Resurface

by Anna R.

“God, shut her up.”

Neil sighed in exasperation and rubbed his temples, feeling a headache rising. So far, everything was going as planned, but the littlest of the three girls was moaning and complaining like there was no tomorrow.

Robby stalked resolutely over to the three sisters. The big, burly, dimwitted man slapped Caroline, the seven year old. She stopped the noise she was making, a red hand print starting to appear on her cheek. Tears welled up in her eyes, and they fell down her face silently. Her older half-sister, Elise, comforted her. At age sixteen, she showed similar physical features to her mother, all blonde hair and green eyes, slender and tall.

Elise looked up, fire in her green eyes. “You’re a monster.” She said calmly, but with apparent loathing in her voice.

Neil turned and stared at the teenager with amusement. “I may be to you, darling; but you still don’t know why I’m doing this. Did you think I just kidnapped you out of the blue, with no motive whatsoever? Ignorant child.”

She stared blankly back at him, as if none of what he had just said had been processed by her brain. She glared just the same, holding her little strawberry-haired sister to her breast. Caroline sniveled and clutched her older sister’s shirt.

The middle sister, Riley, stood off to one side, staring at him. He could detect nothing in her eyes; a mask seemed to cover her delicate, freckled face, for she showed no emotion and he could not tell what she was thinking about him. She was ten, looking similar to Elise, blonde ringlets framing her face and big, silver eyes. She hadn’t said much since they’d gotten here a few hours ago.

As Neil stared into her eyes, into the foreign color that came from neither father nor mother, gray meeting gray, she spoke.

“God forgives sinners, you know.”

Neil gritted his teeth, not breaking the girl’s gaze.

“I don’t believe in God.”

She cocked her head. “Why not?”

“Just…” he trailed off and turned around. “Just because. Now stop asking questions.”

“My mom says that people who don’t believe in God are called atheists, and that they’re gonna go with the devil unless they join God.”

He rounded on her. “I thought I told you—“

“Not to ask questions?” she said innocently. “I didn’t.”

His head throbbed. “Then how about I establish a new rule? No talking,” he said menacingly.

Elise stood up, the cord around her ankles cutting into her white skin. Don’t talk to my sister like that!”

Neil had just about had it. He was stuck in a closed-down, abandoned jail house in cold Michigan with six stupid cronies and three whining girls, waiting to exact revenge that could end up blowing up in his face and sending him to jail.

He stalked over to the eldest and shoved her up against the wall, holding her neck just so tightly that she couldn’t speak.

“Listen, Elise, either shut up, or one of the pathetic whelps you call your sisters will get hurt.” With every word he spoke, his long, calloused fingers closed tighter around her neck.

He released her, and she fell to the floor, gasping for air. She glared at Neil and bared her teeth in an almost feral sneer.

Caroline hugged her, but Elise brushed her off, too angry to deal with the little girl’s sympathy. Her ankles bled, the bright liquid seeping from her chaffed skin, the contrast between maroon and white catching his eye. He took note of it, but did nothing to help the pain.

He looked at his watch. It read nine o’clock. It had been two hours since they had arrived here. He was beginning to get impatient.

Robby tapped him on the shoulder. Neil wheeled around, trying desperately to restrain himself from hitting the man, simply because of his complete lack of brains. “What?”

Robby looked at the floor, rubbing the big tattoos on his arms as if he was cold. “That girl keeps looking at me with this weird expression on her face. There’s something wrong with her.”

Neil looked over at the three sisters, and as his eyes landed on Riley, she looked up and smiled at him, though it was more of a grimace, looking at him in a way that was sarcastically innocent. He frowned, pulling at his thin brown goatee, sprinkled with gray. He was thirty-nine now, an age that seemed incomprehensible to him. Marie would be forty. He almost sighed as he thought about her, but stopped himself, noting his weakness.

Of course it was a weakness. What else but a woman could push you far enough to kidnap her three children?

He looked over at Elise, staring into the glaring green eyes he once knew. Did she not have any recollection of him at all? Did Marie not tell her about him, how he had helped lessen the unexpected burden on her mother when she was born an accident? How he had felt betrayed by Marie, who had gotten pregnant by another man, but nevertheless stuck with her and helped raise her newborn child? He paid most of the bills, while Marie worked as a waitress, trying to scrape up some amount of money to pay him back. She never had.

He remembered looking into those same green eyes as he held her, giggling, in his arms; how she held his gaze as she walked for the first time, as she said her first word; how she looked forlornly at him as he and Marie took her to preschool at age four, but gathered hope from his reassuring words and came back, smiling, with new friends; and how tears streamed from those eyes as her mother took her away, going to live with her parents in Washington state, leaving him behind, her face pressed against the window of her car, leaving wet trails of salty tears running down the glass. She was five years old then, him and Marie twenty-nine.

Those eyes were harder now, colder. They seemed to expect something of him, seemed almost disappointed in him; but then again, anger overrode that disappointment, turning it into only a fragment of an illusion in her expression.

