Unmasking Him

Monsters and Men

She stared at him long and hard, but all she saw was a man broken by year's of tragedy and pain, forced to do the unspeakable. Not the monster everyone said he was.
The man standing here in front of her, dripping wet and covered in mud from tackling the man who had been trying to drag her to his van. The pounding rain and thunder had drowned out her screams for help when he had grabbed her from the greenhouse. She had nearly blacked out when she had seen him running towards her. His harsh profile cutting through the sheets of water faster than she thought he was capable of.
She looks up as she feels a heavy blanket being draped around her shoulders. He meets her gaze and she whispers, "You saved me."
"It's my job to," he replies softly, wiping a spec of mud from her forehead.
She looks down again and he returns to the mantle of the fire place. He sighs quietly as he looks over his shoulder at the woman sitting shivering on his bed. She had almost slipped from his grasp. Almost been taken from him. Almost lost, like everyone else he ever cared about.
Clenching his jaw he looks in to the flames, shutting himself off before the tears could fall as images of that night start replaying through his mind. Blood and bodies take over his mind and he slips in to one of his most hellish memories.
A scream echoes down the hallway and through the cracked bedroom door of the youngest boy in the house. He startled awake at the shrill sound coming from his parents room, which is followed by a flurry of gun shots. He climbs out of bed and crawls across the toy laden carpet of his room to the door. As he looks out the crack, he sees his older sister, Mia, step out in to the hallway. Oddly she is fully dressed and holds a pistol in her hand. She looks back at his room and whispers, "Salud mì familia."
At those words he immediately stands up and backs away from the door. His eyes widen as his mouth forms an o shape. As the shock of that warning wanes, he turns and carefully crosses the room to his closet. He opens the door wide enough for him to slip inside and then shuts it. His small, ten year old fingers find the scanner on his safe and he presses his thumb on to the green pad that illuminates his face and parts of the closet.
There's a silent click and the door slides open. He pulls out a small black case and opens it revealing his very first gun. He silently loads it as shots start ringing out from the hallway once more, this time accompanied by several solid thuds and a smack at the end. There's a clatter as if something metal had hit the ground and then a loud whimper and a muffled scream.
The boys heart hammers away in his chest as he shakily stands back up. He stuffs the cold metal object in the waistband of his pajama pants and grabs an already loaded shotgun from the corner of his closet.
He slips back out of his closet and silently steps around his favorite action figures and comic books. When his small frame finally makes it to his door he hears heavy breathing and grunts. Peaking out of his door down the hallway again the horror in front of him makes him want to vomit.
Mia is unconscious or dead in the middle of the hallway, and one of the men that had apparently been in his parents room was now on top of his defenseless sister. As the disgust settles on him, anger rises up in his gut even more so. No one would do this to his family.
He quietly opens the door and walks towards his sister and her attacker. Opting for his smaller weapon, the boy draws his pistol out and aims for the mans head.
"Boo."
The man looks up just in time for the boy to pull the trigger. He slumps forward and off of Mia as the boy approaches closer. A quick examination of his heroes neck proves that he couldn't have saved her. Her neck is painted red from a large wound on her neck, the size of a golf ball.
When the boy steps in to his parents room it's even worse. Blood has dropped down from the bed and on to the hard wood floor on his fathers side. Who didn't even look like he had woken up. His mother on the other hand, was slumped over against him, and blood splattered the headboard and wall behind her. They weren't the only bodies though. Four men, all in masks, lay dead around the room. Three of them right by the door...
"Luca? Are you okay?" She whispers, wiping her thumb under his eyes where tears had begun falling.
He shakes his head slightly to clear the images of blood from his mind and says gruffly, "From now on, you take a guard with you any time you leave the house."
She furrows her brow and questions, "What if I'm just going out to the gardens for a walk? Or the greenhouse? You expect me to hunt down Bo or Todd or Dillan just to go out?"
"Yes. I'm not going to risk losing you."
"I'll be fine if I stay close to the house."
He frowns and sets his jaw as he stares, "You were close to the house today. You were in the damned greenhouse and you were still attacked. Just be happy I'm not demanding a twenty-four hour guard, Taylor."
She huffs harshly and demands, "Go take a shower. You're covered in mud."
At the remark he cracks a slight smile. As she turns to go back to where she had been sitting on his bed he reaches out and grabs her hand. A slight shock of electricity runs between them, but neither pull away. Luca pulls her closer and in to his chest before whispering, "I will do everything in my power to protect you, Taylor King. Don't doubt that."
As he kisses the top of her forehead another shock of electricity runs through them. Luca growls slightly and grabs her by her legs, picking her up and wrapping them around his waist. He pushes her up against the wall and presses his lips to hers. Instead of a shock this time there's the sound of sizzling as he pins her hands above her head.
The closer they get the hotter Luca's skin gets and the louder the sizzling sound gets. Finally, there's a loud clatter and they jump, both looking to down to where a picture frame lay on the ground by Luca's feet. When he sees it he sighs and sets her down.
"You're too much for me to control myself... did I burn you?"
The question slips from his mouth before he realizes what he's saying and he steps back, mumbling curses under his breath. She tilts her head and questions, "What do you mean? How could you have burnt me?"
He sighs and replies, "Look at the wall."
She turns and gasps, looking at the perfectly charred outline of the position the two had been in moments ago, along with a lightening bolt looking line from where her hands had been pinned to wear the picture had been hanging...