Trigger Warnings: Gore and mentions of abuse

Twelve years ago

"Ah, you're home," my father called out from the kitchen. The delicious waft of Pelmeni floated to my nostrils. "Just in time for dinner!"

Taking a deep breath, I closed the front door behind me and took off my shoes. I stroked the hilt of the knife at my waist as I approached the direction of the palpable aroma of food with caution. My empty stomach growled quietly as I recalled my master's words.

"So your first mission is pretty simple, since you're already familiar with their day-to-day schedule and whereabouts. Alexei Volkov."

I blinked at her. "Ma'am? You want me... to kill my father?"

"Why the hesitation? He did you wrong, didn't he?" She cocked an eyebrow.

"Yes but... he's my father... I-"

"Ты что (you what)? Hm? You can't kill the man who cannot be forgiven for what he's done?" She took two steps towards me and tilted my head up with her finger. She tilted her head as her gaze pierced through me. "If you can't eliminate him, then... Ты знаешь что случится (you know what will happen)."

I entered the kitchen. My eyes landed immediately on my father as he stood over the stove. He was wearing a white button-down shirt and casual black pants, complete with fluffy pink slippers which he insisted men could wear as well. My father looked so silly and comfortable, I almost felt a twinge of hesitation flow over me. He turned towards me with a smile and beckoned for me to come over. He lifted a ladle of the steaming food towards my mouth and I took a small bite.

"Вкусно, да?(delicious, yes?)" He smiled as I chewed on the food which melted perfectly on my tongue.

"Да, очень (yes, very much)," I said. I wiped my mouth with the tip of my finger.

"Something bothering you?" he asked in English.

I didn't answer him as I looked at his face. He's wearing a concerned look, but his eyes showed no signs of worry. Instead, I noticed a slight suspicion and anger behind the wall of fake emotions. He acted like this good, caring father figure, but deep inside, he was the complete opposite: scum.

And he knew it.

I had tucked the bedcovers closer to my chin as I listened to my father yelling at my mother. His angry voice had echoed through the entire house and reached my bedroom on the second floor.

"You're fucking worthless!" he had yelled. "I told you that you can't step foot outside of this house after dark! Don't you understand that it's for your fucking safety?"

I had heard the clatter of utensils and shattering of glass.

"I need time to myself!" my mother had shouted back. "Ever since Ava was born, all I do in this godforsaken house is clean and do everything around the house!"

"It's your fucking job!" My father's furious voice had increased dramatically as I winced at the terrifying sound.

"You never help! You come home and instead of spending time with our daughter, you lounge in the living room like a couch potato!"

"Don't you fucking dare tell me what I do!" he had yelled.

I heard my mother scream as the sickening sound of a blow reached my ears. I had thrown the covers over my tiny head and hugged myself tightly as tears streamed down my face.

"Ты... ты уродливый сволочь (you... you rotten bastard)!" My mother had shrieked. "Our daughter is upstairs!"

"I don't give a damn about her!" Another blow reverberated through the house. "You both mean nothing to me."

The repeated sounds accompanied by my mother's wild screams tore through my brain as I softly cried under the sanctuary of my bed covers. My tiny body convulsed with sobs as my pillow became wet with my fear and worry for my mother. And as her screams faded away into the darkness until the night became silent save for the chirping of a few crickets, my cries had suddenly ceased and in its place appeared anger.

"Ava?" My father's voice cut through my flashback. I blinked my eyes as I returned to the present. When I saw his face, everything around me disappeared into a blur. All I could think about was how the man in front of me destroyed my life.

I took the knife out of my sheath and gripped it in my hand as I walked towards him. I kept the weapon at my side as my racing heart pounded in my ears. Tiny drops of sweat started to slide down my forehead as I kept my focus on him.

"Ava, ты что делаешь?(What are you doing?)" he asked as the ladle dropped from his hand and clattered to the ground. The remaining Pelmeni burst upon impact. Bits of ground beef splattered against the white counter as I ignored his question and continued walking towards him. He lifted both hands up in the air and began to back away, his animalistic eyes darting back and forth between the knife in my hands and my face.

