PROLOGUE
PLAYLIST: MOUNT EVEREST – LABRINTH
The Prologue tells a very dark backstory, including rape as a minor and the aftermath of it (including an unwanted pregnancy). If you wish to skip this really dark part, start with Chapter 1. The story works for you without the backstory, as it is implied later.
Palermo, Sicily
December 30, 2009
“You will not fucking touch me ever again,” I whisper darkly as my hands close around his throat, with my knee pressing into his groin.
You fucking bastard. On my fucking birthday.
He can’t fight me anymore with a pole stuck in his shoulder, me on him as drunk as he is.
My hands close even harder around his throat.
His face swells slightly, turning a bluish-red.
Just a little bit more.
His eyes roll back, and his body becomes limp.
But I don’t stop.
This time, it’ll be final.
Ineed this.
The revenge.
For all he has done.
I wait.
Our old grandfather clock is ticking relentlessly behind me.
Second, by second, by second.
And I know, it is done.
Finally, I let go.
I get up, take one last look at my mother on the floor, her eyes empty as his. Murdered by the husband, killed by the pretend family father, who is nothing but a fucking monster.
I pack a bag with the most essential stuff, grab all the cash I can find, take his drugs so I can sell them for my way into freedom, and then get to the basement.
I take whatever alcohol and chemicals labeled with “Caution, flammable,” we have, spill them over the floor, my parents' dead bodies, and the furniture, before I open the door, light a match, and flick it inside without one glance back.
Shall the hell burn him and never set his soul free.
The more distance I get between me and the house I grew up in, the more I realize what happened.
I stray through the streets of Palermo, not knowing what to do. I am a nobody. The child of a drug lord and a raped mother. One that was never wanted and should never exist.
I need to get out of here. Out of this country.
The problem is, I don’t even have a passport.
