Those knee strikes from Lucas must have damaged his internal organs.
"If you scream for help, he dies," he said.
He grabbed Lucas by the arm and began dragging him across the floor toward me.
He was cautious.
With injured organs and a grown man's dead weight, he could only move slowly.
He must have figured I was completely out of options now.
I looked at Lucas.
His face was deathly pale. A long smear of blood traced the floor behind him.
I dug my nails into my palms, forcing myself to think.
I had to survive.
I had to get both of us out of here.
"Mommy," the blind man's voice echoed.
"Why did you abandon me?"
I froze.
He'd been saying these strange things all along. What did he mean?
He dragged Lucas closer, still demanding answers.
"Why did you burn my eyes with cigarettes?"
"Why did you never come see me?"
Slowly, I began to understand.
He had been a child abandoned by his mother.
"I'm sorry..."
"I don't want your apology. I want to hear you scream, Mommy."
A blinding flash of lightning. Thunder split the sky.
He didn't know.
This was the thunder I'd been waiting for!
The heels— I'd never put them all the way on. I'd been slipping them off in silence this whole time.
I kicked off the shoes.
The thunder crashed.
I launched myself at him with everything I had.
The thunder covered all sound.
He felt the rush of air and tried to raise his arm, but it was too late.
I swung the thermos—
The heavy stainless-steel thermos, still half-full of water, connected with his abdomen with a sickening impact.
Right where his injured organs were.
The force of the blow sent him staggering backward. I followed through and slammed into the floor, my knee cracking against the tile.
He tried to rise. I pounced, swinging the thermos down on his abdomen again—
In the darkness, it felt like a child's eyes were watching me.
Strangely, in that moment, I thought of Lucas.
His broken phone that afternoon.
"You live alone. Be careful."
I raised the thermos and brought it down.
Once. Twice.
In the hallway outside, storm clouds gathered. Lucas turned to leave, then looked back over his shoulder.
"You won't have insomnia if you stop overthinking."
"How did you know—?"
He tapped his head and smiled. "Patient's intuition."
The thermos connected one final time. The floor seemed to vibrate.
The thermos flew from my hands, clattering across the floor.
The rain was still pouring outside.
I sat in my rain-soaked living room, surrounded by blood, completely drained.
The blind man lay motionless beneath me, blood pouring from his mouth.
Those diseased eyes— they'd been dead for years, probably.
I slumped, gasping for breath.
Then — a hand closed around my wrist.
The blind man was gripping me.
I tried to pull away, but I had no strength left.
He pulled me down on top of him.
A hand closed around my throat.
But he was as weak as I was. The grip only bruised my neck— it couldn't crush it.
After a long moment, his hand fell away.
His weak fingers lifted, brushing against my cheek.
Wet.
I heard his voice, faint as a whisper:
"Mommy... is that sweat, or are you crying?"
"Tears," I said. I didn't deny it.
His hand dropped. His whole body went limp against the floor.
"Thank you," he said.
...
I found Lucas's phone in his pocket and called 911.
By the time the police arrived, the rain had slowed considerably.
Lucas was loaded into an ambulance. He was alive, but he'd suffered severe head trauma. It would be a while before he woke up.
I was taken to the police station and gave statement after statement.
The blind man's internal organs had been severely ruptured. After emergency surgery, his life was saved — but many more charges awaited him.
Days later, the detective working my case told me what the investigation had uncovered.
The blind man's eyes had been healthy when he was very young.
His mother had left him when he was little, running off with a businessman.
He'd chased after her, crying and screaming.
His mother, in a moment of cold finality, had locked him inside their old home and burned his eyes with lit cigarettes.
She was barely literate, a woman of limited means and even less conscience.
She'd simply decided that a blind child couldn't follow her.
She was right. He couldn't. He grew up, tried to find her, and failed.
That, the detective believed, was why he grew to hate every woman who'd ever abandoned a child — seeing his mother in all of them.
There was one more thing.
The detective had interviewed the neighbors.
On the night of the storm, several households had heard noises from my apartment.
But the rain pounding on the awnings had masked the worst of it, and they'd assumed it was just the weather.
In other words, if I hadn't fought back, no one would have come.
If I hadn't fought, I would have died.
Weeks later, Lucas called me.
He'd regained consciousness, but he was badly hurt. He wouldn't be leaving the hospital for at least a month. I wasn't in much better shape — bandaged and bruised all over.
We compared notes on our respective conditions.
"What made you come to my apartment that night?" I asked suddenly.
"My bipolar was acting up. I couldn't sleep. I wanted someone to talk to."
That explained his constant talk about patient's intuition.
"And then... you started kicking the door..."
"That's a symptom of bipolar disorder. You get these intense, vivid delusions."
"What kind of delusions?"
"The delusion that someone I care about is in danger." I heard him give a self-deprecating laugh on the other end. "When I walked in and saw you tied up, I thought I was still hallucinating."
"Get your disorder treated, will you?"
I was standing in the corridor, chatting with him between classes.
The railing, washed clean by the rain, looked brighter than usual.
I turned around at the sound of familiar footsteps.
It was my roommate — and the man who'd slept with my child's father.
They were holding hands. The man winced as I accidentally bumped his shoulder.
He looked flustered, as if he couldn't understand why I was suddenly so steady on my feet.
"Sorry," I said, patting his shoulder. "I don't watch where I'm going. Not anymore."
I walked away, phone to my ear, making plans with Lucas to visit him after class.
I sat in his hospital room, peeling an apple while telling him about the aftermath.
"So your apartment's uninhabitable now," he said.
"Yeah. I'm planning to move back to the dorm."
Visiting hours were almost over. I set the peeled apple down and stood to leave.
"Hey," he called after me. "Move in with me."
I paused.
Was he worried about me?
"I'm fine now," I said with a smile. "These days, they're more scared of me than I am of them."
"I'll go have a chat with that guy... you know, during one of my manic episodes..." He kept rambling. "But seriously, people need to live somewhere happy..."
"You're giving me happiness advice? You? A bipolar patient?"
I picked up my bag to leave. His eyes followed me.
I sighed.
"...Where's your spare key?"
"By the door, in the fire cabinet. Bottom gap."
"How long do you want me to stay?"
"I don't know. Could be a while." Lucas said, "When I get out, I'll take care of you."