half step brings him in front of me—as if I need him to save me from the
woman on the floor when the truth is I haven't needed to be saved from her
for a long time. And now it's she, if anything, that needs to be saved from me.
"Answers," Patricia chuckles. "You want answers and you think I have
them?"
"Yes," I say simply. I cross my arms over my chest and step out from
behind Dean, watching her as one might watch a snake slithering on the
ground. It's interesting to see the way she lists from side to side with her
mirth as tears and blood rain down her face.
"You'll get no answers from me," she cackles. "None. Even if you torture
me. Even if you kill me—you'll be doing me a favor. You killed me a long
time ago, Avalon, my darling daughter and you just don't know it yet."
"What do you mean by that?" I demand.
She shakes her head and laughs again. My curiosity has grown as stale as
the air and when I get no answer from her, I push Dean to the side and go
down on my knees in front of her, grabbing her by the throat to make her
look at me.
"What," I snap, "do you mean by that?"
Patricia spits in my face. "It was all because of you!" she screams. "You
are the reason for every fucking misfortune in my life! If you'd never been
born..." Her chest pumps up and down as I reach up with my free hand and
wipe her spit away without blinking and then without a second's hesitation, I
reach for my other boot and withdraw my second blade. I take it, flip it open
and then slam it into her stomach before she can react to the metal as it
flashes before her eyes.
She still doesn't get it. The rage boils back to life. It's there—it's always
been there. Through every dig, every insult, every curse, slap, and push. She's
been pushing me towards the darkness for a long time, but I'm starting to
wonder if maybe I wasn't already born there. Whatever it is that's driven her
to her hate, it's fueled mine too.
I twist the handle of the blade and watch as she gasps. Blood flows out
over my fingers as I yank the knife back out. She cries out as the end of it
leaves her skin. I know exactly how it feels. I know exactly how much it
hurts.
"This is over," I tell her with meaning. "It has been since the day you
decided you hated me." What fucking parent—what mother—truly hates their
own child?
This one, I realize. My mother. We've been building towards this moment,
she and I.
"Decided?" She gasps out another laugh and then coughs. Blood appears
on her tongue, at her lips, and when she coughs, droplets land on my cheek.
"You think I decided anything?" she asks. "I didn't. You were a fucking
accident. A mistake! I didn't even want you." I can't say I'm surprised by her
statement. A part of me expects it to hurt, but I've known it for so long that
hearing it straight from her lips doesn't even faze me. Still, her lips keep
flapping. She keeps talking.
" He was the one that wanted you," she hisses. "He begged me to keep
you. To not get an abortion, even though it was safer for him. He promised
me everything would be okay. He said he'd protect me, but he failed. He
failed because they—" She cuts herself off, turning away.
"They?" I prompt. "They who?" And what the hell did she mean ‘safer for
him?’
"It doesn't matter," she says.
Oh, but it does. If she's unwilling to say it, then that must mean it's
important. Using the hand I have on her throat, I shake her. "Who the fuck
are you talking about?"
Her head swivels back to me and leans to one side, her eyes unfocused.
"You'll never know," she says. "Not until it's too late. Not until they kill you.
They won't stop until they do, Avalon. Your very existence is a threat to
them. They fucked up, but they'll try again."
"Did you think you could use me against them?" I ask. "Is that why you
kept me?"
This time as tears leak from her face, they seem different. They feel
fresher. Cleaner. How is that possible? I wonder absently.
"No," she sobs. Tears streak down her face as she coughs again. More
blood leaks out from the corner of her lips. "At first, I kept you because it
was what he would've wanted. I went back home pregnant and alone and
fucking broken. I wavered between wanting to destroy you before you could
even take your first breath and needing something of his so fucking badly—
something that had his blood and his looks and his everything. And then you
came and you looked so much like him." Her body shakes in my grip.
Trembling. She doesn't even acknowledge the wound in her stomach. It's like
she doesn't even feel the pain.
"But as you grew older, I just … couldn't stand to look at you anymore. It
hurt." Glassy eyes stare back at me. "It wasn't fair!" she rages. "Why did he
have to die so you could live? Why? It should've been you—you should've
died!"
Her words echo up to the rafters and another sob leaves her. My hand
releases her throat and she slumps back down onto the concrete. The pool of
blood beneath her widens as she coughs and hacks. Spots of red appear
before my eyes in front of my shoes.
Someone behind me moves closer and then Dean's voice fills my ears.
"Avalon," he says, "are you going to finish this?"
I tilt my head back and look up without answering him. I let the stale,
stagnant air surround us for several long, quiet moments. The only
interruption is the subtle shuffling of feet behind me and Patricia's blood-
soaked breaths.
“Do you know what it’s like being trapped in a barrel?” I suddenly ask.
