How could they have expect her to do something she was never taught?
She saw it before she heard it.
Her father's grip on her arm loosened and he limply fell to the floor, flat on his stomach, eyes wide open and a growing puddle of blood on the sidewalk. Then she heard it. Three shots fired. It takes about five seconds for everyone to realize what is going on and everything suddenly turns to chaos. Panicked screams, shoes harshly stomping on the ground as they break into a run. Alicia stands there, a frown on her face. It isn't until she's being pushed by someone trying to escape the avenue that she snaps back into reality.
Her cup slips from her fingers, the clear beverage mixing with the crimson liquid coming out of her dad's chest and stomach. She kneels next to him and she doesn't realize that she's crying until she sees her tears falling on her dad's face. Her eyes starts to tingle and she pushes her father on his back to see the damage that has been done to him.
Why him? Why now? Why not me?
Three shots fired, three holes in his shirt, three bullets that pierced through his skin and killed him. She looks down at her watch : 3:33 P.M. She looks up at the sky, three crows fly above her head. She looks around her, gripping her father's hand until her nails sunk in his skin, she tries to look at where the shots came from, she sees commotion on the third floor and when she squint her eyes she can make out one thing. A skull and an octopus. She grabs her father's Nokia from his pocket with trembling, bloody hands and dials three numbers.
Three remaining members of her family.
Three tragic events that happened in 1995, her father's murder being the first.
Three reasons as to why she became an assassin.
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II. 29TH JUNE 1995
SHE LEARNED THAT RUNNING AWAY FROM HER PROBLEMS COULD BE A SOLUTION FOR ONLY A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME. Everything always caught up to you in the end. You can't run from your thoughts you tried so desperately to push down in the depths of your mind, it becomes worse and worse until the only thing you're doing is signing your own funeral. She's not the only one using the coping mechanism threatening to take her out. Her mother is only becoming a ghost of herself, a hollow carcass of who she used to be. She's void of any emotions. She managed to block the bad ones, accidentally taking the good ones along with it. Lila is so deep into her space she doesn't even realize that she is completely gone.
Alicia is watching her picking at her food, gaze above the head of her youngest daughter, unfocused and completely unbothered by the world around her. Alicia's older sister Zoe is inside her room, she hasn't come out in a month, and every time the youngest tries to talk to her, her answers are brief and Alicia knows how to take a hint so she simply leaves after gently placing her sister's plate on her bedside table.
