Venting….. (WoD)
His knuckles drip blood in the silence of the gymnasium.
The room is dimly lit, his rage having disabled his thought processes past the point of bothering with flipping the lights on or doing anything other than striking the heavy bag until the skin on his hands had split and the bones of his fingers began to crack. Sam stands winded, sweat dripping down his face, into his eyes, onto the mat beneath him. He shakes like a willow in a windstorm and his mind returns to him, as troubled now as it had been before the first blow was struck.
He had to leave. Now, if possible. He felt stifled, buried alive. Nothing he did ever changed the oppressive sense of being closed in, closed off from his spiritual aspect, deep within this bunker of stone and lead. The Weaver was strong here, as strong as it had been in the downtowns of New York and Chicago.
It was killing him.
He’d seen the signs of stress in the tightness around Jack’s eyes and the weariness in Amelia’s face. Sunny was sunny as always, but she’d been quieter and more inclined to solitude and that was unlike her, from what Ellie had said. Ellie herself showed no ill effects, but her godfather had been a Glasswalker, somebody named Random Access, and her mother had been a Glasswalker as well. She’d been raised in the Howling Rage, tutored by the girl once known as Eats Mice. Ellie was going to be alright.
The thought of Eats Mice makes his fists clench painfully. The tiny girl he remembered from before his quest to the east coast was nothing like this creature who called herself the Lady Soleil. He glares at the heavy bag, lost in his thoughts, blue machinegunner’s eyes hard and a bit glassy.
His father, Marcus, had asked why he hated Dawn. How could he explain that he didn’t hate her, had never hated her, couldn’t hate her? That he’d loved her from the moment he’d set eyes on her and a part of him always would, trapped by those soft grey eyes and that kitten smile? He strikes the heavy bag again, feeling the bones of his hand slide and grind. He knew she was in love with his dad. He knew she had no interest in him other than that of a close friend, and, honestly, he wasn’t hurt by that. He understood. Love wasn’t one of those things you put a leash on.
He grins, a sharp smile like a sliver of glass, the expression foreign on his normally pleasant face. No, you couldn’t put a leash on love. He had changed much since those days at the range on Rachel’s farm and the nights in Katharine’s living room playing Legend of Zelda. So had she. More than he ever thought she could have.
He fires a right cross at the heavy bag like a guided missile, followed by a series of left jabs and then an uppercut. He feels the bones of his hands crunch and shift, feels his punches slide as they land, blood-slick. The pain pleases him somewhat. It reflects his inner hurts, pain on the outside that he can quantify, not like the pain within. His grin grows wider.
There is no sound in the darkened gym but the solid thwump of his fists striking the bag, and the gentle patter of blood falling like rain.