I cough and try to breathe. I bring my hands up to pry his fingers away from me, but I can’t loosen his grip. I twist and kick my legs, but he’s too heavy. His hands push down even harder on my neck. My lungs are screaming for new air that doesn’t come and I feel like I’m drowning.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” the man says to me, his mouth spitting every word. The blood from his broken nose drips down onto my face and inside my mouth. It tastes metallic and bitter and dirty. I shake my head. I try to spit it out but can’t find the air. “Your parents killed my nephew. I had to watch him die. I hoped you would come so I could look in your eyes while I kill you.”
I turn my face toward him. My eyes adjust to the darkness as my mind registers that he’s not just another one of Torres’s White Angels. I’m looking into the face of his brother and partner, a man as notorious a killer as Torres himself. His eyes are filled with so much hate, so much anger and rage. I panic as I realize his dark eyes may be the last thing I ever see.
My hands pull again at his fingers while I kick and twist and dig my feet into the ground to lift him, but he’s two hundred and fifty pounds. He pushes down even harder on my neck.
“Die, puta,” he hisses, his face inching closer to mine. “Die.”
His eyes flash with frustration. I twist once more and slide my hand along the hardwood floor. I feel the top of my pants. My fingers crawl further down my side. Please, God. Please, God. Please, God. And then I feel it, the metal handle of my knife.
“Die, puta.” He’s now screaming in my face. I can feel my body fading. Shiny silver sparks are in my peripheral vision. They creep closer into my eye line, and behind it is nothing. Black. Death.
No. No. No. My head is screaming. Not like this. Not this way.
With every ounce of strength I can find in my dying body, I drag the knife from its hiding place in the side of my pants.
“Die, puta,” he shouts again. He’s so close to my face, he doesn’t see the knife in the air. I hold the knife above his head, then with a last burst of dying strength, I slam it into the side of his neck. His eyes widen and his mouth drops as the metal penetrates his skin. He finally loosens the grip on my neck.
I gasp new air into my scorching lungs. The anger in his eyes is now replaced with shock and pain. Blood pours from his neck and drips down onto my face. His hands leave my neck and slowly lift up to his own. He touches the serrated blade in his throat. I push him off my stomach and his heavy body rolls onto the floor.
I jump to my feet and stand over him. His body has started to convulse and his limbs are shaking. His chest rises and falls with quick, panicked breaths. I watch as crimson blood pours down the side of his neck, soaking the white area rug.
As he looks up at me, his eyes fill with the type of fear you must feel when you know you’re about to die, when you know there is no way you can possibly fight back or live through this. A tear runs down his cheek and his mouth trembles. The shaking grows more violent. The blood pours faster, heavier. His eyes stay locked on mine, glassy and pleading for help.
I thought I’d feel some sort of pleasure as I watched a man who wanted to murder my parents die in front of me. I thought I’d get some sort of satisfaction watching the light fade from his eyes. But I don’t. I don’t feel pity or sadness either. I feel nothing, and as I watch him shake, I just want it to be over. I just want this to end. I reach around my waist and pull my pistol out from the back of my pants. I wrap my finger around the metal. I’ve held this type of gun a thousand times, but it somehow seems heavier in my hands now. Maybe because I’m light-headed—weakened from the fight—or maybe it’s because I know that once I pull the trigger, I will always be a killer. I will always have someone else’s blood on my hands.
Bang. The shot forces my body back. The bullet strikes him in the temple. The shaking stops. The hand he held at his neck falls to the ground. I stand there, my arms stretched in front of my body, my pistol still pointed straight ahead. I watch as blood streaks down his cheek from the bullet hole in his skull. His shallow breaths have ceased and I know he is dead.
My fingertips cautiously reach for the skin on my neck where his strong hands used to be. It stings. I pull my hands away, tuck my pistol into the back of my pants, step over the dead body, and pick my M4 up off the floor. I stand at the open door, lean my body against the door frame and listen.
I hear a struggle down the hall, and then someone yelling in pain.
Luke. I sidestep down the hall, my gun pointed in front of me, and follow the sound. Another grunt, a strike, someone loses their breath, a body falls.
I peer around the wall and Luke is down on the ground, a man straddling him on either side. Luke’s fist makes contact with the man’s jaw. Tiny droplets of blood splatter from his busted lip, dotting the cream walls.