The Killer's Daughter (A Short Story)

"You liar!" I screamed, staring at her. The person who'd changed me, transformed me, made me into the twisted, vile, unfeeling person I was.

 My mother.

 She smiled at me, long blond hair swirling in the wind atop the building we were standing on. My only love, Nathaniel, slumped in her arms, a knife promising death glittered against his throat, resting in my mother's snow-white hand.

 "You told me he was dead!" I went on. "You said you killed him!"

 Amber Abernathy, the most notorious female serial killer to walk the earth, laughed. Not a real one, of course. One that told me I wasn't getting of this roof alive, with my sanity intact.

 "Avery, you fool," she sneered. "I thought you didn't trust me. Why would you believe me?"

 Once upon a time, I'd lived with her, watched her kill, waited for the love I knew I would never get. That all changed when I turned her in when I was thirteen, instead going to live with my father, Fin Mason, who hadn't previously known I existed.

 I lived with him for three years until the fateful day when Nathaniel and Marta, apparently family friends of his, showed up. Their mother, Emili, had lost her job and needed somewhere to live and come to him. Up until their arrival, I'd been labeled a sociopath, unfeeling and cold. They'd proven everyone wrong, getting me to laugh, to cry, to smile, to love. It was amazing.

 And then we'd been kidnapped, along with another boy, Braeden, who was one of the victims left alive in a brutal slaying that claimed the lives of his parents, sister, and brothers. Amber had taken and hidden us away in a secret compound that had been shut down years earlier after a hazardous expiriment killed three people.

 There she'd tortured every one of us, killed Braeden and supposedly killed Nathaniel. And then I'd found him, gagged and bound in a closet, nearly dead. Amber had found us, together, and dragged him up here for her final act, because she knew that once she stepped away from Nathaniel, dead or alive, I would kill her. No matter what.

 "That's not it!" I cried, tears springing to my eyes. "It wasn't trusting or believing you. It was a matter of I heard the bullet and I saw the explosion of blood."

 And, oh, god I did. I had been bound, hands over my head wrapped in chains. He'd been in another room, the door open, but I couldn't see him. There was a large window connecting us, yet they'd shoved him ouut of sight. The gun went off and a spray of blood spewed the window. I'd thrown up, crying ad retreating into my headspace, the only place where I was safe from things that could hurt me, or, worse, love me.

 "It was a different captive," she said dissmissively. "One you hadn't met. Oh, please, Avery. Get this through your thick skull. He's not worth it."

 She reached into her pocket and I flinched, thinking she was going to kill Nathaniel. Instead she pulled the sleek, shiny-handled gun that had killed Braeden out. I flinched again, but instead of shooting me, she threw it at me. I stared in disbelief at it, just lying at my feet.

 "Shoot me. Shoot us. Kill and be just like me."

 Her voice was poison seeping into my blood from the bite of her words. I wasn't squeamish about killing. I had seen enough of it to be used to it, but the thought of being like her, becoming her, made me want to throw up. And yet, I could not allow this monster to roam the earth along with everyone I loved. She'd already proven she could escape prison. And besides. The chance to break this connection, this unfeeling relationship we had, was overwhelming.

 If I shot Amber, there was a chance Nathaniel wouldn't be strong enough to catch himself and he would fall as well. But there was also the chance that he'd be concious enough to save himself and that I would be fast enough to help him up. There was no chance of me missing.

 "You bitch," I whispered. "You sharp-minded, cold-hearted, murderer of a bitch. I hate you, Amber, and there is no one I would rather kill."

 I leaned down and picked up the gun. I cocked it, releasing the safety.

 "Ava." The quiet whisper of Nathaniel's voice made me pause. "No. Don't be like her."

 "I'm nothing like her," I snapped. I raised the gun, just the way she'd taught me at age ten, three years before I betrayed her. "This is a vigilante killing. She had no such thoughts when she murdered women and children."

 "Killers," Nathaniel croaked out and Amber laughed again, a hrash, manical sound that made my ears bleed.

 "Oh, did you hear that?" my psychopathic mother asked me, her emotions running rampant once again. "He's trying to be all heroic and save the day! Hey, kid, this isn't a movie. My daughter's heart is as hard as mine and she ain't letting me out of this. At least I'll be able to take you with me, right?"

 I screamed, the cry ripping through the air, my throat burning from the intensity. My hands shook and my finger rested lightly on the trigger. Amber shifted slightly, hiding behind Nathaniel's body.

 I remembered. I remembered everything. There was too much in my head. I recalled her crouching next to my limp, wet body, exhausted from the electric jolts that made my cry out even though I knew I shouldn't.

 We'll make a killer out of you yet, she'd sneered.

 I closed my eyes briefly, then snapped them open. Amber's slight grin made me want to scream again. She knew the inner turmoil that lurked beneath my skin, beneath my calm facade.

 I don't want any more, mommy, I'd whimpered, crying. She'd held a finger up to her mouth, smiling sweetly. Then she'd shoved a tube up my nose and ran water through it, making me yell and scream until my throat was ripped raw and my vocal cords were damaged. Choking was somewhat a familiar sensation, as it was Amber's favorite sport when I was eight. That'd been her M.O for the longest time.

 I breathed deeply, taking in the sight of Nathaniel's bruised and battered, yet handsome, face. He raised his head, shook his head, then went limp once more.

 Amber was right. This wasn't a movie. This was the real world and I wasn't normal, I was me. Avery Abernathy, the killer's daughter.

 I squeezed the trigger and the bang of the gun echoed through the air, no louder than the pounding of my heart. Our cord was severed, the bond that had kept us tied together since birth, the bond between mother and child. The universe shifted for me as the spray of blood flew through the air and her body fell, a lone bird in the sky.

 I lunged, trying to catch him, but then my universe shifted again and that was because my love, my Nathaniel, my reason for living, fell along with Amber. My cries were silent, flying through the air not nearly fast enough to catch the cries of Nathaniel.

 And then the snap of bones breaking, life blinking out, cords snapping, hearts tearing brought the world to a stop and for a moment, nothing else existed. They were both gone and the struggle I'd endured for years with the woman who conceived me was over.

 As was the short, blissful, loving relationship me and Nathaniel had started. I remembered the taste of his lips, the feel of his hands burning against the skin of the small of my back.

 And in that moment, my cords were severed. My reasons were cut short. My sanity blinked out like a dying firefly, wandering, searching for it's mate and finding nothing.

 The only sound left was me. Me, whispering his name. Me, cursing her name. Me, crying for both of them. Wanting them to wake up from where they lay, sprawled on the ground, heads cracked open like eggs, bodies snapped beyond repair.

 Me. Avery Abernathy. With him, I could've been Avery Abernathy, daughter of Fin Mason, normal. With her, I was Avery Abernathy, daughter of danger.

 And then there was a third lost soul, winging it's way through death, the way it couldn't with life.

*This is a short story related to an actual book series I created and want to publish. All ideas, names, and references are mine. Thank you*