“I hate you,” I whispered so low he couldn’t hear.
“What was that? I can’t hear you over the sound of your pathetic whimpers.”
“I said,” I stood taller with Yuly, my hand clenching into a fist, “I HATE YOU!” I seethed, charging the two men beside Damien in the room. Hitting, punching, pushing them as hard as I could. Making them laugh at me. Only fueling my hatred more.
I fought with every ounce of strength I had left inside my hollow shell, still holding onto Yuly. Needing her comfort to keep going. I shoved, slapped, and hit the murderers, wanting to hurt them. Pounded my fist into their rock-hard chests, not paying any mind to the throbbing pain running through my hand. It was nothing compared to the knife in my heart. I just wanted them to die too. I kneed the biggest man in between his legs so hard that I fell back on the broken glass, wincing instantly from the pain.
His hand instinctively went up in the air about to slap me across my face, but a strong arm wrapped around my stomach, yanking me back. Lifting me off the floor, just missing the large man’s hand as it whooshed by my face. As soon as my back collided with someone’s solid chest, I turned around in their arms and fought.
“No! No! No!” I shrieked, roughly trying to fight him off. Shaking my head back and forth.
“Calm down!” he urged, engulfing me in nothing but my sister’s blood. It was only then that I knew it was Damien.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t stop fighting. I was choking, drowning deeper in my despair. In the memories that would haunt me when I was awake and terrorize me when I tried to sleep.
“I hate you! I wish you were all dead!” I yelled hysterically. I was hyperventilating to the point where my vision was getting spotty. My vocal cords felt like they were on fire. “Don’t touch me!” I screamed bloody murder, continuing my assault.
Hitting all over his face, his chest, anywhere I could with him still holding onto my flailing body. He didn’t block me, he didn’t stop me. He let me deliver every blow, exactly how he let Teresa. Knowing he deserved it and more.
“This is all your fault! You did this! Murderer!” I roared, pushing him and hitting him harder, faster, letting my adrenaline kick in at full force. My eyes seeing red, and my body sickened with rage and the desire to fall apart.
“You puta!” the man who I hit in between the legs sneered. Grabbing ahold of Yuly, trying to yank her out of my deathly grasp.
“NO! PLEASE NO!” I begged, gripping onto her as tight as I could. “She’s all I have! PLEASE!”
Her dress tore and her arm snapped off, causing the men to laugh harder as I mourned another life that they were about to take away from me.
“PLEASE!” I bellowed out.
He was now holding onto Yuly as he looked me in the eyes, snapping her head from her body.
“NO!” I shouted loud enough to break glass, reaching for her before he threw her across the room.
As if she was nothing.
When she meant everything to me.
“I hate you! I hate you! I hate you, so much!” I sobbed, struggling against Damien’s arms. Bringing my hands up to his neck, I scratched my nails down to his chest. Leaving a trail of blood in their wake. I needed to get to Yuly.
Damien forcefully threw me onto the floor like a rag doll, hitting my head with a thud. I shuddered from the impact of his strength.
“You fucking bitch!” Damien raged, looking down at me with hate in his eyes. His demeanor quickly changing. “Leave us, NOW! I’ll take care of this little bitch!”
“I should fuck the disobedience right out of her,” one of the men fumed, walking out the door with the other man. Leaving us alone.
“I said I got her! Now get the fuck out!”
Before I gave it another thought, Damien pulled his gun out from the back of his fatigues. It was then that another brutal reality came crashing down on me.
I. Was. Wrong.
So very wrong…
The monster hadn’t left, he was standing right in front of me. Pulling the trigger.
Ending it all…
For me.
I didn’t give it a second thought.
I grabbed a book of matches from the end table, striking the strip, watching the end spark. Taking a second to smell the sulfur before throwing the stick on the floor. Lighting the godforsaken house on fire. I was right, it only took seconds for the shitty, thin wood to catch fire. Orange and red flames crept over the massacre, igniting the blood, erasing the night like it never happened.
I took one last look at her small, lifeless body lying on the floor in front of me. Remembering the look in her eyes when my gun was aimed directly in her face, before she took her last breath. There was nothing I could do anymore.
What was done, was done.
This was my life…
Now, forever, and all the days in between.
I walked out of the house completely numb, as the flames erupted behind me. Engulfing the shack, burning the bodies of the loving family that once lived there.
Their blood eternally on my hands.
“What the fuck?” Salazar questioned, cocking his head to the side. He was leaning against his limo with my father and Pedro by his side. The other guards were already waiting inside the vehicle.
“Que?” I replied, “What?”
“La ni?a? ?La mataste?” he asked, “The girl? You killed her?”
“You said she was my responsibility. What the fuck would I do with a little girl?”
“Damien, she was a child. You didn’t need—” my father started.
“I didn’t need to do what?” I interjected him, stepping up in his face for the second time that night. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how any of this works. My father must have forgotten to mention he was a cold-blooded killer. Isn’t this what you wanted? Training me all these years, preparing me to become a soldier? I did what I had to do. In my eyes, she was a fucking liability. You want her running her mouth to anyone who will listen? Because I sure as shit don’t. I did her a favor, she’s with her family now. It’s where she belongs.”
Salazar narrowed his eyes at me, grinning. “A saint one minute, a sinner the next. You see, Damien, you and I are not that different at all. You’re such a loose fucking cannon—a wild card. I’ve always admired that about you. Never knowing what you’re going to do. Keeps things interesting.”
I eyed him up and down, repeating his words, “Fatherland or death, we shall win.”
“You should have seen how he threw the little bitch down,” Pedro chuckled. “We let you have your first kill to yourself, motherfucker, the way it should always be. But next time… we get to watch.”