Free Broken to Pieces by Avery Stark

musky taste of attic filled her mouth. She grimaced and headed toward the door.
    "Okay. Thanks, Adam."
    Emily grabbed the door just below his hand but he stopped her from opening it all of the way.
    "Do you want me to go with you?"
    His obvious concern for her made her heart flutter. She gently stroked one of her dusty fingers over his. It was so fleeting that she was sure nobody had noticed. Nobody that is, except for Adam, who looked at her with a smile.
    "It's okay. I'll be back in soon."
    Adam stepped in, allowing her to move by and close the door behind her. Unfortunately for her delicate existence, there was a monster waiting at the base of the stairs.
    When Emily turned around and saw Father Hall standing with his hand on the railing, her breath froze in the middle of an exhale. In the same moment, the rising bile in the back of her throat burned with an acidic tang that she hadn't forgotten over the years.
    She squeezed her hands into fists and gritted her teeth to keep from screaming.
    "What are you doing here?"
    "Emily, I-"
    He raised a foot and moved like he was going to climb the stairs.
    "Don't come near me, you sick bastard."
    Her words came through her teeth like a growl.
    "Emily," he pleaded, "I've come to offer my respects."
    "Respect?" Her voice started to rise and she pressed herself against the door to get as far away from him as possible. "Don't talk to me about respect."
    An almost believable frown turned his mouth down toward the ground.
    "I have repented and made myself right with God."
    Emily was almost speechless. Her heart raced and her palms turned clammy, making it harder and harder for her to grip onto the door knob like the lifeline that it was.
    Of all the people who could have come, why did it have to be him?
    Finally, after a long silence, Emily stomped her foot onto the porch and screamed at him, " Fuck you and your forgiveness!" She pointed a shaking finger at him and started to weep openly, "You ruined everything!"
    "Now Emily," he raised a hand to her-the same one that he used to violate her so many years ago-and tried to come up the steps again.
    Emily could feel the years of pent-up anger -and outright hate- beginning to boil over. There were so many things that she wanted to say, so much of her pain that she wanted him to feel, that she simply lost control.
    The young woman flew down the stairs and landed both of her balled-up fists square in Father Hall's chest. He stumbled backwards, gasping for breath, and eventually landed right on his ass a few feet away.
    " Fuck you ," she screamed again and charged after him, kicking up clouds of dirt as she barreled forward in a blind rage. "You disgusting sack of sh-"
    When she reached the cowering pastor, her words simply stopped. Instead, she fell down onto her knees next to him like a baseball player sliding into home and grabbed a fist full of his thinning hair. Once she had a firm grip, Emily forced him further into the dirt.
    "Emily," he raised his hands in front of his face, "think about what you are doing!"
    She tightened her grip on his hair until her knuckles had turned to a snowy white and forced the back of his head into the dirt. The young woman hadn't been in a fight in her entire life, but the torrent of emotions suddenly gave her a kind of blood lust that, later, would startle even her.
    "Shut the fuck up," she wailed through her tears.
    Though she couldn't see it, the front door flew open and the Inn's guests ran out onto the porch. What they saw shocked all of them.
    Emily raised her free fist up and brought it down onto Father Hall's long nose with a sickening crack. The cowering priest screamed and thrashed in an attempt to get away from her, but it didn't do any good. Her fingers were curled around his hair like a bear trap and, as was made apparent by the distant look in her eyes, she wasn't anywhere near being done with him.
    Father Hall tried to shield his face with his arms, but it was no match for Emily's pummeling