by Celia Crown
“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully and stomps on the bud, “You should know.”
“Know what?” I bite my tongue to stop an insult from coming out. I don’t need a fight with this man as I’m wasting time.
“She didn’t tell you,” he remarks with slight amusement in his dark eyes.
Once again, with the damn mysterious words, I just need to where she would have gone because that is the only objective to this meeting.
“Think back,” Amir says while twisting his shoes on the cigarette, “What is one constant thing you notice about her?”
“Abel,” the name slips from my mouth; it’s the only thing that connected us in the first place.
“He’s the one that brought this tragedy upon her.”
A flare of anger ignites in my stomach, the coiling in my gut turns uncomfortable as I resist to wrap my hand around his neck to sate this envious feeling in me that he knows more than I do about Hera.
He knows about her past and why she’s so adamant about going after Abel, but not his whole family.
A realization hits me. I could have come to this conclusion by myself instead of meeting with Amir, the hints were in front of my face and I was too impatient to put them together.
Everything she does is about Abel; this kind of obsession won’t go away overnight and she has the skills to track that fool down with no problem.
“Word of advice,” Amir says, straighten up and shoving his hands into his jean pockets. “Don’t try to change Hera. This is who she is.”
That’s where he is wrong. The Hera that I know is not a cold-blooded murderer; she’s a sweet girl who just took too many wrong turns in life that brought her into a world of blood and violence. I have been on that road, and I do not want to keep her there. She needs me even if she doesn’t realize it.
“Word on the street says Callahan is at another fighting ring with a new toy,” Amir says before ducking into the building and getting out of my view.
He’s gone with the wind, and I don’t hear the door shut, but he’s not here anymore, and it’s only me in the back alley of a meatpacking industry.
Abel is a creature of habit while younger brother switches up things to avoid getting caught in the middle of a crime. They are two different people born in the same spectrum of evil, but the ways they act are too different to even call them brothers.
Digging up information from people on the streets is difficult; no one wants to talk to avoid having stitches, but they will open their mouth wide for a bit of cash.
As expected, Abel is in a building that has been condemned for reconstruction. It’s a paper mill building filled with more guards than any other fights, and I expect to be stopped or captured the moment I got near.
However, there is not a peep. All the cars are there; Porsches, Lexus, and even a couple of Lamborghinis to show off their wealthy status. One would assume that these fights are supposed to be on the down-low, but rich people think flexing is the most important thing.
With stealth, I blend by the wall to avoid anyone seeing me in the middle of the day. Another thing different about this fight is that it’s in the afternoon; all of my fights were in the dead of night to avoid being caught.
If the police were to raid the place, everyone can slip into the shadows and escape undetected.
The familiar voice echoes emptily in the papermill, going with the tune of haunting melody and it’s Hera’s voice that makes me walk faster.
The first time I heard it was also the time that permanent damage was done on everyone. I don’t want her to do anything she’ll regret. Nevertheless, she wouldn’t be Hera if she were to give up without a grand display of violence.
The smell of gasoline, burnt flesh, and the laughter of chaos throttle me. Whatever Hera has done, she has succeeded in making the fear in me rise with her voice singing and rumbling in the walls of the abandoned place.
“I would like to look closer—closer and closer, why are you crying? Do you not like this?” her song trails off in laughter.
“I just want you to remember—remember and remember, why aren’t you laughing? You liked this.”
Each step weighs heavily in my chest; the emotions in her voice suffer greatly, but Hera lets her giggle crackle through the hollow echoes for the ghosts to hear.
The ghost of the moaning air and still concretes.
I come to an opening, and the sight of horror is a powerful sight; every single individual is strung up by their wrists; most of them are burned beyond recognition, and the rest are in tears and their own vomit that dirtied their fancy clothes.
She swirls in a dance and throws her head back in laughter; her newest victim squirms and fights when she comes closer although the victim’s legs are bound with ropes.
A light of a match puffs a ring of blue that paved the paths for the orange to incinerate the flesh of a woman. Her scream is earsplitting; she’s in torment and writhing through the rippling fires that eat away her clothes and skin.
That isn’t enough for Hera. She wants unequivocal mayhem. She wants to see the devastation on their faces when they realize that I’m not here to save them and their lives are in the hands of a woman too sadistic to care for anyone.
No one is safe. There is no sympathy in the way Hera giggles and light the man next to her on fire, nor does she have any care for the world when she does the same thing to two more people.
In the entire open area, the only one not burnt to blackness or engulfed in orange flames is Abel. He’s the one on the opposite side, far away from the licks of fires that can trigger a domino effect with the gasoline on his clothes.
His wheelchair has been placed strategically under his useless legs. It’s a mockery of his misfortune showing Hera’s wrath.
I open my mouth to call her name with her back turned towards me, but the corner of my eyes catches a blur of a figure too close to me. I didn’t realize someone was beside me since I was too engrossed in the scene itself, but my face turns to the other side when a fist collides with my jaw.
