Staring at the dimming phone screen, my eyes kept scanning over those same words and pictures, seeing the hidden meaning over and over again. A single tear travelled down my cheek and I looked on mindlessly as the tear hurries down my face, suddenly making a free fall for the screen. It seemed like that one little rebel and started a whole rebellion and the tears began to fall relentlessly, no matter how quickly I tried to wipe them away. After a while, there was no point in trying to stop them. There were two messages.
Two heart breaking messages, although one was worse than the other. In a pathetic attempt to make myself feel less miserable, I flipped over to the previous message, my fingers trembling in fear.
Hey baby, sorry we couldn’t tell you sooner but it turns out we double-booked. We’ll be out of town for quite a while. Love you, mom x
Laughing bitterly, I managed to suppress the urge to chuck this stupid thing as far away from me as possible. The phone now seemed to hold this sense of betrayal that I knew had nothing to do with the phone itself but I couldn’t help the resentment. A short flash of anger threatened to set me off before I jumped off my bed, bounding towards one of the paint splashed walls as morning light continued to invade my room.
“Nice to know my love is worth one kiss” I remarked sarcastically as I unconsciously moved on to the next text that absolutely broke my heart. My anger flared up again at the sheer heartlessness of the sender. Knowing that I was hurting so much already and they do this.
My eyes burned with shed tears as they roamed over the picture of my parents on a fun vacation in Bora Bora with ‘Hannah’. They smiled so care freely into the lenses, my mum’s warm brown eyes and my dad’s bright sapphire green exuding nothing but sheer joy. I stared at my own reflection alongside them both, sporting a bright magenta bikini that I would never wear in a million years. Her ginger hair looked more on the red side now and I’m guessing she told them she wanted it red. Why would they question it? I’ve been begging for years to get it red after seeing Ariana Grande sporting the look a while back. I guess this time, they gave in.
Too bad they gave in to the wrong person.
Her obviously natural green eyes held a certain air of contentment that broke me. This imposter is taking over my life and happily enjoying it! What is it that they’re making her do to my parents? Ruin them? Make them bankrupt? We have nothing to hide! There are no secret pink diamonds that cost a fortune. Neither is there any covert operations happening behind the scenes. We’re just a regular, although rich, family that doesn’t deserve to have this happen to them, no matter whether or not they don’t know what’s happening.
Wincing, I held my chest at the sudden searing sensation that threatened to make me collapse. A gasp made a daring escape from me and something inside me clicked. Unsure of what it was I tried to stop my hands from trembling. Sliding down the wall I struggled to get my breath back, the temperature of the room suddenly rising in humidity. I couldn’t breathe. Fear constricted me. Lack of oxygen constricted me. That picture constricted me from ever returning back to my normal life. My face was wet with tears I didn’t remember crying and my body visibly shook in my panic attack. With agonising finality, I came to a conclusion that I didn’t think would ever cease to exist.
They don’t love me anymore.
They love her.
I think, that this is one of the only times in my life where I feel absolutely heartbroken. I didn’t even know how to feel. Tears just fell and fell and I simply couldn’t tear my eyes away from the picture that seemed to hold such good times for them and nothing but emptiness and sadness for me.
After what seemed like forever, I found the willpower to look away and I threw the phone across the room, watching as it hit the wall and smashed into pieces. A loud bang and crash that came from it didn’t stun me, instead making me feel a whole lot better. It was like music to my ears. If only I could associate it with that fake.
“I have to talk to him” I whispered slowly into the room, determination slowly trying to patch up the scars that were left behind from the hopelessness I had felt earlier. “I have to talk to him.”
With a speed that shocked even myself, I pulled on some dungarees with a shocking pink t-shirt and pulled on my rainbow converses and high socks. Looking in the mirror before shoving a beanie on my curly hair, my own sarcastic thoughts couldn’t be helped.
I look wrong.
Like I’m a pre-schooler who just so happens to be a wearing the most inappropriate versions of clothes ever- these dungarees are short. Nevertheless I didn’t care. My hands found the bag of weapons that I had so carelessly thrown in my closet and I prepared myself mentally for having to face them again.
Dismissing all these thoughts I ran down the stairs and out of the door before any of the maids could stop me. I’ve even forgotten their names. How rich of me.
Before I knew it, I was already pounding down Adrian and Joey’s door, not even flinching when a flock of birds flew away from me in sheer terror. When no-one replied, I started kicking the door in a blind rage, grinning manically as I saw part of the wood begin to split under the power of my kicks. Landing one last blow, the door burst open, along with some of the wood. Shielding my face from the majority of the flying wood shards, I stormed into the hallway I had seen only a few days ago, making a beeline for the black marble fireplace.
Like a pro, I pulled out the ‘Access Icebreaker’, a long cylinder device used to open any entrance possible (except for safes of course) by temporarily shorting out the security system. Once it’s shorted out, you have exactly eight seconds to get into wherever you need to go before it locks itself again. If you use it more than once on the same entrance, the system will know and set off an alarm. It was like I was back in Joey’s lessons all over again as I shoved the device into place along the side and set it to open. A series of beeps echoed around the room before a chime told me that I had eight seconds. I couldn’t help but reserve two of those seconds to laugh at Adrian’s sheer stupidity.