"Ava, успокойся(calm down)," he gently said as he circled around the counter. His back was now towards the front door, which stood quite a short distance away. Enough time for him to dash out; which he did.

He whirled around and rushed to the door, only to find it locked from the inside; the key was in my pocket. I grinned in amusement as he stopped fumbling with the doorknob and turned towards me, actual terror flooding his eyes. He picked up a fire iron from the wall and gripped it in his hands. He usually placed one near the entrance in case of emergencies. Even through the dimly lit corridor, the whites on his knuckles were visible as he held the weapon in front of him.

"That's not going to save you from what Karma has in store for you," I tutted as I continued to stroll towards him.

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"Karma?" He blinked. "I did nothing wrong."

I tilted my head at him. "You know, it's not in your best interests to lie to me right now."

At this point, I'm only about ten feet away from him as he pressed his back against the door. The hissing sound of boiling Pelmeni spilling on the stove and the smell of burnt food spread throughout the house. My father looked over my shoulder towards the kitchen before landing his gaze back on me.

"That's the least of your worries, father." I stepped closer. I observed his hands twisting around the poker bar as his mouth twitched. I would have killed him there, but Eve had said that she wanted me to tie him up first and get him to confess to his sins before dealing Karma's hand.

And I had sworn by a blood oath to honor and obey every single order from her.

My father was quite a big man; not in body weight but in height. He towered over me, a considerable difference from my five-foot eight frame. Sure, he's lean, but he was still initially stronger than me, a sixteen year old girl. However, I had one advantage which he didn't have: training by the best master in the whole world.

So, after taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I lunged at him. As expected, he swung the poker at my head, which I met with an outside block. The fierce contact of the iron rod sent a burning pain down my arm. I hissed, but I've endured worse. I managed to grab hold of the rod and yanked it out of his hands before he swung a fist at my head. I dodged by ducking underneath his aim before punching him swiftly in the groin. He keeled over with a howl of pain, and taking advantage of the brief moment, I swung an open palm heel to his chin, instantly knocking him out as he fell face-first onto the floor.

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

"Finally, he's awake," Eve said ten minutes later as she pushed herself off the counter and sauntered over to where I had tied my father to a chair.

He groaned as blood trickled down his jaw and dripped on the ground, forming a tiny puddle of dark red on the polished wooden floor. A look of immediate recognition flickered over his face when he glanced up and saw Eve.

"You," he croaked as he coughed out some blood.

"Surprised to see me?" She grinned as she crouched down in front of him.

He tried to wriggle in the chair, but his movements were limited as I had bound both his arms and legs. His chest heaved violently up and down as he glared furiously at my master. She patted his leg reassuringly before standing up and turning towards me. Without warning, she whirled around and slapped him violently across the face. Blood flew from his mouth and decorated the beige wall three feet away in a maroon color.

"Ты сука (you bitch)." He spat as he attempted to jump from his chair but the ropes restricted him.

"He's all yours," Eve said to me as she gestured towards him.

Hesitation overcame me as I watched my father struggle in his bounds. I've gone this far, so why am I just now feeling a twinge of pity for him?

Eve must have noticed my nervousness, because she cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes at me before walking around and standing behind me. She placed her hands on my shoulders as her warm breath tickled my skin.

"You better not let me down," she hissed in my ear. She rubbed my shoulders roughly, in a way that was neither too painful or too soft. "You know what he did. Not just to your mother, but to other women like myself. You are the one who's destined to finally deliver karma to his doorstep."

I shakily took a deep breath to toughen my jumbled up nerves. Eve had told me about the time when she dated my father and how he had tried to beat her, except at the time she already had acquired partial knowledge of defense, so he couldn't deal much damage. But I didn't care so much about what he did to other women, because that wouldn't be enough motivation for me to kill my own father.

No... I knew what he did to my mother. And I tended to keep the promise I told to my eight year old self. I was going to make him pay. I just... needed to pull myself together.