"What?" Patricia asks, sounding annoyed.
I lower my head and stare across the massive space before us, but I don’t
see the warehouse. “It’s dark and cramped and it makes your limbs ache," I
tell her. "When you realize you’re trapped, you try to climb out. You scratch
and claw at the lid, but it’s sealed shut. Slowly, you stop trying to find a way
out. You settle back into the small space, but every time you move, every
time you try to find a more comfortable position, you just smack into the
surrounding wood. Over time, however, your muscles get used to it. They
hurt less. They go numb. The second you get used to it, though, the barrel
begins to fill with water.”
I can picture the image I’ve drawn up for her. I’m not sure if she sees it,
but in my mind’s eye, it’s crystal clear. “At first, you panic,” I continue.
“You do what you did the first time you realized you were trapped. You
scratch and claw and kick at the walls surrounding you. Then, once again,
you get comfortable with your new situation. It's painful and it's scary and it
hurts, but you're still breathing and so you learn to live with it."
"But things are ever changing. It can always get worse, and gradually it
does. The water starts out around your toes, but it doesn’t stay there for long.
It starts to rise until it’s covering your feet. And then your ankles. Your legs.
Your waist. Your stomach. Your chest. Your neck. Each new realization
brings about the pa
nic once more, but there’s nothing you can do. You can't
break free of your prison. You're trapped and every day something new and
equally as awful is added to your horrible life inside that fucking barrel."
Silence. No one says anything. I can tell the guys are confused. I can feel
their eyes burrowing into me. Finally, Patricia breaks the stillness. “What the
fuck are you rambling on about?” she asks.
“I’m not rambling,” I tell her, pulling my gaze from across the room and
looking down at her. “I’m describing how it was to live with you. I’m
describing what it’s like to be your fucking kid.”
My hand reaches out once more. This time, I don't reach for her throat,
but for her hair, I gather it in my fist, yanking her head back so that I'm
staring down into her upturned face. It's a fucking disgusting blotchy mess.
Using my hold on her hair, I drag her closer until my face is less than an inch
away. Here, she sees me. Here, she has to see me. She has no other choice.
“Living with you was slow and painful suffocation. Each day brought
about new obstacles that I had to overcome. Food. Water. Survival.
Protection. I learned all of those things. How to provide for myself. How to
fight for myself. How to fucking live and breathe for myself!” The more I
speak, the harder my grasp gets. She winces as several strands get yanked out
as I pull hard, dragging her up to her feet even with her hands bound behind
her back.
“It was impossible to learn any of them from you—you can’t learn how to
live from a corpse,” I state.
She glares at me, saying nothing. Her lips are twisted into a scowl.
There's no remorse in her face. And shockingly, there are no empty promises
on her lips. She doesn't beg me to release her. She doesn't plead with me not
to hurt her. Patricia just stands there on shaking legs with a bleeding hole in
the side of her stomach, glaring at me. Almost as if she's daring me to do it.
To go that extra mile and do what I've always known I would.
My hand loses its grip and she sags, but she doesn't fall. Her knees shake
and threaten to buckle under her slight weight, but she locks them and
manages to stay standing. I know I shouldn't do this yet. She has information
we need, that I need. She all but admitted it. She knows who my father is and
maybe that has something to do with it all. Letting her live, though, isn't
something I can do. She's done so much. Hated me. Hurt me. Betrayed me. I
don't want to live another second in this world with her sharing the same air.
So, I won't, I decide, taking a step back as I withdraw my gun.
My arm swings forward, and I watch it as if it's detached from my body.
My brain recognizes the movement, but I don't. It looks like someone else's
limb even as I feel the heaviness of the weapon against my palm.
Patricia smiles when she hears the safety click off. This isn't even murder
anymore, I think to myself as I lift the barrel of the gun and point it
downward, it's assisted suicide. I pull the trigger once, shift, and pull it again.
She cries out, crying as her knees shatter from the impact and she tumbles
to the concrete. Even though she does want this—for me to kill her and end
her miserable existence—I still deserve my vengeance.
Patricia screams, loud and long as the agony of having both of her knee
caps shot to hell ricochets up her body. None of the guys say a word, but
suddenly there's a hand there, taking the gun from me and replacing it with
something else, a container.
I look up as Braxton hands the gun off to Abel and says, "Do it,"
There's no judgment in his stare, no pity, and no blame. He hands me the
gasoline and takes a step back. Abel curses quietly under his breath, but he
doesn't try and stop me. Dean just watches on. Silent and ever present as I tip
the plastic, red can up and let it pour out over Patricia's head. Her screams
grow higher in pitch as the gas lands on her open wounds. I don't stop until
the can is empty. Braxton hands me another and I do it all over again.