I push my weight my feet to stop the skirting of my body; the broken concrete particles under my boots crunch loudly as I face my assailant.
It’s the same man that I fought for my freedom. His body hunches over as an offensive action when he raises his fists. They’re bloodied and red from a fresh fight that he no doubt had won, but I don’t see an executed body of his opponent.
Dodging his fist, I curl my fingers into his forearm to knock the posture of his defense. It’s a blur of fists, ducks, and kicks in the brightness of the flames. The screams of anguish kick at my survival instinct and I lurch my fist back to shatter his rib, that was the payback for breaking mine when he landed a punch on me.
My body memorized the agility of Hera’s moves when I had forced her to fight me at times. I did learn a lot from her, and it’s the way her small body moves that gives her an advantage over my bigger frame.
She’s nimble, not in speed but swiftness that draws me to my knees. When I’m still finding my balance on the floor, her knee would collide with the side of my head to render me dizzy and disoriented.
It’s damn effective, and it worked every time on me, and if something is not broken, then I don’t need to change it.
I mirror her technique to bring my assailant down to his knees, but the speed of his leg sweeps mine into the air, and we make a rough tumble on the dusty ground. His hand crushes my windpipe for a moment before I grasp his wrist and bring my knee up to the side of his rib to put a loud crushing sound at the same rib that I fractured.
He topples over to the side, holding his injured rib with a crazed glint in his eyes. He’s fighting as if his life depends on it, and it’s the feeling that I’m familiar with because I would get so out of it after winning a fight that shaped my fate.
He thinks he’s still in a fight.
Charging at me, his form breaks perfection, and now he’s attacking through primal instinct.
I don’t kno
w how long I have been fighting him, but I hear Abel’s screams. His voice gives me a lot of anger that I take it out on my opponent.
Lifting my boot, I slam it down at the side of his knee that makes him fall to his knees. The sickening crack of his bone dislocating gets obscured by the frightened shouts of Abel, but I’m reeling in the force of my impulses.
Another mirrored body movement from Hera is a knee to the man’s head. His head comes in painful contact with the ground as his skull bounces up from the power. I refuse to give him another chance to stand up and bring his limp head into my bloodied hands.
With a desperate attempt to get me off of him, his hand throws punches at me, but they have no more power in them, so he resorts to trying to break my hold.
A wicked grin spreads with a white slash of my teeth. Fear explodes in his eyes before it’s turned away.
I snapped his neck.
He falls to the ground. His head is turned in the direction that’s not humanly possible.
My chest heaves, adrenaline lighting up my nerves as the grin can’t be stopped. My eyes take in his dead body, blood coming out of his nose and neck ghastly pulled with parts of his bones digging into his skin.
This is the second time I have killed someone, but I don’t feel any different than I did on a normal day.
Maybe it didn’t register in my head yet, and the strain in my hands feel too real.
I stand up from the ground, leaving the deal body there and look towards Hera who stands in front of Abel’s crying body.
He’s sobbing uncontrollably, snot and drool run down his mouth and chin. Hera’s voice continues to haunt him, and he’s terrified out of his mind.
“Hera,” I call, but she doesn’t look at me with the mask covering her face.
It’s just the same as the first time seeing her. It’s a parallel that I can’t shake breathes in my direction. It’s a feeling of fear in me that I’m losing her to the demons in her own head.
“Don’t do it, Hera,” I say more firmly, “You’re better than this.”
In the end, I don’t feel the need to stop her, partly because I want Abel to suffer for the things he had done to me, but also because Amir’s words echo in my consciousness.
I can’t change her because this is a part of who she is, a part of her identity that I have no right to change. Whatever she does, I’ll accept her for who she is. Nothing will make me turn my back on her, and she’s going to have to try harder than this to steer clear of me.
“This is for daddy, mom…” she says, somewhat out of her mind and in her own world. “And for Lucy too.”
“W-who the fuck are they?” Abel shrills in fear as Hera flicks her finger down on the lighter.
“You remember them, right?” the deranged tone sends chills down my spine. “Of course you do; they’re my family, and you took them away.”
She doesn’t draw it out anymore, Hera throws the open lighter on the wheelchair, and it explodes in flames. The highest point of the flickering fire grazes the edge of his shoes, and everything lights up in burning tragedy.
Hera needs to do this. It’s a repetitive cycle of nightmares that she can’t move on from. She needs this closure, and I will not be selfish to take that from her no matter how much I want to pull her foot out of the hell that she’s walking into.
She spins around, blonde hair burning bright with the flames behind her and the screams of Abel’s dying body.
“I will always put myself first.”
That is something I have come to terms with.
“I put you first, Hera, before myself and before anything else.”
The glowing amber and electric cerulean accept what I give her.
Chapter Ten
Hera
It’s been about a month since the death of Abel, and sometimes I feel like he’s still there, but I know that I have ended that chapter of my life with a burst of flame. I have been chasing this revenge for so long that I forgot what it feels like to look into the sky and see the clarity of it.
