“No, Reagan, don’t,” my mother pleads, her voice thin and her eyes panicked, screaming at me to run.
“I finally get to meet the famous Reagan Hillis,” Torres says, his voice low and husky, his accent thick. “The chosen one, yes? So glad you could join us.”
“Reagan, no! Leave now,” Mom begs, her feet scraping against the gray concrete floor just beyond the mattress. She moves her body left, then right, trying to twist out of Torres’s grasp. The metal chains around her arm clang against the wall as he pulls her body tighter.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Torres hisses in her ear. Mom closes her eyes and pulls down on his arm. He doesn’t budge. “I’m not done with you.”
“All your men are dead,” I say, my voice rising. “And I’ll kill you too if you don’t drop your weapon and let her go.”
Torres throws his head back, a laugh bubbling up his throat. I shiver at the sound of it. “I’m not stupid. I was trained by the best too, you know. You don’t have a good shot. You don’t want to be responsible for killing your own mother. So I’ll make it easy on you. I’ll kill her for you.”
Torres clicks the safety off of his pistol and points it at my mother’s head, pushing the barrel into her temple.
“Reagan, run. Get out of here,” she screams. My entire body stings. I cannot feel my legs or hands or feet. I try to control the shaking that I know will soon follow, but my fingers have already started to tremble. I couldn’t get a good shot off now even if I tried.
“Don’t hurt her,” I yell and lower my weapon. I take my finger off the trigger and hold the gun at my waist. “Take me instead.”
“Reagan, don’t,” Luke says, keeping his weapon pointed squarely on Torres.
Torres’s eyes turn away from my mother and focus on me. “Lay your weapon down and I’ll think about it.”
I bend my knees and place the gun on the ground. With my foot, I slide it toward him and his lips curl into a malicious grin.
“Reagan, no,” my mother pleads. “Please, don’t do this.”
But it’s too late. I raise my arms in the air.
“You wanted me, right?” I say, my voice stronger than I thought it would be. “I’m your revenge killing. So take me. Let her go.”
“We tried to grab you at school,” Torres says, licking his bottom lip. “But you were too smart for us. But your parents … your parents were stupid. Stupid and slow. They always were that way. When they were trainees, I could take them down with one move. But you … you are the strong one.”
“Please, baby. Don’t trade your life for mine,” my mother whispers, her voice shaking, her hands still pulling down on Torres’s arm. The long chains clang against the wall they are attached to, but she’s too weak, too beaten and broken to fight him off. I look down at Mom’s exposed legs. Black-and-blue swollen welts run across her shins as if someone had beaten her with a baseball bat. And all the emotions I’ve been fighting to keep in their little box start to spill out.
“What a beautiful daughter you have.” Torres speaks slowly into my mother’s ear and laughs again. His words are thick and sticky and make me nauseous. He looks back up at me. “What a lovely gesture, trading your life for hers.”
“Don’t you touch my daughter,” my mother screams and thrashes with the most strength I’ve seen since walking into the room. She pushes her feet against the ground and throws their bodies backward, slamming Torres’s head into the cinder-block wall behind him.
“You little bitch,” Torres booms, lifting his pistol into the air and striking her across the face with so much force, her lip splits open. Dazed, she lowers her head and blood spills from her full bottom lip.
“Mom,” I wail and take another step closer to them. Luke puts his arm out in front of me, holding me back. Hot tears sting my eyes, blurring my vision. I bite my tongue and push them away. I will not let him see me weak. “Leave her alone. You’ve got what you wanted. Let her go.”
Bright red blood drips down my mother’s chin, dotting her white tank top. Her blond hair, matted with sweat, hangs over her left eye. Torres takes the barrel of his gun and slides it across her forehead. Her body shakes as Torres uses the tip of his pistol to move her hair away from her eye.
“There, there, my princess,” Torres says, kissing her forehead, watching my expression with each move he makes. I trap the scream in my throat. “You never expected to see your mother so weak, did you?”
“She’s a strong woman,” I say as I watch my mother trying to regain her sense of focus and control. Her hands slowly creep back up to Torres’s left arm, still wrapped tightly around her neck. “You haven’t fought fair, Torres. You’ve tied her up and let your hired hitmen beat the hell out of her. If you actually let her fight you, you know she’d break your neck in ten seconds.”