Realizing that I'm not going to stop, Patricia sobs and clings to the concrete
floor as she attempts to drag herself away. I just follow her, quietly
continuing to pour. I keep doing it until her screams are hoarse and we've
made it several feet from where we started. I toss the third or fourth can I've
used to the side and hold my hand out, face up, waiting expectantly.
This time, it isn't Braxton who steps up and hands me a box of matches,
it's Dean. He places it in my palm. The cheap cardboard crinkles in my fist as
I close my fingers around it for a brief moment before sliding it open and
removing a single match. It flares to life against the side of the box it came in
with little effort. I hold it up, watching the flame dance and sway in front of
my eyes as Patricia's weakening whimpers fill my ears and then, without
another moment of hesitation, I look down and toss it at her.
Dean yanks me away, out of the path of gasoline that drips all over the
floor as it eats through the pool that has collected on and around her. The fire
burns hot and her screams begin again. Growing louder and louder. I watch
as her burning body attempts to get up, to run, to roll and put it all out, but
there's too much gas. She's soaked and burning. The scent of burning flesh
eats away at my nostrils. Foul. Disgusting. Just like the woman it consumes.
And still, I regret nothing.
19
AVALON
IT DOES RAIN, BUT NOTHING CAN STOP THE FIRE NOW. IT NEEDS TO BURN OUT
a double set of cars turn down the path behind us, kicking up mud under their
tires. After I killed my mother, Abel and Braxton had gone back to the hotel
to grab Abel's Mustang. They hadn't expected I'd kill her quite like this.
Honestly, I'm wondering if I had either. I'd asked Troy to grab the gas cans,
but I wasn't quite sure what I was planning to do with them until she was
before me.
I thought about making her drink them. About rotting out her insides the
way she'd rotted out mine. As I'd stood over her, however, I realized I
couldn't blame her for everything that I now was. Sure, some people believe
that environment and hereditary predispositions make up who a person
becomes. I know I can't blame Patricia for all of it. I accepted the darkness
inside of me. I welcomed it even. Opened my arms and said, "come the fuck
on in and make yourself comfortable." I'd given it a home inside of me and I
liked it.
Why? I don't know.
Perhaps, even if Patricia had been the model parent and kind and loving
and had given me everything I'd ever needed, I'd still be this way. A cold,
unremorseful killer. Regardless of what I've done, of what I've yet to do, I
know I'm not alone.
We're all killers here. Braxton. Abel. Dean. Me.
We're fucked up. Irrevocably dark. Separate from the rest of society
because by their standards, we're sick, foul, disgusting creatures. Hell, are we
even human? Do I even care if we are? Does it matter?
The answer is no. I don't and it
doesn't. Even if they—our parents—are
the ones who made us this way, in the end, the result is the same. I'm a killer.
They are killers. We're all killers—whether we were made that way by the
shit we've had to deal with in life or whether it's just natural instinct on our
parts doesn't matter. Not anymore.
Maybe we were all born like this. Maybe this is our natural state of being.
Natural born killers, each and every one of us.
Rain pours down even harder, but it's already soaked through mine and
Dean's clothes. I doubt he feels it anymore. I know I don't. The cars come to a
halt several feet away and the first door pops open—the SUV. Braxton jogs
forward as the rest of the doors open. Men I don't recognize get out. The only
one holding an umbrella is Brax and he moves to bring it above Dean's head
and mine.
"Is everything ready to go?" Dean asks.
Braxton nods before looking at me. "Go get in the Mustang," he tells me.
"Abel's taking you home."
"What about the hotel?" I ask.
"Don't worry about it," Dean says, turning towards me. He leans down,
cupping my cold cheeks between his palms. His wet lips meet mine and I
sink into his kiss, letting my body drift towards him. I'm freezing; even the
fire in front of us isn't enough to warm me. He is, though. He always is.
Dean pulls back, his thumb stroking once down my cheek before he
leaves me completely, heading out from underneath the umbrella Braxton
holds over us and into the deluge. I watch him stride across the open field
towards the men waiting for his command. I know what they’re here to do.
When the fire is done, they’ll go inside and get rid of the body. Patricia won’t
have a gravesite I can visit later, and I’m okay with that.
“Good job tonight,” Brax says, making me laugh.
I shake my head. “Only you would say something like that now,” I reply.
He blinks at me and tilts his head. “Would you rather I tell you that
you’re a horrible person?”
I arch a brow at him. “Do you think I am?”
“Not really,” he says. “You did what needed doing. She made her
choices. Fuck what anyone else thinks.”
I smile. “Yeah,” I agree. “Fuck what anyone else thinks.”
Braxton follows me over to where Abel is waiting in the Mustang. He