Chapter 76: Alex (Part 3)
After mouthing the word 'run' to me and pointing toward the front door, my mother was relieved and thankful that I listened when I disappeared a moment later.
"How long ago did you inherit it?" the man asked my mother. My mother gulped, trying to focus on answering his question while not inhaling any more smoke.
"Will my answer spare my life?" asks my mother. She then feels the tip of his blade puncture her neck, making her mouth shrivel as a thin stream of blood starts to travel down her chest.
"No. Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head," he coldly replies.
My mother scoffs, "Then let's get this over with already. You can hurt, torture, kill... do whatever you want with me. Just spare my daughter. She has nothing to do with this. Nothing to do with me."
A few seconds pass without a word being spoken.
"I can't do that. Orders are that the bloodline must be eliminated," he says.
The man grunts as he pitches the glass blade right through the back of Bee's neck, skewering and killing her instantly.
"No!!" screamed my mother, enraged, before immediately throwing her legs out behind her, dodging the swing of the man’s blade while simultaneously attempting to sweep the man out from under him.
The man abruptly disappears right before my mom can make contact. Standing up, Mom activates orasi to try and locate the man, but before she has the chance to get her footing and turn around, a dagger punctures her right in the center of her back.
Instantly becoming extremely difficult to breathe, my mother starts wheezing as she topples over. Quickly trying to push herself back up, the man steps on her upper back, the force behind his foot clearly enhanced by his iris... as it keeps my mother pinned to the ground.
Coalescing what remaining iris she had into her hand, my mother attempted to grab his ankle and forcibly remove it so she would be freed, but a glass dagger was sent striking down, penetrating right through her hand as he stapled it to the ground. With mom’s right hand out of commission, she hectically attempted to move my legs and adjust my position so she could face upwards at the man and land a strike, but her legs wouldn't budge. And that's when she realized…
I can't feel my legs.
The man pins her left arm behind her back, pressing down on it with his knee. As Mom drags her bloody nose across the ground to look at him, all she can make out is a hideous scar etched into his face.
"What an ugly scar…"
She’s then promptly met with a ruthless punch, knocking her out.
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"Armaros here. The pure and kid have been dealt with. This tech of yours actually came in handy. How are things on your end? Over," relays the man as he stands back up, touching a grey gadget in his left ear, which emanates a blue light every time it's activated.
My burnt finger trembles on the trigger while blazing destruction continues to rain around me.
Do it! Kill him now!
Screaming at myself to kill him, tears flooded down my face, my teeth clattering.
That bastard just murdered your f*cking family, and you can't pull the f*cking trigger?!
"Understood. I'm on my way. Over," he said after a long pause before turning off his earpiece, the blue light fading away.
Walking around to the head of my mother, I track him with the gun, repeatedly shouting at myself to shoot the man. But I couldn't, I couldn't do it. For some reason… I couldn't pull the trigger.
As I stand there, unable to resolve myself, my lower body slowly becomes immersed with painless flames as they dance off the ground, climbing up my legs and latching onto my shorts. For some reason, my body reacted to this threat of danger, and I immediately hated myself even more. Lowering my gun, I knew I had to get out of there, but I wanted one last look at the man who had murdered my mother and sister. I needed to see his face.
Stepping forward to get a better look, a sheen of blinding light reflected off a golden earring on his right ear, briefly impairing my eyesight. And by the time my vision had sorted itself out, the man was gone. Swearing, I also noticed that my mother was nowhere to be seen, and only Bee was left in the room, lying motionlessly on the ground.
"Bee…Bee…" I stutter as the ceiling in front of me caves in more.
Shielding myself from the debris as I take a few steps back, I lower my arm as the sound of objects collapsing in on one another dies down. I immediately notice a small gap where I can hop over the rubble has opened. Doing exactly that, I drop the gun and rush over to Bee, picking up her limp body in my arms.
"No… no, no, no, no, no… wake up, Bee! You have to wake up!" I cried, desperate for any sign that she could still be alive.
But she was already long gone, and I knew that. The only heat I was feeling wasn't from her body but the room collapsing in on itself around us. With my tears shedding onto her clothes, I quickly carried her out of the room, hopping over piles of rubble and weaving in and out of the bathroom and office room before exiting the front door.
Staggering out onto the walkway, I felt my adrenaline starting to give out, and the smoke I inhaled caught up to me as I collapsed into the front yard, leaving Bee somewhere behind me. Barely managing to pry open my eyes, my vision was blurred, and my hearing greatly diminished; I spotted Bumble a few feet away, sticking out of the grass from where I had dropped it earlier.
My mouth begins to whimper as I pathetically attempt to suppress the inevitable incoming torrent of what can only be an emotional hurricane. The agonizing pain I was feeling in my hands and legs was nonexistent compared to the grief and guilt that festered in my soul.
Bursting into tears, I wailed like a baby as my brain finally allowed itself to download the series of events I had just witnessed.
"They're… both dead… it's… my fault… they're dead..." I mutter between sniffles, wiping away the dribbling snot from my nose as I drag myself closer toward Bumble.
After a few spurts of movement that can barely pass the description of what is considered crawling, I thrash my tarred hand around on the grass, my fingers grazing the fluffiness of the stuffed animal a few times before I finally lay a good couple of fingers on it. Dragging it toward me, I cradled it in my arms and breathed in the sweet scent of honey, which only made me bawl out another string of uncontrollable sobs.
Weeping, I clutched my sister's stuffed animal for dear life like it was the only thing that mattered in the entire world. And I found some comfort in the fact that right now, it was.
Eventually, my body succumbed to the pent-up exhaustion and pain it had been cruelly suppressing, and I reluctantly passed out, smelling the blissful aroma of honey.