had no idea how long he had been there watching.  His eyes were wide with an unearthly hunger.

The look excited Maude, it was like none she had ever seen.  It was sexual hunger, carnal hunger, and hunger for food and for the violence that came with a hunt.  She returned the look.

“I see the problem,” Rockwell spoke softly and she did not interrupt him, entranced be the hypnotic eyes.  “He broke you.  Hurt and abused you until nothing made sense anymore.  He fucked with you until the only thing that still made sense was the pain he caused you.”

“Are you going to kill me?” Maude could not help but ask, the fear and want lacing her words.

He made a smile that would creep out the devil himself.  “Maybe, or maybe the opposite.  Are you ready to find out what happens next?”

She felt herself become aroused.  “Yes… Please.”

With that, Rockwell turned and walked out of her door and out of sight down the hallway.  Maude, dressed only in short shorts and an old tee shirt, scrambled out of bed to follow.  She passed through her doorway to to see him turn a corner at the end of the hall.  She followed, quickening her pace till she was almost running when she turned and saw that he had entered her father’s Civil War room.

At that moment, she heard glass shatter from what she guessed was a display case and a siren went off, loud enough to wake the entire house.

Her father’s guards would be on him in seconds.

She ran to the room and opened the doors wide.  Standing over the display case with her father’s prized Scolfield revolver was Rockwell.  The glass had been broken and he had pulled the ancient killing machine from the shards.  His right hand, which was covered with another man’s drying blood, gripped the pearl handle.  The gun was open and he was loading bullets into it.

The three bodyguards showed up, their sleek black handguns trained on Rockwell.  Bolo positioned himself behind her.  She could feel his presence and see everything going on around her, but somehow she still felt out of body.  Somewhere in her tortured mind, she knew that it was all changed tonight.

One way or another.

Gerald came into the room shouting to the men to lower their weapons.  He was in tight, white briefs and a wife-beater tank top.  Without his suit and clothes, he looked so much older and sadder now and for the first time in her eighteen years on the planet Earth, Maude wondered how this man had come to frighten her so.

 They lowered their guns but did not put them away.  Gerald turned with rage and confusion in his eyes.  “What is the meaning of this?!”

“Well, I needed a gun.” Rockwell answered, matter-of-factly.

“That is priceless.  We will get you a gun in the morning, just put that down!” Gerald yelled.

Maude almost laughed.  Her father still didn’t see it.  He could not see the madness in Rockwell, the all-consuming crazy.  She knew he did not see this because he could not wrap his head around the fact that some people are not motivated by money or power.

Rockwell was not a person.  He was a force of nature.

Rockwell ignored her father and locked eyes with her.  “Are you watching?”

She grinned and nodded, her eyes wide and also wet with tears as she felt the future stampeding towards her.

Rockwell took a deep breath.  “Then let the mother-fucking apocalypse begin!”

Rockwell raised the revolver and, quite literally, blew Gerald Roman’s head off.

The next second was the longest of Maude’s entire life.  She watched her father cease to exist and felt the last thread binding her to terrible sanity, snap and break free.  She was suddenly different.  She felt the change as it wormed through her fractured psyche and made her into a new person.  The past years of misery and abuse and confusion were gone now, erased in a single act of violence.  Instead, what replaced it was want and need and pure, perfect Insanity.

She felt Bolo’s arms wrap around her and time resumed its normal pace.  He dragged her down the hall and around the corner, a symphony of gunshots and screams exploded behind her.  Maude was laughing uncontrollably and crying at the same time.

Bolo carried her down the next hall and burst into her dead father’s office.  He slammed the doors behind him and set her down behind the desk.  “Get under the desk and stay there.”

Maude felt no need to do this so she just stood there and stared at him.

“Get under the damned desk!” Bolo said again, pointed and abruptly.

She did not move and Bolo growled.  More gunshots sounded from the hallway, accompanied by screams.  Maude knew he was coming

“My knight in blood soaked armor.”  She said to herself as Bolo took a stance in front of the door and raised his gun to face the evil that came his way.

Maude turned and looked out the bay window that over looked the powerful river below.  Her father had always cherished the house’s riverside view.  She watched the water that had calmed his tortured mind and found it soothing to her as well.

“Tell me, Bolo,” She suddenly asked turning to face Bolo’s back.  “Did you know?”

“What are you talking about?” He asked, not turning.

She frowned, knowing he knew full well what she was talking about.  She was annoyed that he would play dumb at this stage in the game.  “Did you know what he was doing to me?”

She delivered the question with a simple levity that would have frightened anyone.  He shook his head and steadied the gun pointed at the door.  His silence was an admission of guilt, but she already knew it was the truth.  Everyone in the Roman residence had known and turned a blind eye.

Not that it mattered at this point.  Maude pulled open the top right hand drawer of her dead father’s desk.  His small seven shot .22 became visible.  She pulled it up, pointed it at Bolo’s back and began pulling the trigger.

She had never shot anyone before.  She marveled at the ease of it.  Each bullet hit his back and made a quick popping mist of blood as the projectile tore its way through his internal organs.  Bolo’s body shook with each penetration and he staggered forward.  Maude kept pulling the trigger until the slide on the small automatic locked into place.

Bolo slowly turned, not having fallen yet.  Blood oozed from his mouth.  “Fuckin’… Bitch…”  He mumbled as he raised his gun to take his revenge.  Maude tossed the empty gun to the side and grinned.  Her fear had been cut away by the surgeon, Rockwell.

The office door burst open and Bolo’s head burst, spattering Maude with blood and grey matter.

The giant man slumped forward and crashed to the floor.

Maude giggled.

Behind Rockwell, she could see the trail of bodies.  The help had been killed also, anyone who had lived in this house had been murdered.  Her past was dead.

She had never felt so aroused in her life.  She clawed her way over the desk and Rockwell took purposed strides toward her, tossing his gun to the side.

They met over the corpse of Bolo, their first joint kill, and sunk into each other.  With that, they tore at each other’s clothes and flesh until, at last, they were able to violate each other.

Rockwell and Maude made blood spattered hate all over the desk.