WARNING - GRAPHIC CONTENT -
IF YOU FIND VIOLENCE, ASSAULT OR THEMES OF SEXUAL ASSAULT TRIGGERING THEN PLEASE SKIP THIS CHAPTER
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...
I walk with my head dipped, eyes trawling the black alley. I intuit something awful, my hair raising, gripping my knife as I scan the night, hopping a gutter as I look around.
But then I sight an arm flying from the shadow, and just like that a tall figure grabs me, forcing something to my mouth. I kick to get free, sucking in a gulp of panicked air against the foam. It hisses. Too late, I realise that what I thought was a cloth, is in fact a whip-it gas mask.
Fuck! I grip his wrist, prying the mask he's holding against my mouth free, but to my horror, the world tilts on a terrible spin. Instantly my head throbs. The force of the high, instantaneous and nauseating, makes the sides of my vision bleed with black, warmth rolling down my arms and legs, leaving them numb.
His voice hisses in my ear. The animal, sadistic grunt lurches me into reality. Monster.
In all honesty, I don't know what happens when I claw myself around, eyes showing me a black wall. A dark figure looms over me.
I stab the bastard in the throat, the world still spinning as I struggle to fight the drugs he made me inhale. Thud. His body? Or mine? A knife clatters on the tar. I think he kicked me in the ribs? Or maybe I hit them on my landing.
Heat expands from my face. Hot, burning blood floods from my nose, my eyes stinging and my face throbbing. I swallow, only realising I accidentally choked a mouthful of metal down my throat. But I pry myself upright, fighting myself.
I moan, hobbling a few steps before I crash into the wall and smack my head against the jagged concrete. I try to shove myself, but when my hand connects with the floor, my body only rolls to the side and I smack my back on something, moaning at the sharp pain of a metal crate digging into my back.
...
I twist the door handle open with trembling fingers, every inch of me aching. I barely hold myself together as I storm into my room and rip the floorboard up, retrieving my gun.
It's heavy in my hands, shaking so hard that the magazine rattles. That bastard drugged me. He grabbed me in the alley and put a whip-it mask to my damn face. The thing with masks is the high hits you at once, but it wears off quick too.
Panic grips me. I was two seconds away from losing all control of my body when I stabbed him. What if I hadn't?
In the dim light, I trudge to the kitchen and dump the gun on the island table, shrugging my shirt off and scooping up a scouring brush. I scrub my hands feverishly, a choked noise escaping my lips.
A torch clicks and I flinch at the harsh light, "Oh, baby!" My mother's voice spikes in alarm, and she rushes across the kitchen. "You're covered in blood! Is it yours!?"
I spin around, preparing to fend her off but her twisted features are so ripe with concern that it halts me. What? She shrugs her fur coat off and discards it beside my shirt.
"When did you get all of these tattoos!" She yelps like she's hurt I never showed her. She hasn't seen more than my arms since I was sixteen. She takes the brush from me, her spindly brows knotting. "I." She shakes her head, "Don't mind that." The fleeting moment, where she realised she doesn't even know the first thing about me, disappears. "What happened to you?"
I gape at her, opening and closing my lips, "I, some, some asshole grabbed me and put a whip-it mask to my face," I stumble backward, bracing myself on the counter.
It's a trick. She never cares.
"Here, here," She pours me a cup of water from the emergency barrel, and I take it urgently, gulping it down. She grabs a toothbrush from the cupboard as I wash my mouth out, before she retrieves a rag and sets her mind to washing the blood off my back.
I scrub my tongue, gagging enough to make my eyes water. I drench my face, trying to wash the blood off, but it runs into my bra and chills me to the bone.
"Did he...?" She murmurs.
I look at her again, tears welling in my eyes when she strokes my hair back. It isn't real.
Her face looks foreign, older than I remember. Harder. Sadder. I don't know the first thing about her either. Her features are gaunt, but that's from the drugs.
"No. No. He didn't."
"Why did you leave on your own?"
"Dad and I had a fight..." I suck a breath in.
She jerks me in, and I grasp the gun from the table before I go rigid. A hug...
A hug. With trembling hands, I drop the weapon as she shushes me, stroking the back of my head. "I." I choke.
"Shh, baby," She squeezes me tighter, and I sink into her grip despite the agony that expands from my ribs. It's a trick, Vi.
