Kasien （Age 19）
Kasien
The water hammers against the back of my skull so hard it feels like it’s trying to cave it in.
I sit on the shower floor, elbows on my knees, head tipped back against the cold marble.
I tilt my face up and let the stream hit me straight on, needles of hot water stabbing at my eyes until everything blurs.
I vomit again. It doesn’t help. Nothing helps.
I still see the body when I close my eyes.
The way the head slumped. The way the blood spread.
I feel it under my fingernails, sticky, too real.
I keep thinking that if I throw up hard enough it’ll take the images with it.
It never does. It’s getting worse. More frequent.
Sylvia doesn’t want to “burden” her men anymore, so most of the cleanup falls on Adrien and me.
Good soldier. Good boy. Convenient monster.
I unclench my fists and lift my hands in front of my face, watching the water run over them. The skin is rubbed raw from scrubbing, but there are still faint rusty shadows clinging to the cuticles, around the tips.
These are the hands that touch my girlfriend.
Almost a year of lying to her. Of acting like I’m clean when I crawl into her bed with these hands.
At least I haven’t let anyone except Kiara touch me. I took Sylvia’s punishments instead.
My chest tightens and the pressure climbs up into my throat, pushing behind my eyes until tears slip out and mix with the water. For a second, I just sit there, shaking, my jaw clenched so hard my teeth ache.
Natalya is eighteen in one month.
We’re ready.
Offshore accounts, scattered money, exit plans. Enough to disappear, to start over. New lives. New names. Clean hands.
Kiara will understand. I’ll make her understand. I’ll give her the best life I’m capable of, even if I have to burn this one down to do it.
I sit there until the water runs lukewarm and my skin feels numb.
When I finally force myself up, my legs are shaky.
I grab a towel, dry off in a daze, and pull on clean boxers from the drawer.
By the time I walk into my room, rubbing my hair with the towel, I’m almost back in control. And then I freeze.
Kiara is sitting on my bed.
She has that nervous little smile on her face, cheeks flushed red, knees pressed together like she’s not sure if she’s allowed to be comfortable here.
Fuck.
She looks so impossibly soft in her white summer dress, hair spilled over her shoulders in dark waves. A few strands are caught in the V-neck, curling against her collarbone. The evening sunlight from the window cuts across her face, turning her brown eyes molten.
God. She looks like an angel stupid enough to walk into hell.
Her smile slowly dies when I just stand there, dripping on the floor, not moving. Not smiling back.
Fuck.
She’s here. In this house.
With Sylvia a couple of doors down.
This is bad. This is the worst possible thing that could happen.
“I’m so sorry, this was probably a bad idea,” she says, her confusion growing with every second I don’t answer. “I don’t know, I just really wanted to see you and you weren’t answering my calls, so—”
She shifts awkwardly on the bed, fingers fidgeting in her lap. She clearly doesn’t know whether to stay or bolt.
Nervousness looks so fucking cute on her. I want to smile. I want to run to her, bury my face in her neck and pretend none of this exists, but I can’t.
My gut knots so tight it hurts. My heart starts hammering like it’s trying to punch through my ribs. I cannot let her stay in this house. This is too dangerous on so many levels.
“Okay. I’m sorry. I—I’ll go.”
She stands abruptly, embarrassment and hurt flashing across her face. She turns toward the door, trying to avoid my eyes. By the time she opens it, I’m there, catching her wrist, the long hallway behind her swallowing her small frame.
“How did you get in here?” My words come out too sharp, too rough.
I hear it as soon as they leave my mouth and I hate myself for it. It’s not her fault. She doesn’t know anything. Why do I sound like I’m interrogating her?
“I—I just—” Her eyes widen.
Of course I scared her.
“The man in the lobby told me where your room is, so—I’m sorry.”
Fear and anger start mixing on her face, her brows pulling together.
I’m fucking this up in every possible way.
“Who else saw you?” I try to soften it, to add warmth, but it doesn’t land.
My throat feels like it’s closing. My fingers tighten around her wrist without thinking, and she flinches, hissing.
“Kasien, what’s wrong? You’re—” I know exactly what she’s going to say. “You’re scaring me.”
Okay. Breathe. Focus.
“Do you have your car here?” I lower my voice, barely above a whisper.
“No, I took an Uber,” she says, and I can already see disappointment forming in her eyes, like she knows I want her gone.
Fuck.
I can take her myself.
And then the door from Sylvia’s bedroom opens. She steps out in a long black bathrobe, tied loose, a hint of lingerie glinting underneath.
