One of the men kicked open the door, promising, “Little girl, we’re not going to hurt you. We just want to play a game. Your mommy and daddy are waiting. Come out, please.”
It sounded like a trick. I knew the men were bad, so I kept hushing Kiara. But, it was too late. The man pulled us both out and announced, “Bill, we got two little girls, not just one. And wow, this girl is cute. In a few years she will be a stunner! What do you think the boss could sell them for?”
The one named Bill walked into the room and looked at us. “The cute girl will probably net them a fortune. Can you imagine how much commission we’ll get for her? Man, we hit the jackpot in this house! And you won’t believe what I found in the parents’ bedroom!”
I know I shouldn’t have been, but I felt jealous that Kiara was the jackpot and I was just an afterthought. Bill put a napkin over our mouths that made us sleep. When I woke up, our parents were stuffed in the back of a car on the floor. We were laying across the back seat, tied up so that we couldn’t move.
I had no way of knowing if Kiara was asleep since I couldn’t see her eyes, but I hoped she was. Our parents were covered in blood and from the smell, I knew they were dead. Even at my young age, I knew it. Tears poured out of my eyes as emotions flooded me. Anger at what had happened, regret that I couldn’t at least protect my sister, sadness that my parents died before I could apologize. They probably thought I hated them. Fear was the biggest one, though. Definitely.
Not much after, the car stopped and our abductors got out of the car. I half closed my eyes and pretended to still be asleep. The one named Bill pulled my mother out of the car. He must have cut her clothes off because he tossed a knife onto the seat next to me along with her bloodied clothes.
My father was next to be stripped naked. I had no idea what it had meant at the time, but I now realize that they probably did everything they could to strip them of identification and then disposed of the bodies. It was taking forever for them to come back. I’d almost given up hope when I realized the knife was close enough to my hands that I might cut myself loose.
It took a few minutes, but the knife finally sliced through the rope. Luckily, our captors didn’t use the same binding rope that they used with my parents. They used some old jump rope that was frail from being out in the rain and sun for months at a time. The sharp blade only need a few strokes to break through.
As soon as my hands and arms were free, I cut Kiara loose. She jumped up immediately, crying silently, and hugged me. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “If they come back, they’re going to hurt us.”
So we ran. We ran so far until we were in a city that we’d never seen before. It turned out to be Chicago, an hour away from our hometown. We were too scared to go to the police. Our trust had been broken. All we really had was each other and Bill’s knife. Bill. He would pay...one day.
We lived on the streets for a few years. We ran from adults that tried to come near us. And we became good at it. We were like rats, moving from place to place, eating what we could, stealing when there was a chance, and learning how to fight. We would sneak into the movie theater to watch movies with violence. The worse the movie, the better. Our favorite was a movie called, “Assassin”.
We saw that movie about fifty times. As soon as it was over, we’d step outside and practice what we saw on the screen. We weren’t masters, but we learned very fast. We crept in the shadows at night, breaking into stores and stealing money and big money merchandise and then selling it to shady people for a nice profit.
It didn’t take long for people to take notice of us. They called us, “Monsters” and with good reason. We were little kids who were quickly making more money than neighborhood gangs. We had cash, but refused to buy a house or rent a hotel room. No, the street kept us tough. We didn’t want luxury.
Kiara had undergone the most change. She was so serious, rarely smiling unless we needed her to get us out of a jam. That damn princess was still under the surface, but she kept it under control for when she needed it.
One night, one of the Mexican gangs caught us during a midnight robbery. Three of their men ambushed us, holding guns up to our heads. They spoke Spanish so we couldn’t understand, but it didn’t sound very friendly.
We couldn’t wait for them to kill us, so I quickly pulled my knife out, ducked down and thrust it upward, slicing his little dick in one quick movement. He screamed in pain just as I stole his gun and shot him in the head. I quickly turned and shot the second Mexican right between the eyes.
The third guy started to run, but Kiara ran him down. She kicked him in the back of the leg and we jumped on top of him together. Her knee pressed into his throat and she held her little hand over his mouth.
Coolly, she said, “I don’t care if you speak English or not. If you don’t do what I ask, it means I get to kill more of you. If you do what I ask, it means that I won’t have to get my hands dirty again. I want you to go back to your leader and tell him not to fuck with us. If I see any of your people giving us even a slightly dirty look, I’ll carve my name into your heart with my sister’s knife. We’ll start hunting you down one by one until all of you are gone. But, if you stay clear of us, I won’t ever get in your way. Now get out of here.”
The guy ran away as fast as he could and Kiara swears to this day that he pissed in his pants. We had become the Monsters and nobody would mess with us. That is, until we were nine years old. That’s when Luc came for us. He’d heard of our legend and wanted to see for himself. When he found us, he promised the best training and care in his organization. He called it IFER, whatever that stood for. Nobody knew.
When we arrived, he put us with an old man named, “Jake.” He was a weird old guy, and a bit cranky, but we soon learned to love him. He wasn’t as fast or nimble as we were, but he knew more about the world, so we soaked up every bit of knowledge that we could. He was amazing with his strategy, always thinking out a plan before jumping into action.
In all of our time working for Luc, we’d killed hundreds of people for him. When we left his service, the three of us realized how wrong we’d been. Luc was the real Monster and he had to be stopped.
Kiara had another talent besides the princess. She’d have visions of the future from time to time. Sometimes they were helpful, sometimes they were so vague that they weren’t useful to us until the vision became real. It was something that we tried to hide from Luc, but he eventually found out and tried to teach her to control it. It was a colossal failure. The only thing it managed to do was stress her out.
When we left his organization, we gave no warning. We knew that he’d try to kill us. We held too many of his secrets for him to let us live. It was worth it, though. Once we took the blinders off, we saw the Monster he had truly become.
We were only a matter of hours away from finding HIM, but I knew it was really just our beginning. If this guy was going to save us and help us bring down Luc, I knew it’d take more than just finding HIM. It’d take time. I just hoped it wouldn’t take too long.
Chapter 3 - Monsters
Start from the beginning