It hurts more when she's nice... She's never nice. Tears well in my eyes, and I hate myself for taking this moment, this serene moment. I'm just hugging my mum. I let myself hold her back. Everything screams at me not to, but I feel five again.
I sob into her shoulder, hating myself more every second. I miss Tokyo.
"Oh, I know, sweetheart." She holds me until I force myself to stop crying, my chest aching.
"I-I. I can't get his blood off." I sniff.
"Darling, what did you expect, wearing something like that. You should've taken a coat."
Slap.
"A... A coat?"
She rubs my back, "Don't worry about your father, he told me what happened."
"You spoke to dad?" I croak, but then my head spins and I fill in the dots. It hits me like a punch to the gut, but it shames me that I even let my guard slip. I don't listen to her answer, I just grit my jaw. Goosebumps prickle my neck.
"...It's alright baby, we can fix this. Your dad and I have been organising this for a long time. Go to the Yakuza. Hito will-."
"Organising this?" I shove her off me, my jaw wobbling, "organising this?" I shout. "You're fücked in the head." I say, icy cold. I take my gun and wrench her coat on as I prowl away, swallowing.
She lunges forward, grabbing my neck from behind like Mal did. I shove her claws off me.
"Honestly, girl." A gravel voice grates against my nerves and electronic light hits the wall when my father swings his door wide. My eye blinks a read instantly, the glim-screen lighting up beside him. But my father has never had anything other than his phone on his person...
It's new.
Comm-Tech registered to IP:BH37721Gh0Ulz
Is it army or did Duncans give it to him? Nausea rises again and I swallow down a retch, forcing myself to stand upright, "I'm staying at Elias's tonight." Did he see me looking at the Glim-Screen?
"You, are not going anywhere." His tone cuts me, but then he sights the gun in my hand.
I stiffen. His eyes dull, his chest rising, confusion... he seems to be reading the air. Denial, then rage. "You!" He bellows.
I skitter backwards, scared. I've never seen him fly off the handle like that.
"You!" In the shadows, my father's face looks cruel and warped. Twisted out of shape, vile. He looms over me like Mal did, and my heart starts thumping.
I point the gun at him and he stops dead in his tracks. Mum yelps, but I put my knife out, warding her back.
Do I bother asking what my gun has to do with anything? "Why did you let Reid come back?" I snap at him, panic making my voice higher. Even she flinches at the vehemence in my tone. "He has something to do with Tokyo." He remains silent. I scrutinise his expression, dark, cruel... guilty. Guilty? "What do you know?" Irrational hysteria squeezes in my chest when I sense the whisper of truth dancing in his enraged eyes. It confirms a secret I've spent the last four years trying to deny. "What did you do?" I snarl.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart, for losing my temper-." He tries but I remove the safety, "Where did you get that fucking gun, Violet?" He seems panicked, concerned. He seems sick to his stomach with the thought of something. "Who did you buy it from?"
"What did you do?!" I belt out.
"Nothing!" His façade of control breaks, and I realise he honestly thinks I'm gon' shoot him where he stands. "Tokyo betrayed me." Pain twists across his face like a snake slithering under his skin, but then he charges at me, and I fire just as he smacks the weapon free. The bullet digs into the ceiling. The weapon clatters. He grabs my throat in an iron grip and points Reid's knife at my chin like I did to him. "What are you doing with a Heratix gun!"
How can he know by one look?
"I stole it." The blade remains rigid, but when my father and I catch eyes his grip tremors like he's been slapped.
But then my mother screams, barrelling at me. The force of the contact sends me out of Dad's choke and onto the ground, but then two spindly hands wrap around my throat, and she starts smacking my head against the ground.
...
Thump... Thud.
I groan, peeling myself up from a puddle of drool. Dry blood flakes off my nose when I rub my face. My head aches. My eyes sting from the harsh patch of light that glares me down. Smoke and rot tinge the city air.
Reid's knife stares at me, just out of reach in the shadow.
Needles dig into my neck. Something presses into my stomach, but then I realise it's my gun. Groaning, I slot it into my belt. Jesus Christ, mum fucking rugby tackled me halfway across the room... Did she choke me out? I touch my neck, rasping out against a hoarse voice, "fuck," however it sounds more like the hiss of a snake.
I look up when I hear the kettle click, realising dully that mum was in the damn kitchen whilst I was passed out.
Thud. The door tremors.
I grasp the knife with trembling hands, my fingers rattling like coins showering the floor as I shove it in my bra.
Vi.
