XII - A Heart of Thorns
Kansas Kate shuddered a little bit at the horrible thing, and cut it in key places a few times to make sure it was dead dead. She'd take the head off if time permitted, but they didn't have that kind of time.
She needed a bit of air, walking back in with her side bleeding, her body wanting to quit but her mind not letting it.
"Revenge is fer idjits." Kansas Kate replied in her nails-on-a-chalkboard voice but with an uncharacteristically cool tone.
No, no. No more of that, ya used up all ya needed to of that. That's fer idjits too.
She stepped forward. "Ah came here ta shoot mah pa. Didja know that? Reckon not. Nor do ah reckon ya care. Ya shud-int, ah shur as hell don't, not no more. Though ah'm sure he needs it."
It was a very strange voice, unrefined, scratchy, but lacking in that anger and acidity, not deliberately unpleasant like it had been before.
The former Wichita Witch squared her eyes to his. "Ah ain't a smart gal. Ah ain't pretty neither, mighta been once 'fore mah face got cut an' burnt. Ah don't know even after all this if ah believe in a damn thing. Ah don't know if there's a God like them church folks say, ah don't know if the idea of justice or other pretty words means a damn thing in this sorry ass shithole of a world. But there's two things ah does know. One thing ah don't believe in no more is nothin'. Nothin's a big ass lie. Ah don't believe in believin' nothin' an ah don't belive in doin' nothin' so ya shove that idea right up yer arse."
"Th' other thing ah know is thar's evil, and thar's evil. Ah know what evil is. They's two kinds of it. There's th' evil that's our sorry lot, th' evil we do ta ourselves. Th' evil mah pa done, th' evil mah ma done, an th' evil ah done, it goes on an' on an yooshually t'ain't a damn thing a body can do about it. That's the evil we has ta accept."
She stepped forward. She lifted her right hand, the one covered in the velvet glove she never removed, not until now. She peeled it off. The pentagram the witches had burned into it was still there. She hated it, but she was done hiding and showed it. "Th' other kind of evil is bullshit like this!"
A little bit of her usual sound came back just briefly in that statement before she dropped the hand. "Ah just kilt me a thing in there what shouldn't be. It takes a cockless little shitchewing bitch like Murphy ta work his will by relyin' on sech things as that. A man who cain't use th' evil what comes in his heart ta any ends he desires ain't no man. An a man who ain't a man ain't shit, an neither is you. Ya wants to go warn folks, do it, but you done get the hell out of here."