When night finally came, it turned out to be just another crowded house party, but that worked fine for Matthew. It would be fitting to finally connect with his crush in such a normal way, and that made him happy. His life had gotten pretty crazy, and he could do with a bit of normalcy. This was going to be practically wholesome compared to some of the other things that had happened so far with Tomé, and compared to the way he’d treated his boss, this was downright romantic.

Downstairs he spotted Annie’s friend Maria who looked like she was getting ready to go home with some guy he didn’t recognize, which was cool. He was glad that Annie knew at least one person at this party, of course, but she’d be a bit more uninhibited if there were fewer people around. 

It turned out he was wrong about that, though. Annie couldn’t be any less uninhibited because it turned out she was passed out drunk on a bed upstairs. That horrible moment was a bigger temptation than it should have been, and it took several seconds longer than it should have to decide to do the right thing. He just froze, thinking about all the things he could do rather than the ones he should do, and it sickened him. With rising anger toward’s Tomé as much as himself, he stormed downstairs to find Maria. He didn’t want to leave his crush alone with any man, especially not a monster like him.

“Maria, Hey - come here a second,” he shouted over the music as he saw her heading towards the door with a guy that sure looked like he was going to get lucky. There was a brief look of recognition, but then she looked at him skeptically as she struggled to figure out what a guy like him could possibly want with a girl like her. That changed when he added. “It’s Annie. She’s sick.”

There was a brief exchange by the door with her and Mr. Lucky that ended in a kiss, and then she pushed her way through a knot of people to get to him at the stairs. “Wait, what happened?” She asked, the concern evident in her voice. 

Matthew didn’t bother to answer immediately. He just grabbed her by her hand and started to pull her up the stairs. Once they were past the first landing and the thumping music had reduced enough that he didn’t need to shout, he said, “She’s passed out. I think she just had too much to drink.”

“Fuck,” she cursed, as she realized her plans might be changing real fast. “Good looking out. I hope it was just too much to drink, but she’s not really the type, you know?”

Matthew was forced to agree with her, but he didn’t want to think about that too much. The idea that someone had roofied the poor girl was heartbreaking. “I know what you mean,” he said, reaching for the door, “But we can worry about that later. Right now, she needs…” His words trailed off as he tried to turn the knob hard twice before rattling it hard as he realized it was locked. 

“Are you sure she’s in there?” Maria asked, looking at him like he might have been the one to drink too much. “Maybe she’s in one of these other rooms and—”

Matthew didn’t bother to respond. He was more sure of this than he was of anything else in his life. He’d been gone for less than two minutes, and some monster had snuck into this room and locked the door to presumably do everything that the darkest part of him had briefly been tempted by. He wasn’t going to search the other rooms or find the host and get a key. There wasn’t time for that. There was only time for action. So, he lifted his leg and brought his heel down hard on the cheap bedroom lock.

“Matt - wait, maybe…” Maria looked at him like he’d gone crazy as he brought his heel down twice more on the flimsy door before the door gave out, and it swung wide open to reveal some creep with his pants around his ankles who was in the process of peeling on Annie’s panties. 

With a fury that Matthew had never felt before, he strode into the room full of fury and punched the other guy in the face. At that moment, the stranger was defenseless while he searched for some plausible explanation as to what they’d walked in on, but even that wasn’t enough for Matthew to drop him. He was a few inches shorter than the other guy and far from the strongest man he knew. In a normal situation, he never would have tried to fight a guy that outweighed him by at least thirty pounds. This wasn’t normal, though. This was rage, and he wasn’t thinking at all. He was only acting. 

Matthew got a few more blows in before the other guy finally let go of Annie’s legs and raised his hands in defense. After that, it became a real fight. Matthew could count on one hand the number of fights he’d ever been in, in his whole life, but it didn’t seem like his opponent had been in many more, which made the whole fair a clumsy, awkward thing until the bigger guy used his weight and his size to slam Matthew backward putting him on his ass. 

The rapist had absolutely intended to use that moment to escape and run past Matthew, but there was no way he was letting this motherfucker get by him. Instead, he latched onto the other boy’s ankle, pulling him down to join him on the carpet.

“No, you fucking don’t,” Matthew growled as his opponent started punching and kicking in an effort to get away. Getting away was impossible, though, especially after he slammed his knee into the other boy’s crotch. 

After that, it was all over, but Matthew still didn’t stop. He wasn’t trying to beat his opponent into submission after all. He was trying to beat to death the one small part of him that had been tempted to do something similar. It disgusted him in the moment, but it disgusted him even more after the fact. To think that he could possibly have anything at all in common with this piece of shit made him sick. 

He kept punching him even after he was unconscious, and it was only when a couple of the other guys at the party pulled him off of the limp body that he finally stopped. There was some screaming and shouting, but he didn’t really hear much of it. 

“Jesus Christ, dude, just chill!” someone shouted at him after that, but he didn’t remember who. It was finally enough to penetrate the fog. Everything was a blur at that moment of adrenaline, and it took him the better part of a minute to calm down.

He just sat there in the doorway while they checked on him. They seemed worried that he’d killed the rapist, but Matthew didn’t care. That hadn’t been the plan, but he wasn’t exactly going to lose any sleep over it. Sadly the asshole woke up a few minutes later.  

The host was aghast at what he’d done to the door and told them both, “Look, I’ve called the police. No one is going anywhere until they figure out who’s paying for this shit.”

“Fine,” Matthew shot back, “but you should be more worried about the girl that almost got raped at your party than your stupid fucking door, dude.”

It was almost like an afterthought as they all slowly looked at where he was pointing. Maria was there now, taking care of her, and that was good enough for him, but it irritated him to no end to think that this guy cared more about his eighty-dollar door than the real victim of this tragedy. 

He answered people’s questions about what had happened until they started to bust out their cellphone cameras to put this on their insta or their TikTok. After that, he just put his head down and waited. He pretended like he wasn’t paying attention, but really he was just watching the other dude to make sure he didn’t make a break for it again. 

When the cops finally showed up and put him in cuffs, he didn’t say a word. He just cooperated, and after a few minutes, he and the little bitch he’d just beaten bloody were escorted to different squad cars. Matthew heard the other guy trying to explain how he’d only been trying to defend himself, and he just smiled grimly. 

He had a witness, and even if he didn’t, he still would have done it again in a heartbeat.