Why on earth has he got such an easy system to hack into? With him knowing that I have pretty good knowledge on how to hijack it. Yanking the entrance open proved difficult, but I did finally slide through, just as the timer indicated that my only chance, which I had managed to take and run with, was over. Breathing heavily into the dark, I knelt down to pull out another weapon. A painful memory of the first time I ever encountered this thing came cropping back and my body paused for a moment.
***
It was after another gruelling training session. Fatigue had a hold over me that day and everything seemed so much harder. The difficulty of everything intensified and I had no idea as to how it would be resolved unless I completely conked out on the bed. But Joey wouldn’t let me. ‘You have one last task for today Moriati’ he said, and I remember how happy I was at his reference to me by my true identity. However, it was short-lived because he had given me a gun. A small black handgun that seemed to shine under what dim light we had in the room. Someone scuttled in with this giant hunk of meat and attached it to this hook, all whilst I stared dumbfounded at the object in his hands. His crystal blue eyes focused on me before I reluctantly took it from him.
It was a .44 Magnum Revolver, one of the best handguns to have.
When it was first in my hands, they both dropped at the sudden increase in weight. It felt like all the deaths caused by this one gun had resurfaced in terms of weight. Uneasiness crept over me whilst Joey roughly pulled me up from my state and made me face the meat. ‘Shoot it’ he said and that was that. There was no guidance, no reassurance. Just shoot. I was too tired to care to be honest and as I aimed at the man-made duct tape cross target in the middle, I shot, the loud bang shocking me into dropping the gun completely.
I dropped to the floor, cowering away from the gun like it would suddenly stand up and shoot me. The silence of the room was too much and I peeked out from behind my ginger mane. I may have been scared before but what I saw before me terrified me even more. I not only shot the piece of meat, I had hit it exactly on target. Joey was happy, congratulating me and what not but all that kept going through my mind was ‘if I can do that so easily, in this fatigued, famine like state I was in, what I could do if I aimed for real?’
***
I let the memory of that flood into me as I grabbed the .44 Magnum Revolver that had decided to have me as its master and me its protégée. Sure, that feeling of terror still erupts inside of me whenever I hold it but at least I know that I won’t die. Because when I aim, I aim to kill. It just happens. Strapping the bullets around me like a belt, I pulled my bag-pack on and advance forwards through the steel hallway. All thoughts of my claustrophobia were left behind in my room as my body functioned purely on adrenaline. In this state, petty little things like claustrophobia mean nothing. My photographic memory helped me to remember exactly where to go and within time I finally reached my destination.
The Doctor’s vault.
For the second time so far today, I paused. But this time, it was because of doubt. Why am I actually doing this, I think to myself as I start to feel queasy. My stomach started churning and it growled loudly, reminding me that I hadn’t yet eaten anything today. Imagine that. I was so depressed and pathetic that even at midday , I haven’t eaten yet. I scoffed at my own pathetic actions before shoving my gun back in the bag. This is actually pointless.
“What am I doing?” I pondered out loud, growing increasingly irritated with myself at every passing moment. The matter involving Megan’s parents can be easily forgotten about. Deep down, I already knew that they weren’t mine to get upset about and I knew exactly what kind of parents they were already. But that picture…
Just the recollection of it caused my chest to hurt and I held it in a futile attempt to stop the pain. My eyes opened and my anger came flooding back. That is the reason why I’m standing here now. Adrian has a lot of explaining to do, especially seeing as he was the one to send it to me. With immense effort, I kicked the metal door, the throbbing pain of my foot disguising that in my heart for a few sweet seconds before it slid open to reveal a very angry looking blonde.
“What do you want?” Adrian whispered menacingly, his brown eyes almost black with rant and rave. The force of his glare caused me to cower back, that same fear that I’d always had with him returning almost instantaneously despite my adrenaline run state. Regardless, I stood my ground, refusing to let him have his hold over me. Over the weeks, he had pushed and shoved me around like I was nothing but a body to him, a body to carry out his illegal tasks. Well, I’ve just about had it with being his host.
“I want to know why you sent me that stupid picture!” I yelled, sounding like a spoilt rich kid, which is probably what I am. That doesn’t mean it has to show in my voice. Grimacing, I closed my eyes before opening them to speak again. “Why did you do it?” my voice demanded, sounding noticeably stronger now. Bear in mind that anything could have happened. He could have told me the truth, completely ignored me just sigh at me like he usually does. Nothing however could prepare me for what happened next.
He just smirked.
At first, I was stunned. He’s smirking? It took a while for it to register that he was completely mocking me, laughing at my own downfall. His brown eyes seemed almost black with malice as he continued to smirk, knowing the effect it had on me. Grinning, he placed one hand on my shoulder.
“Someone feeling jealous now?” he asked sarcastically in a southern accent, his eyes twinkling and feeding off my sad energy. And that was simply it. That was all it took for me to snap.
It was like I was watching myself from behind a hidden screen, begging and pleading with the irrational girl on the other side to stop what she was doing. In horror, I look on helplessly as I reach into my bag, pull out my .44 Magnum Revolver and aimed at Adrian’s chest, seeing the bullet propel out of the gun slowly, as it penetrated his chest.