No.
No, no, no.
This is bad. This is so fucking bad.
“Who do we have here, Kasien?” Sylvia purrs, her cold smile stretching too wide, too practiced. “You didn’t tell me you’re having a visitor.”
I go still.
My lungs forget how to work.
I just stare at her, terror burning behind my eyes, my jaw locking so tight it hurts. She walks straight toward Kiara like she owns every square meter of this place. Like she owns me.
She does.
She reaches out and takes a strand of Kiara’s hair, tucking it behind her ear, fingers lingering too long on her cheek.
“Mrs. Varner, I’m—”
“You’re Soldan’s daughter,” Sylvia cuts in smoothly. “I know your mother.”
Her eyes flick to me as she says it. The smile doesn’t move, but the message slices straight through my chest.
Is she really threatening me with Kiara’s family in front of her?
Of course Kiara doesn’t see it. She just stands there, trying to be polite, confused and uneasy, her features tightening. Her hand is shaking in mine.
This was never supposed to happen. She was never supposed to be here.
Sylvia turns back to her. “Stay here for dinner, honey. I want to know more about you.”
I don’t think.
My body moves before my brain catches up.
One second Sylvia is talking, the next, my hands are around her throat. I don’t remember crossing the hallway. I don’t remember deciding. I just feel my fingers clamp down, feel the tendons under her skin jump in panic.
My vision goes red.
Something in me snaps like an overstretched wire and there’s no pulling it back. There is no way out of this that doesn’t end in blood.
I want to shout at Kiara to run, but my jaw is locked, teeth grinding so hard my skull feels like it’s going to crack. Every ounce of strength I have pours into my hands.
I feel Sylvia’s pulse slam against my palms, wild and erratic. Her neck muscles strain as she drags at my wrists, desperate for air.
There’s a high, thin noise to my left—Kiara, sobbing or screaming—I can’t tell, because all I can hear is Sylvia’s wet, ragged gasps, the horrible choking sounds forcing their way out of her mouth as she fights for her life. She’s so small in my grip. So light. So pathetic.
Suddenly I can’t stand looking at her face anymore.
I loosen my right hand for a fraction of a second, just enough to shift my grip.
My left hand slams against the wall beside her head for leverage and my right hand closes around her throat again.
Then I start slamming her head into the edge of the doorframe.
The first impact makes a hollow, sickening crack. It’s not enough. Her eyes are still open, blown wide with terror and lack of oxygen. I hit her again. And again.
The frame bites into her skull with every swing, bone and wood colliding in dull, heavy thuds. I don’t count. I don’t think. I just keep going. Rage moves my arm. Years of disgust. Of training. Of obedience. Every order, every body, every time she treated me like a weapon instead of a person.
At some point her body stops fighting. The realization hits me like ice water, cutting straight through the heat.
Her weight shifts in my hands. Heavy. Limp. Dead.
Her eyes are still open, staring at me as the light leaks out of them. For a moment I’m frozen there, watching the pupils lose focus, the lids drooping. My grip loosens without my permission, and her body slides down the wall like someone cut the strings holding her up.
A smear of bright red paints the wall from head height to the floor, looping over the sharp edge of the frame. Her hair sticks to it in thick, wet strands as she crumples. Her skull hits the marble with a dull final sound.
I look down at my right hand. It’s soaked. Red, dripping, splattered to the wrist. It doesn’t even tremble. It’s steady.
Maybe it’s adrenaline. Maybe it’s a shock. But I don’t feel remorse. I don’t feel grief. Just this strange, buzzing calm under my skin, like the ugly, screeching voices in my head suddenly went quiet.
The blood must have sprayed more than I realized. There are dots on my chest, my stomach, and—Fuck.
I turn my head slowly.
Kiara is on her knees on the floor, a few steps away. Her hands are clamped over her mouth, knuckles white. Tiny drops of blood speckle her cheeks and the front of her beautiful white dress like some fucked-up pattern.
She’s hyperventilating. She’s not looking at me. She’s staring at Sylvia’s body.
I turn fully toward her and my first instinct is to reach out, to help her up, to pull her to me, but my hand is still slick with blood. It drips from my fingers. I open my mouth, but the first attempt at words dies in my throat.
“Kiara,”
I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. She just saw me strangle and beat my adoptive mother to death.
I have to make her understand. I have to make her see that I’m not the monster, that the real monster is lying at our feet with a broken skull and hair matted red with blood.
“Please,” I manage, my voice barely more than air.