VAL-(A Valerina Barkov Thriller)

Dmitri Udinov

I remember that fateful day like it was an hour ago. He died in a car crash alongside my mother on their way home from a fundraising gala; they didn't even get the chance to say goodbye to me. His death was the beginning of all my misfortunes, his research facility got taken away from the family and I was just a child then, what did I know? I got sent to America months later to live with my mother's family and the memories of all the abuses I got still stay with me. I couldn't endure it any longer so I left home and the only welcome I got was from the streets-the drugs, the gangs, the drinks, the nudity, all welcomed me with open arms. Now here I was, facing the genesis of my troubles, Dmitri Udinov.

"Well like I said earlier, I'm not a big fan of torture and I've kept my word." He said as he sucked out the content of a tiny sealed glass container "I forgot to tell you I have my own ways" he tapped the syringe a couple of times before turning to me. "K-12 is yet to be certified but it works magic for diabetic patients. All it does is to breakdown sugar rapidly as soon as it hits the blood stream thereby taking a load of work off insulin. The bad side however, is that at some point, both insulin and K-12 breaks down sugar at the same time and this leads to increased sugar loss from cells and then shrinkage of the body's cells and eventually..." he paused "...death."

"Well thanks for the heads up" I replied.
He came towards me with the syringe and just as the needle almost broke into my skin, I jerked back with force causing the chair to tilt over, breaking its legs before it crashed to the floor. I flipped over, my hands still bounded together as I hurriedly picked up one of the chair's broken leg as defense. I battered the leg into one of the guards face, swiftly dodging a punch from the other as I grabbed the former guy's gun from his side and placed a bullet into the latter guy. Just as I turned, I got intercepted by the huge guy that had hit me earlier. He pulled me so hard by my tied hands that the gun fell off before he tossed me away. It reminded me of that day Morgan was murdered, of the huge guy that bruised my jaw so badly, it opened up the gateway to all of my rage. He breathed heavily, fixing his gaze on me as I stood up. The ground shook underneath my bare feet as he charged towards me in fury, I ran towards him too, calculating my moves.
Just as we got within each other's reach, I ran up his well-built chest in a flash till I was as high as his collar bone before smacking the sides of his head with my foot, blood tricking immediately from his ears and nose but I wasn't done yet as I wrapped my foot around his neck and attempted a back flip. I barely got his feet off the ground but we crashed to the concrete floor together. My bounded hands found its way about his neck until he stopped struggling for air, the ropes with which I was bound choking him to death. The metal staircase clanged as Dmitri fled upstairs, I picked up the gun and followed slowly, it's not like he was getting away with this.

"We could make this all go away, Proshu [Russian: Please]" he cried as I got to the upper floor too, not much of a tough guy anymore huh. I didn't reply, there were no words to say now. The barrel pointed at his shoulders as I approached him.

Bang! "That's for Papa" he clenched his bloodied shoulder as he let out a loud cry. Bang! "That's for mama" he dropped to the floor, his two shoulders being injured. I gave him one last look in his eye and all I could see was fear, terror, his end. I saw me there. Bang! The bullet carved a hole in his chest. "That's for Morgan."

I found my way downstairs, picking up my jacket and the syringe from the floor before heading out of the warehouse. My eyes flickered as I emerged from the dimly lit warehouse, the air here had a different feel and there was an instant gust within me. One more evil to purge the world of!