ONE YEAR AGO
ATHENA RUSSO:
I can't.
I can't get up.
I can't move.
"I said get up!"
My tears have a mind of their own as they flow down my cheeks. My body feels paralyzed. I don't know what they put in me. It was some sort of a drug they gave me. It hurts. It burns deep within my body.
"Get up Athena. Show them the monster you are!"
Listen to him. Show them how much of a monster you are. Stop holding back you crybaby, you know you want to do this.
Somehow, I slowly get back on my feet. I look at the group of men, laughing at me, pointing their fingers at me.
I glance at Yavok and he seems annoyed with me.
He comes over to me and whispers in my ear, "Kill them. Kill them. Kill. Them."
Kill. I'd never heard that word this many times until I was kidnapped. It's drilled into my brain now. It's who I am. I'm a killer. A monster. A dangerous human.
Kill.
Kill.
Kill.
A dark twisted smile forms on my face. I take a step forward, the men looking confused but continue to laugh nevertheless. I take another, already have a plan in my head. They stop laughing and look at me, judging me with their eyes.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
"Just give up already!" One of them shouts.
Another one of them laughs, "Yeah we're men and you're just a little girl who doesn't know what she's doing."
"Yavok replace her!"
I take another step.
Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.
I grab a knife from the floor and throw it into the light above us. The light flickers with a crackle. My smile instantly drops before the light turns off.
Darkness fills the room as I hear them start running out of the room.
"Make sure you kill them all," Yavok says from behind me.
I nod and start moving.
Within a minute, two of them are dead.
I hide behind a wall, kicking the dead body in the middle of the hallway.
"Fuck what are we gonna do?" One of them says, nearby.
"I don't know man but I think we underestimated the girl."
"Nah we didn't. She's just playing games."
The sound of their footsteps becomes closer with every second. They trip over the dead body and land on the floor, just as I predicted.
Then I pounce.
I bash their heads together and then grab a knife from my boot and stab it into their throats. I pull it out and lick the blood off of the knife.
Three down. Two more to go.
✮ ✮ ✮
A few weeks later, I find myself holding a little girl's fate in my hands. Yavok grabs my chin and forces me to look at the young girl tied to the chair.
"Slow or quick death? Which one is it, Athena?" He asks me.
I've done this multiple times. Forced to pick a little child's death. I've always picked a quick death for them then I watch them die to try and feel guilty but I can't.
The little girl has tape over her mouth and she cries and cries.
My lips thin, trying to find my heart.
Dammit.
Let me use my brain then.
"I need to go toilet," I announce and walk to the door, then before I leave I add, "Wait til I get back so I can pick."
Yavok narrows his eyes but nods.
He thinks he's tamed me. That I'll obey him forever. That I'll never leave him. That I have fucking Stockholm syndrome.
He's lost his mind.
I walk into the corridor and the guards watch me carefully making sure I don't try anything.
I could kill them all if I had a knife. I need a little bit more training and then I could kill them all with my bare hands.
I take a left and then go then see the guard outside the security room.
"Yavok said to turn off the cameras and the lights in five minutes for about ten minutes or so," I tell him.
The guard furrows his eyebrows, "What for?"
"Trying something new for training," I shrug.
He nods and turns around, I see his wallet in his back pocket. I quickly slide it out of his pocket and put it in my bra.
He doesn't notice and goes into the security room.
I listen to him tell them then I quickly walk to the bathroom and go in there and lock it.
I have four minutes and thirty-two seconds now.
I crouch down and find the knife behind the toilet. I put it in the waistband of my sweatpants and then flush the toilet and wash my hands.
"Three minutes and forty-five seconds," I mumble to myself as I wash my hands.
I turn the tap off and quickly dry my hands and unlock the door.
Walking out of the bathroom, I calculate how much time I'll take walking back.
I'll take one minute and thirty seconds if I walk normally.
So I do that. I'm not nervous. I just need to be normal. No one thinks I'm normal.
Use your brain.
Not your heart.
I make it back to the room and now I have one minute and forty-five seconds.
Slowly, I open the door and step in.
Yavok sighs, embarrassed of me. "Can you pick now?"
I lean against the wall and stare at the girl. "Take the tape off of her mouth," I demand.
One of the men in the room steps forward and rips the tape off of her mouth.
"What's your name?" I ask the girl, tilting my head.
One minute and twenty-seven seconds.
"C-Ciara," she quietly says, looking at the ground.
"I'm Athena," I tell her, taking a step closer.
Yavok sends me a death glare, wanting me to hurry up.
I sigh, "Do you have any parents?"
"No. I don't," Ciara mutters, silently crying. She looks down at the floor, her bottom lip wobbling.
Great.
I don't know where we are. This area is secluded in the woods.
I can't escape with her. They'll find me.
If she's lucky she can get out of here if my plan works and then she will have to do the rest on her own.
"That's sad," I say, looking around the room bored.
Thirty-two seconds.
"Please don't kill me," she whispers, her voice cracking before she cries loudly.
"Are you done now?" Yavok asks, crossing his arms.
I look at Yavok and sigh. I step forward. I wait a few seconds and then say, "I want her to die a slow death."
Yavok grins and nods to his men.
Ciara screams as the men move closer to her with a knife.
Three.
Two.
One.
The lights turn off and so do the cameras. "What the hell is going on?!" Yavok shouts, walking out of the room.
He shouts at everyone, telling them to fix the lights.
I quickly move to the little girl and stand behind her, I place my hand over her mouth and grab the knife. I cut the ropes and pick her up.
"Athena fix this!" Yavok shouts at me, trying to find me in the darkness.
"On it," I mumble, walking out of the room and finding the nearest window. I look around, hoping the lights don't turn on.
I open the window and take a deep breath.
"What are you going to do with me?" She whispers. "I'm going to throw you out the window," I respond, looking around.
I lift her up to the window.
"How high is the fall?"
She peeks her head out of the window and I hear her gulp. "It's really high."
"Pretend you are a cat. Cats always land on their feet. Then run and don't look back."
I put the wallet and knife in her pocket and push her out the window.
Her scream echoes and I know everyone must've heard it.
Dammit. This little shit.
I shut the window and quickly walk off.
Well, that was probably the weirdest rescue mission I've ever done.
The lights turn on and Yavok is at the end of the hallway.
"The security room is on the other side of the building, what the fuck are you doing here?!"
I look down at the floor, "I couldn't see."
"The kid is gone."
I can't show emotion. I can't. I can't pretend I'm confused. I can't. So I stand there and shrug.
He looks at me, suspicious. "Did you have anything to do with it? You did have an interest in her and don't bother lying about it."
Ciara needs to run. As fast as she can. The guards will come looking for her within a minute. If she hasn't started running then what I just did was useless.
She will die.
And they will know it was me that helped her escape.
"I didn't help the kid."
"Whatever, we will find her and we will find the person who saved her. Now come, Athena. You have to do more training in the dark."
He holds his hand out for me, smiling. Holding back a sigh, I walk toward him and hold his hand.
He kisses my temple, "I'm so lucky to have you."
Then he drags me to the training room.
If Yavok finds out it was me, he will torture me for weeks and force me to do more training with my injuries.
I can't let that happen.
Not again.
One day, I'll kill them all. Make them pay for what they have done to me.