I skitter back when the door makes an awful bang. Yakuza? Coming to take me? I choke on my breath and gape in mute terror as dust flitters from the frame.
Silence. Dad flings his door open, alarmed.
Kick.
The clothesline sucks in when the door splits, wood chips showering the ground.
"Go! Go! Go!" A soldier bellows and I scramble to my feet, screaming when they charge at me. Men in black camo, wearing ghoulish gas masks. Seven Glim-Screens appear. The first one raises a machine gun, and three giant soldiers plunder past.
"No!" Dad bellows when a broad-shouldered soldier jerks me to my feet, taking my wrists as I scream and kick.
"Let her go! We had a deal!" Dad barrels into them, but two soldiers block him from getting through. He screams, and their fight disintegrates into a bloody, scrappy brawl. "We had a deal! I'll fücking kill you!"
The soldier wrestles my arms behind my back and holds me by my throat, locking my wrists in a set of electronic cuffs.
"Let go of her!" Mum screams from the kitchen.
They finally gain the upper hand and wrestle my father to the ground. Two soldiers bar his arms behind his back, the other stomping his head on the floor with a huge black boot. Panicked, and knowing they're preoccupied with him, I slip my cuffs. Dad breathes violently and spit slings across his cheek, blood drooling from his nose, "We had a deal! We had a deal!" He roars.
Mum bursts from the kitchen, flinging a bowl of hot coals at the soldier holding a gun. He cries out, stumbling back and lowering his weapon to try fling them off. Everything happens too quickly.
Mum lunges at him, "Mum! Mum, no!" I scream.
He grapples to raise his weapon, firing a shot at the ground. It misses her and digs into the concrete, fire bursting from the nozzle. I kick free, in my haze dodging and grappling to get to her, "No!" But she's on him like a banshee.
"We need her-." Mum pries his mask off to reveal a red-faced man. The soldier panics, kicking her abdomen before unloading several rounds into her stomach. My scream dies in my throat when I land on my knees, grasping her head. She chokes, mouth opening and closing in shock. Hot, sticky blood gushes up my hands, soaking my pants until I swim in a puddle of it.
"Hope!" Dad bellows, a tortured cry escaping his agape mouth. Her blue eyes dart, breathing frantically.
"Help her!" I scream at the soldier who struggles to get his gas mask back on. Her head lulls in my lap, flopping to the side. "Help her! Please, one of you!" I plead.
"Let me go!" Dad begs, his voice breaking.
"Craig-." Mum enters a violent fit. Her eyes roll, passing out.
"Mum!" I wail, "Help her! Help her—." It all dies in my throat as I cradle her limp head in my hands, her greying hair sticking to my blood-drenched palms. I blink at her glassy eyes, fixed on nothing in particular. Snot and tears run down my face. "Mum!" I scream as I shake her, but her eyes lull in her head.
Is... is she dead? Unable to cry, or breathe, or think, I look around with an agape mouth, choking on nothing.
Strange things stick out to me—the window is cracked like a spider web... The pot of violets is shattered. The coals weep tears of smoke which casts the apartment in a gloomy haze. "Wh-What about, Tokyo?" I choke out, not even sure what I'm asking.
I find my dad's face, but he seems to have assessed the situation better than me, sensing the tangible seconds that pass. Knowing they're our last.
"You never trust him again—." My dad tries to warn but the big soldier stomps on his head and his eyes roll from the impact. I flinch at the brutality, choking. He refuses to cave though, groaning as he rouses himself out of the devastating hit.
"Can't you set a pair of cuffs?!" One of them finally shouts at his comrade as he wrenches me up by my elbows. Mum's head smacks the ground and my boot skids in her blood. I cry out when he twists my arm, slipping again, pulling a muscle in my leg, but all I can do is gape at her corpse in the middle of the foyer room.
"Move out, move out!" They abandon my father when they get me to the doorway.
I watch as Dad crawls to her, crying with an agape mouth, "Hope," He wails, "Ho-Hope." His voice is unrecognisable. Ripples run through the blood when he grapples at her limp body, wrapping her in his arms. "No," He squeezes her, rocking back and forth in utter despair.
I barely catch the last image of my parents when they drag me out the door.
"No, Hope," Dad breaks into hoarse sobs. Mum's lifeless arm drags in the ocean of blood and her hair clumps together like red string.
They have me halfway down the hall when my father lets out a guttural scream.
...
rough chapter guys
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