Still struggling with the image of Jesmind, of the memory of how it all began, Tarrin snarled at the female as she got back onto her feet, losing his grip on his rational mind once again. But instead of rushing her and trying to rip her apart, Tarrin lunged forward just a bit, then fully extended his body to send his fist sizzling between her upraised paws and right into her nose. The blow shattered her pert little nose, crushing it against her face and his fist, and it sent her right back to the floor. She sprawled onto the floor nervelessly, and she laid there for a few seconds before she began to move again. She moved just in time to catch his paws as he dropped on her, struggling to keep them away from her head. Desperation showed clearly on her face, as the glow in her eyes faded and showed the green cat's-eyes of a Were-cat beneath that glowing radiance. In those eyes was fear. But Tarrin barely registered that, for his mind was spinning with images of Jesmind, memories of the pain and fear and confusion he felt when he'd first been bitten, and seeing Jula before him only brought back the memory of what he was, what he had become. Her face became the representation of everything he hated in his own life, everything he feared, and he tried to destroy it with every fiber of his being. But Jula was fighting for her very life, and that gave her a strength to match his fury, keeping his bloody claws from reaching her as they trembled to sink into her flesh.
He felt her foot claws snag on the skin of his hip and push, and it was enough to drive him off of her. He was pushed off to the side, and she immediately rolled the other way and sprang to her feet. She had no intentions of fighting anymore, she turned right towards the door and tried to flee to it. She managed one step before Tarrin's foot swept her ankles, spilling her back to the floor. "No!" Tarrin screamed furiously as he regained his feet at the same time she did. "Not again! You're not getting away!" He struck her in the face, snapping her head back, and her paws fatally sank down from the stunning effects of the blow. Instead of grabbing her by the head, he hit her again, and again, staggering her back as he vented all his frustration, all his rage, all his pain on her. He had her now, and there would be no quick kill. He grabbed her by the upper arm and hauled her into his grasp, then lifted her over his head by her arm and a paw on the small of her back. He turned and threw her into one of the walls with all of his strength, with all of his pent-up fury and rage, with such tremendous power that her body shattered the bricks and plaster that held it together. She was driven through the wall in an explosion of brick, crumbled mortar, and flakes of white plaster, landing limply on the street beyond as shards of masonry rained down on and around her.
The blow had killed the house. The entire structure began to groan and shift, dust and pieces of stone dislodging from what was left of the ceiling, and the entirety of the building began to lean ominously in the direction of the wall that Jula's body had punctured. Instead of trying to escape, his enraged mind simply reached out, reached out and made a connection to something outside of him, a sensation he remembered only once before. That connection seemed to expand him, make him part of a greater whole, and in its connection he was blessed with power. That power exploded from him, sending a shockwave of force away from him to shatter the crumbled dwelling in a loud detonation, to keep it from collapsing on him by sending it away from him. In a column of dust, the building where they had been was blown apart by the defensive reaction, sending bits of masonry raining down for blocks in every direction.
Tarrin stepped from the cloud of billowing dust, and looked right at Jula. She was on her stomach, looking back over her shoulder, and there was panic in her eyes. She struggled to get to her feet, but her body was trembling with the effort. Her regenerative power was beginning to wane, slowing down as it struggled to heal what were probably massive internal injuries, and it left her vulnerable until she could move. She tried to crawl away from him feebly, but he was on her before she could get more than one paw away from him, kicking her in her wounded side and putting her on her back. She cried out at the impact, a cry that turned into a gasping whimper when she landed on a rock that dug into her injured body. But he showed no mercy, kneeling over her chest and grabbing her by the hair, then punching her dead in the face. The blow sent her head crashing back to the ground, taking a pawful of her hair out of her scalp, which Tarrin threw aside contemptuously. All the things wrong with his life were her fault. They were because of her! He killed people, he couldn't make friends, he had become a stranger to his own friends and family because of her! Her organization had killed Faalken, and had tried to kill him! Rage became powerful emotion, grabbing her by the neck and pulling her up so her glazed eyes could meet his. "You destroyed my life, and you did it for nothing!" he screamed hysterically at her. "I hate you for what you did to me! I want you to suffer, suffer like you've never suffered before!"
Letting go of her neck, he slapped her with the pad of his paw, smacked her hard enough to snap her head to the side on the ground. Then he slapped her with the other paw, snapping her head to the other side. She was the object, the representation of everything he hated in his own life, and punishing her was the same as punishing what was inside him, the darkness that he hated, yet could not deny was part of him. With tears streaming down his face, he struck her again, and again, and again, feeling nothing but more anger and pain every time he hit her, feeling nothing but the rage as he punished the one responsible for it. She was unconscious, beyond pain, and that only made him more enraged. He wanted her to be awake for this, to feel her life slip away from her, to know that he had destroyed her.
Tarrin, enough! Stop this! the voice of the Goddess rang in his mind, forcefully.
"She did this to me!" he retorted hotly, grabbing her by the hair and lifting her head off the ground.
And how does it make you feel? she demanded. Does it make you feel better to hurt her? Does it make everything alright? Does it make you feel more human to act like an animal?
The words were like a slap across the face. He blinked and looked down at the helpless Jula, but his mind was on what the Goddess said. He felt… rage. Hurting her didn't make him feel better, it only made him more and more angry. There was no satisfaction in it, only a towering fury, a need to hurt that had nothing to do with punishing her. He didn't want to punish her. He was punishing himself. And if he killed her, all he would have would be the memory of it, and it would bring him no real comfort. In the end of it, he no longer saw Jula. She was only a representation of what he truly hated and despised, and that was what he had become. And that was what he was trying to punish, to destroy.
He sat down on Jula's dirty stomach limply, looking down at her with sober eyes. She was completely mad. There couldn't have been a worse punishment for her than that. He knew. He had felt that madness, he had faced it, and he had conquered it. She had suffered for what she did to him, suffered more than he could ever inflict on her. She was what he nearly became, she was what he could still be if he couldn't control himself. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. If he would have killed her, then he would have become her, completely dominated by his rage. He had been like that for a while now, since Faalken's death. He had become even more consumed by his anger, anger at Faalken's death, a death he couldn't let go, couldn't mourn. Anger that caused him to kill indiscriminately, seeking only the flimsiest of justification for it, killing that had become easier and easier, and had began to be satisfying to him. The only difference between him and her was that she had no control over her actions, where he consciously chose his. If he would have submitted to his rage this time, if he would have taken her life, it would have been the first step down the path of his own madness.