Chapter 6 - The Mother’s Wrath
BANG! BANG!
The chair we had pushed against the door groaned under the force of Julian’s kicks. The upper hinge snapped with a sickening metallic pop.
Rachel screamed, backing into the main room, holding an iron IV pole like a spear. "Stay back! The police are coming!"
"The police are lost in the dark downstairs!" Julian laughed, shoving his arm through the splintered hole in the wood, reaching down to clear the armchair.
Through the gap, I saw his eyes—wild, bloodshot, completely consumed by madness.
In that moment, something inside me broke. The fear, the grief, the heartbreak of losing Ethan—it all coalesced into a blinding, white-hot fury. This monster had murdered the love of my life. He had touched me under false pretenses. He had tried to steal my daughter.
I gently handed Addison to my mother in the dark bathroom.
"Sarah, what are you doing?!" my mother whispered in horror.
"Stay here," I said, my voice dead, cold, and quiet.
I stepped out of the bathroom into the red light of the bedroom. I looked at the medical tray that had been knocked over earlier. Lying beside the wall was a heavy, stainless steel bone-hammer left by the orthopedic consult team from the night before, along with a bottle of concentrated rubbing alcohol and a box of sterile gauze.
I picked up the heavy steel hammer in my right hand. In my left, I grabbed a glass bottle of surgical disinfectant.
The door burst open with a loud CRASH!
Julian stumbled into the room, tossing the broken chair aside. He wore a stolen security guard jacket, blood splattered across his cheek from his earlier fight in the stairwell. He held a stolen taser in his right hand.
"There you are, my loving wife—" Julian began, a sickening grin spreading across his face.
Before he could finish his sentence, I lunged forward with everything I had.
I threw the entire bottle of concentrated surgical alcohol directly into his face.
"AAARGH! MY EYES!" Julian screamed, dropping the taser as the stinging chemical poured into his eyes and open cuts.
I didn't hesitate. I swung the heavy steel bone-hammer with every ounce of postpartum strength in my body, striking him straight across his jaw.
CRACK!
Julian let out a horrific sound as his jaw broke, sending him crashing backward onto the hard floor. He scrambled on his back, blinded and bleeding, waving his arms wildly. "You crazy bitch!"
I stepped over him, my face inches from his, raising the hammer high above his head.
"That was for Ethan," I whispered.
Before I could strike again, the heavy oak doors of the hallway were kicked open from the outside.
"FBI! DON'T MOVE!"
Agent Vance and six heavily armed SWAT officers flooded the room, their weapon lights cutting through the darkness, blinding the room in stark white light. Vance took one look at Julian weeping on the floor, clutching his shattered jaw, and then looked at me standing over him covered in surgical alcohol and holding a hammer.
Vance slowly holstered his gun, taking a breath. "Mrs. Miller... lower the weapon. We've got him."
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The hammer slipped from my fingers, clattering onto the floor.
I turned around, sinking to my knees as my mother ran out of the bathroom, placing my daughter back into my arms. I pulled Addison against my chest, weeping tears of pure, unadulterated relief as the tactical team dragged Julian Miller out into the light in heavy iron chains.