Damon travels with me, and finding a place to call my own is hard when nothing feels right. None of the hotels, the temporary homes, or even the house that I bought made me settle down.
The Callahan family didn’t come after me like I initially thought, and I had a whole escape plan that will make me disappear forever, but they had firmly stated that Abel had to take responsibility for what he has done and they did not mourn their loss.
That shows where Abel stands in the Callahan family. Nevertheless, they warned me that if I do anything else to the Callahan family, I will feel the full weight of the Callahan family on my back and wish I was never born.
Did I feel afraid? No, but I steered clear of the Callahan family because they are a reminder of how Abel and the stuff he put me through.
One day in the past followed me for thirteen years, and it’s time to let go if I actually knew how.
Damon is considerate; he neither brings up anything from the past nor does he try to purposely avoid it. If it comes up, it comes up, and neither of us will put much thought into it.
There are days when it’s extra bad for me; I itch to kill and get rid of the image of my family haunting me and pulling me back to that faithful night.
Tonight is one of those times.
“Damon…?” I meekly whisper his name as he lays next to me in another fancy hotel room.
“I’m here,” his hand dives into my hair, rubbing the back of my skull as he turns to me.
“I need help.”
Damon made me promise that whenever I have a bad day, I would let him know and talk to him. I was to never hold anything in my heart. He says it’s the first step of healing and walking away from the past that I held on for too long.
“Then lean on me. I can’t help you if you don’t let me in.”
I have kept him at arm’s length, but he keeps pushing back with his own efforts to make me see that no matter how hard I push, he will be there to catch me if I fall.
“I don’t know how,” the truth is hard to admit, and it’s foreign on my tongue.
“You learn to, and I will be the one to teach you.”
He’s a beast of a man, and yet the tenderness he shows through his gestures is what I need. His body can fight and take more damage than an average man. He’s worn and seasoned in the realms of violence.
“Okay.”
His scarred hands are there to protect me when he tucks me into his chest. The curtains block any light from the moon on the eightieth floor. It’s the highest floor before going into the penthouse just a floor above us, but I never wanted a penthouse.
“First, say your name.”
“Hera,” I answer casually, I don’t force anything out as everything with Damon is natural.
It just took me a lot longer to discover that than he did.
“Your name, your true self.”
My mother’s face comes to mind, and her kind smile is everything I see, “It’s Hera. Mom named me that, and dad thought it was funny because he joked that my Zeus would be—”
I clamp my mouth shut; two sides of me are battling to tell him everything, but the other part is still too closed off.
“Don’t stop; keep going. You’re doing great.”
“I am?”
No one has told me that, but then I never open up this much to a single soul. Damon is the first, and it’s the right thing to do. He’s helping me, and I don’t feel threatened by the emotions that always want to consume me.
“You’re talking about your past, it’s a start, and these things take time.”
I nod in the darkness; his chest expands as he breathes into my hair, and I can’t see the tattoos that I have come to be obsessed with, “It’s hard to talk about them.”
“You’re doing it,” he says with a hint of proudness in it.
“Because it’s you, I’m talking to you.”
The realization hits me like a home run in a baseball game, the new insight on a new ch
aracteristic in me comes to light, and I never expected it to come like this.
“Oh—! I… I trust you,” I stammer, gasping in shock and disbelief.
“Do you?” he asks back, looking for confirmation that this is true.
“I’m getting there,” I admit quietly, my heart settles down to a restful rhythm.
He breathes, “I’ll be there; I’m not going anywhere, and when you get there, you will see me waiting for you.”
My lips tremble at the raw emotions in his voice. This man doesn’t deserve a hot mess like myself. I’m too complicated and problematic.
“Do you want to wait?” hesitation laces into my words.
“I want all of you, psychotic and normal.”
A laugh bubbles out of my lips, and I throw my arms around his waist; he’s too big for me to wrap a leg over his hip and he’s too tall for me to tilt my head up to kiss him when I have my face buried in his chest.
Is it bad that I want to be better for him?
I don’t think so, but what do I know?
He’s not asking for much; Damon just wants me to try to be a better self. And I want to be someone he can be proud of.
Wiggling upwards, I plant a big kiss on his lips in the dark. I missed and landed on his nose, and the second time landed on his upper lip. I don’t give up until I find his lips and when I do, he’s smiling into the kiss that’s contagious as my lips spread too.
“What are we going to do?” the question is vague in every sense; the future is a cloud of mystery; tomorrow is another day of searching of the life that I have thrown away, but in his arms is where I want to be.
Now and forever.
“I have been meaning to ask,” Damon begins, pushing my shoulders down on the bed while he puts himself above me.
My eyes adjust to the darkness, and I see the shape of him, but it’s too dark to have any details other than a blob of hard lines.
I make a noise in my throat for him to continue, but he silences me with a demanding kiss that pries my teeth open for his tongue to curl with mine. Damon nibbles on my bottom lip, and he’s able to find my neck through the mess of my hair and the lack of light.