The desolation only added to Ignacio’s feeling of excitement, of wonder – right now, the rest of the world didn’t exist. His men melted into the background, dutiful soldiers who were there merely for their muscle and ability to fire a gun, nothing more. No, right now it was Ignacio Garcia Hernandez and Maria de la Cruz and – one more push! – now they were three, Daddy Bear, Mommy Bear, Baby Bear. Maria reached for the baby as it slithered out from her body, but Ignacio was faster. He took the child, still attached by reams of umbilical cord much like a bungee jumper to a bridge. Ignacio didn’t cut the cord right away. He’d read somewhere – or was it his wife who had told him? – that the best way to ensure a healthy baby at birth was to wait until the cord stopped pulsating before cutting it.
This was also the reason he had not simply killed Maria and cut the baby from her flesh, though he was hardly about to tell her that. Mothers tended to get violently hysterical when confronted with their own mortality.
The baby was still. He turned it over and gave a great slap on the back – a sharp intake of breath, the very first air to touch its lungs, and then the baby cried, strong and sharp.
Ignacio Garcia Hernandez held the wet, screaming bundle in his palms and smiled. A healthy child, with a thick head of blonde hair. Bright blue eyes and the most adorable little fists that were currently clenched as it wailed. Ignacio moved the umbilical cord to the side and confirmed what he’d already suspected.
His newest possession was a girl.
Of course. He smiled, bringing the tiny infant to his chest, bundling her into the space between his shirt and bare skin to keep her warm.
She quieted immediately, her little eyes wide, her clumsy head rooting around for mother’s milk that would never come.
“Milk,” he ordered, and as if by magic, a bottle of formula appeared in front of him in Rico’s outstretched hand. Ignacio took the bottle and teased it around the baby’s mouth, a surge of affection running through him when she attached and started suckling greedily.
Maria de la Cruz was watching all of this from the floor, her eyes already full of the knowledge that the rest of her life was now measured in seconds, not years.
“Let me feed her,” she whispered, holding out her arms. “Let me hold her, Ignacio, please—”
She never quite got to finish the “s” in please, because Ignacio, multi-tasker that he was, balancing baby and bottle in one thick arm, withdrew the Gold-plated pistol from his shoulder holster with his spare hand and shot Maria de la Cruz right between the eyes. She died instantly, sagging to the side as the bullet’s exit path through the back of her head painted a bright red line of blood down the wall.
The baby girl in his arms stiffened at the sudden explosive sound; her back arched, she spat the bottle teat out and scrunched up her face, wailing as her mother had wailed only moments earlier. “Shhh,” Ignacio murmured, rocking the tiny thing gently as he holstered his gun. “Come on, my girl. Everything will be okay.”
She quieted, finding the bottle teat again, pulling milk by sheer instinct and the ravenous hunger of being born.
“My beautiful girl,” Ignacio murmured, gazing down at the child whose mother and father he had just murdered in cold blood. She was falling asleep already, her thick lashes fluttering as she dreamed earth side for the first time. She was so pretty already, but more importantly, just like her mother, she would be an exquisite beauty. A beauty that Ignacio would shape and mold like a potter sitting behind his wheel, wet clay skimming against his hands, forming a masterpiece.
“All of this was meant to be, little one,” he whispered, rubbing his thumb along his baby’s forehead. “All of this was fate.”
He smiled. Fate had always been kind to Ignacio.
SERAPHINA
Eighteen Years Later
It’s almost night. Anticipation bubbles up in my belly; he’ll be here soon.
I have to be ready. Everything has to be ready. Everything has to be perfect. My skin is soft and creamy from the moisturizer he brought me; my pussy bare from where he shaved me last night. Every inch of me is silky and smooth and smelling of coconut.
I would usually be ravenous by now; my days have a very particular routine. I wake up with a sliver of the sun, peeking through the tiny crack in the boards that cover my windows to keep me safe. I read; I drink water by the gallon to quell the hunger pangs in my belly; I paint with the watercolors he left for me. I sleep, because I’m so weak from the lack of food. When I sleep, I dream of the same angel; the man made of midnight, with the kind eyes and the wide smile. I think about my small hand tucked in to his, his earthy smell, the way I am so sure he is real. The first time I saw him, his tender words. “I’ll get you out of here, sweetheart.”
He can’t be real, because he never came back. Not after I fell out of the window, fresh blood still running down my thighs from what Ignacio had done to me. “You’re a woman, now,” he had whispered, and then he had turned from my father to a monster, right before my eyes.
But mostly, I wait.
My pulse quickens as I hear his car pull up. I’ve never been in a car before. I wonder if it feels like flying along the dirt roads, engine purring. Not that I can fly, either.
I hurry to my spot on the bed that takes up the center of my circular room; on my hands and knees, facing away from the door, trying to still my breathing.
I hear the hard soles of his shoes as he ascends the stairs: clackclackclack. His keychain jangles. The key inserts into the locking mechanism and turns.
I break out into a cold sweat, which is so unlike me. I am always full of anticipation, excitement to see him after a long day by myself. But this night, something is wrong. My skin is clammy, oscillating between hot and cold, and I want to throw up.
The door closes again, locked tight to keep me safe. Those same shoes clack across concrete floors to the bed, to where I wait, ass in the air, naked as the day I was born into Ignacio’s arms in this exact spot.
He stops at the end of the bed. I feel the mattress dip as he climbs on to the bed behind me, already hard as he takes my hips in cold, rough palms and pulls me in to him. He plants a single kiss on my tailbone. “Did you miss me, Seraphina?”
My eyes fill with tears. “Yes, papi.” It’s true, I always miss him so much. He’s my entire world. Without him, this room stays dark and it’s just me, touching myself under my panties until my skin is raw and my fingers are soaked.
“Your hair is wrong,” he growls. Fear spikes in my belly, alongside the dull ache that has been in my side all day. I’ve never forgotten to arrange my hair just the way he likes it. He prefers it loose, so he can wrap it around his hands while he drives himself into me. Today I forgot. It’s the pain. The pain in my side. It’s been plaguing me for days; making me forget things.
I open my mouth to apologize, but my platitudes are drowned out by a sharp smack to my rear. And another. And another. It hurts. I grip handfuls of the snow-white sheets in front of me, barely visible in the fading light. Sometimes I think he visits me at dusk so that he doesn’t have to see me properly.
He stops striking me; my skin stings from the sudden assault. But it’s nothing compared to the sharp throb in my right side.