His voice resumed, carrying an almost hypnotic timbre.
“But the boy rarely saw that smile and even more rarely saw it directed at him. Instead, he would see her eyes dull with boredom when he tried to engage her in conversation.” He held Gemi’s severed finger up so she could see for herself what he’d been up to.
Inside the girl was screaming.
“To Kenneth, it was commonplace to see her eyes cut with annoyance at his sheer presence, but none of this ever stopped the inadequate boy from trying to please his mother.”
He paused momentarily adjusting the machine beside his victim as it began to beep a warning.
“Well my dear girl. You only have a few more moments so I’ll get right to the surprise ending of the story, shall I?”
“The boy grew up to become a powerful doctor himself and existed in the same fine social circles his mother held so dear. Though time passed and dark-eyed women came and went through his life, the little boy never forgot the beautiful eyes in which he only ever saw resentment. He tried to let it go. He tried to move on, but the disappointment in those eyes haunted him both day and night.”
He sat back, toying with the severed digits for a moment before continuing.
“He married a blue-eyed woman and together they had one daughter then later, he had another. The first daughter was born with her mother’s blue eyes. Lucky girl.”
“The second daughter,” the doctor stopped to rub his chin with the back of one of her hands. “The second daughter had the distinct misfortune of looking exactly like the grandmother she would never meet. This daughter looks at her father with hatred and resentment through the same beautiful dark eyes as her grandmother.”
“So you see Gemi, it’s just an unfortunate coincidence that you happen to resemble the dark-eyed daughter, because while the boy may have been able to silence the dull hatred in his mother’s eyes with a scalpel, he has yet to do the same to his daughter. And since he can’t take her eyes yet, he’ll just have to take yours.”
With those final words, he hovered over the paralyzed face of his victim with a surgical blade, leaned in and cut out her eyes, one at a time. Dr. Williams made sure to keep her alive long enough to hear the wet, sucking sounds as they each left their sockets.
“It’s a good day to die, Gemi,” he laughed, rolling the freshly plucked and bloody eyeballs in his gloved hand and smiling.
The last thing Gemi heard was the doctor saying, “Stanley? I have worn myself out for the night. Take her to the incinerator and clean up. I’m going to bed.”
Chapter 65 New Sheriff in Town
Meg covered her mouth to stifle the cry of horror at what the Punisher had done to himself.
His head was thrown back in a silent scream, the flesh around his gaping mouth and obsidian eyes blotchy red as he held his breath through the pain.
Oblivious of the tear slipping down her cheek, she reached out to help him but stopped instantly when he leveled his gaze on her.
“Will you stay away, bitch?” the alter challenged. “Or do I keep going?” He yanked the six-inch blade from his thigh. The movement made a sickening, sucking sound as it exited his flesh. Blood, red and thick spilled from the wound
Meg tipped her head to the side as though listening to a whisper from across the room. After pausing for a full ten seconds, she knew what she had to do.
She slipped into a fighting stance.
“Drop the weapon, now!” she growled. Meg forced herself into a deadly calm. Her breathing was slow and steady. Her eyes were narrowed and cutting. Her posture was aggressive and commanding.
The Punisher raised his weapon above his head. “Answer the question.” The threat to himself was anything but veiled.
“You will do as I say. Drop the weapon and do not hurt the body again, EVER!” Meg focused her phenomenal power directly at the black signature dominating the kaleidoscope. She pushed her will right through the center of the blackness, reaching an emotional hand out to the yellow and red colors and as she did, they began to pulse more clearly. “You’ll do as you’re told, Slave. That’s an order.”
She braced herself for what she knew was coming. The Punisher, a fractured shard of an alter, could resist her demands, to a degree. She felt the blackness slip out from her empath’s grasp.
She sensed this part of the soldier rarely, if ever, came out in front of others. She was probably the first person to ever hear him speak. He was the punisher, no matter what he called himself. He was there to keep the other alters from feeling any closeness to anyone.