My father had thrown the covers off me. Terror had struck my tiny heart as I looked into my father wide-eyes which stared back at me in fear. He shouted for me to get dressed because we needed to drive my mother to the hospital. I recalled walking down those stairs and seeing the growing pool of blood which surrounded my mother's body as I entered the kitchen. I had touched her clammy, cold skin while I cried out her name. She never responded to me as my father carried her out to the car and shoved me inside.

He had told me that she slipped on a puddle of water in the kitchen, but I had known that was a lie. Even at eight years old, I knew what a fight was and how punches sound.

"So this is what you're doing, huh? Brainwashing my daughter?" My father's voice interrupted my thoughts. I blinked back into the present and focused my eyes on his face, blood-stained with an ugly, swollen jaw.

I nodded to Eve, who released her hold on me. I slowly walked up to my father, who looked at me with what seemed like a pleading look, but that was simply the surface. Because underneath all that façade of emotions, I could see the anger and arrogance of an asshole who will never change.

"Nobody is brainwashing me, father," I said seriously as I stopped two feet before him. "You know exactly what you did."

"And what exactly did I do?" he asked.

"You tell me," I shrugged as I took out my knife and ran my finger along the sharp blade.

He eyed the weapon. "You're going to kill your own father?" He scoffed in disbelief. "For what, hm? For raising an ungrateful brat?"

At those words, I lunged at him and grabbed a handful of his black hair. I yanked it backwards so he was staring straight up at me as I hovered my face above him. He winced as I placed the blade against his throat, a tiny trickle of blood appearing from beneath it. His breath reeked of vodka as he grinned, showing his blood-stained teeth.

"What are you smiling for, huh?" I demand as I pull on his hair even harder.

He grinned wider. "You're not going to kill me. You don't have the guts to. I'm your flesh, your blood. Твой отец (your father)."

"Really? Try me, ты сволочь (you bastard)." I snarl in his face.

"You want the truth? I did kill your mother. Но она заслужила это. Она была такая сука. (But she deserved it. She was such a bitch.) She had it coming after spending-" he chuckled, his throat vibrating against my blade which caused it to break his skin even more, "-years disobeying me. That night, I had enough."

Hot tears filled with years of pain and anger welled up in my eyes, but I managed to control them from spilling out as I gritted my teeth.

"So you killed her? For fucking disobeying you? She wasn't your fucking slave."

"It was an accident. All I wanted to do was teach her a lesson, but что случилось, то случилось(what happened, happened). You can't change the past."

He grinned more malevolently.

"So it was all an act. The concern you showed when you rushed her to the hospital, the two weeks of sleepless nights before you told the doctors to pull the plug because she was in a vegetative state after the coma you put her in..."

"I'm a good actor, да(yes)? I quite enjoyed watching her struggle in my grasp."

I couldn't take it anymore. The world around me disappeared in a dim blur as rage overtook my mind and body. With one swift movement, I slid the blade along his throat in one clean slice. Blood gushed out, some of the hot liquid splattering on my face as his eyes widened in horrified surprise, no doubt not expecting me to actually follow through. The river of red flowed downwards, staining his white dress shirt as his throat made gurgling sounds for a few seconds before his twitching body finally ceased to move.

Silence spread throughout the living room as I stared at the warm blood on my hands and knife. I looked at my father, his already glazing eyes fixated on me with his mouth gaped open in a surprise O.

I expected to feel even the slightest twinge of guilt or similar emotion, but not even a single tear slid down my face. I felt... free. Proud. As if I had accomplished something great for the first time in my life.

"You finally did it," Eve proudly said as she wrapped her arm around my shoulder. "You've completed your first mission."

"Is it... weird?" I breathed the question out. "To not feel... anything. Like-"

"Like it feels... хорошо (good)?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Нет(No). Quite the opposite actually. It means what you did was right.

She turned me around to face her. I looked into her steel-gray eyes which bore into my soul like the piercing gaze of a hawk.

"You've proved yourself tonight. If you can kill your own father, you can kill anyone. And I mean... anyone.

With her words circulating my mind and the blood of my father on my hands, I changed into a different person that night: one who will never show weakness or mercy.

I will become as monstrous as I must.