Griff’s confused green eyes peer back at me as if I asked to explain quantum physics.
Rubbing my forehead, I remind myself that this plan is dummy-proof. I have so many contingency plans if any of us fuck up, but I’d prefer not to need any of them.
“Stick to the plan,” I instruct, looking over the prone body of my eleven-year-old brother on the floor. Blood pools around him as fear is permanently etched into his skin—his last moments filled with confusion and fear.
They were all like that. Evander, Laurel, Mikayla, Foster, Ashleigh, and Tati. Each face scrunched up their noses and furrowed their brows in shock when we entered the rooms. My name, the last words spoken before I?—
My eyes instantly snap shut, cutting the memory short, but their innocent faces with their unanswered cries for help crack me open. The temporary relief they felt when I walked into their rooms, while confusion marredtheir foreheads.
Gritting my teeth, I force the images away. Killing them may be my only regret. Animosity towards myself for being the reason my siblings are no longer in this world—indignation at the two waste of atoms that are the very catalyst for their deaths.
“No,” I hiss, and my father’s laughter fills the room, bouncing off every wall—mocking me.
“You didn’t save them, Mikah.” The surety in my father’s decree punches me in the gut. “Are you understanding now, son?” My father’s question is a challenge. He knows something I don’t, and I can’t help but feel I played right into their hands.
The wordsonslices through me faster and deeper than the knife affixed to mother’s face.
“Don’t call me that,” I snap, irritation engulfing me.
“But that’s who you are, Mikah.Our son.” My father spews the word again, gleefully.
It’s only then that I realize this is no longer a plea for their lives. It’s as if he knows he is dying here, and for the first time, I genuinely question if this wasn’t their plan from the very beginning.
“No… no… no. He’s bluffing,” I mutter low enough for only me to hear the doubt bearing its full weight down on me.
Peering over to him, I snap, “Randolph J. Gordon III, tonight you die, and I will reap your and your wife’s soulless carcasses into acid so there is nothing left of you to mourn.” But there’s no emotion—his mask has dissolved. In its place is the man who runs an empire, ready to sacrifice his firstborn son.
The exchange stirs something at the back of my mind, niggling like a gnat flying near my ear. It’s enough to give me pause. “Why is he so calm? Is this what they always wanted?” I pace the length of the room, my gaze flitting around the room, searching for answers that never come.
“Fuck this,” I shout, remembering what I set out to do.
His reaction doesn’t matter—hysterical pleading or stone-cold resolve, they both will never leave this alive. So, now he’s determined to see how far he can push me.
Whirling around, I shout, “Hold this bitch’s face so he can watch his wife die.”
Fredrick is the first to reach me. “Hold herhead still,” I order, and he grunts, fisting her hair so tight my mother screams.
Jackson and Griff soon follow, and I rattle off instructions. They quickly move into position around her.
“Hollow out this bitch’s cheeks,” I snap.
Kicking her legs open, I stand between my mother’s legs, glaring down as I watch Jackson and Griff slide their knife and scalpel into her face. The sharpness of each blade is evident in the way they both masterfully carve through her flesh.
“Ahhh! No, sth-th-lop th-isif,” she stammers. The earlier trickles of blood—now streaming down her throat.
Snickering, I mimic her saccharine tone, “Now, hold still,Charlotte, I wouldn’t want you to mess up any of your cosmetic enhancements.” I’m greeted with bone-chilling wails and gurgled, nonsensical responses.
Tilting my head back, I once again inhale her pleas for the second time as the metallic aroma of blood permeates their bedroom.
“Catch,” Fredrick shouts, tossing me a piece of my mother’s cheek.
Opening my hand, the flecks of the bloody cheek splatter on my white shirt.
Because I’m an ass, I dangle her cheek before her swollen-from-crying, tear-stained gaze, swinging it back and forth like a pendulum.
“Catch,” Griff shouts, tossing me the other side of her face. “So fucking cool. I can see you through the hole.” The giddy idiot squawks, sticking his finger through the hole, tapping the scalpel against her implants.
“This is far better than hunting, killing, and skinning deer,” Fredrick adds.