He shook the disturbing memories from his mind, stalking over to the middle child. These girls were unmistakably Marie’s children. It pained him to look at them.

He was tired of this waiting. He had to do something worthwhile! Maybe he could glean some information from Riley; she seemed the most cooperative of the three.

He grabbed Riley by her forearm and yanked her up. She didn’t struggle much as he dragged her along to an individual room at the end of the nonfunctioning cafeteria.

Caroline started weeping again, and Elise cried out.

“Wait, stop! What are you doing? Where are you taking her?”

Neil stopped and turned around, and looked into Elise’s eyes with such conviction and force that Elise started and shivered. “Stay out of it, Elise.”

“No! Stop! Don’t hurt her!” she shrieked. Caroline was wailing now. “Please don’t hurt her, please!”

Neil continued, never breaking stride. Riley was smart for a young girl of ten; she didn’t struggle, but rather relinquished herself to his wishing, letting him drag her to the moldy, dank room. He slammed the door behind them, Elise’s cries muffled by the thick, concrete walls.

Apparent mold grew on the crude walls from the dampness. One battered table with a repaired leg stood in the center, and Neil roughly seated Riley in one of the two chairs at either end. He faced the door. She looked at him sullenly, the sparkle in her eyes diminishing into a mean glare.

He pulled out every one of his weapons from his belt and pockets and boots: a couple bottles of elite poisons, two daggers, four varying handguns and a small sniper gun. He laid them carefully on the table in front of Riley, leaning towards her. She stared back at him, her expression unreadable except for a hint of a smile pulling at her lips, balancing out her blunt stare.

“So, Riley… You have an interesting name when looking at your family’s. Let’s see…” he paused, his eyes rolling up to look at the ceiling. “Elise is your older sister; that’s an elegant name. Caroline is nice, light and pretty. Your mother is Marie; an old, French name. Classical and original, all of them are. But yours is so…rebellious, and out of place among the others. Why is that?”

Riley smirked, and spoke. “If you think you can intimidate me with your little play toys there, think again, fool. I’m not as young and innocent and utterly stupid as you think I am.”

Neil was shocked, but had learned to keep his emotions buried deep within him, masked behind the cold façade he wore all the time. Her voice had turned deep and cold, and reminded him fleetingly of himself. The thought soon passed out of his mind.

“Then just do me a service and answer the question that I posed to you,” he said coolly, gazing at her, his look sending involuntary shivers down her back. Relentless, she gazed unblinkingly back.

“What, you don’t know?” she asked, a twinkle in her eye.

Neil smiled a false, charming smile, more like a grimace. “No.”

“I am not of either of the same fathers as my sisters. My father…was apparently an interesting man; my mother said I inherited many of his features, though I’m not sure what those are. She felt it unfitting to name me in the same manner she named Elise; she felt I was different, because she had a special affection for my father.”

Neil hid his shock with ease, his only expression being one eyebrow slanting down in subtle concern. Who was Riley’s father? He had always thought he was Richard. “That’s interesting, but not overly surprising. Your mother always had a habit of sleeping around.”

The small girl stood up, anger flashing in her eyes but not across her face. He couldn’t get over the fact that one so young could be so cold.

“Don’t talk about my mom that way, don’t. And plus, how do you know my mother?”

“We were friends for a time when we were younger.”

“What happened?”

Neil stiffened. This was the one subject in which he could not hold back slight emotion. “I missed the part where that was any of your business,” he said quietly, a dangerous undertone to his voice.

She sneered and said, “I missed the part where it was your right to kidnap me and my sisters.”

He chuckled in amusement. “Well, met.” And his words were true; nearly thirty years his junior, she had no problem keeping up with him, and was rather mature and well-learned for her age.

He continued, after a short pause. “Well then, I think I might have to explain part of it to you. I think you’re mature enough to handle it. But you must realize I’m not trying to tarnish your mother’s appearance, I just think you should know the blunt truth. And it’s not like it matters to me anyway. I think it would be unwise to tell anyone about our discussion, because you never know what might happen to one who runs their mouth…clear?” He paused for a breath, sucking in the moldy air with a wheeze; drawing in the air felt like a hundred knives had been sucked into his lungs, and he coughed painfully. The air was so polluted, so dirty.

Riley glanced quickly at the assortment of weapons on the table. “Yes. Fine.”

“Your mother owes me probably half of the money she has now. When Elise was born, I helped raise her, becoming somewhat of a father figure to her for her first five years in the world. I paid the rent and bought everything needed for Elise to have a normal, good childhood. Your mother, Marie, worked as a waitress, spending as many hours as she could serving and waiting tables, to pay back the debt she owed me. She herself was in terrible debt, having severed her relationship with her parents long ago and never having gotten a college education. I never charged interest, even though my friendship with Marie suffered because of her pregnancy from another man, and I was close to debt myself.

“We struggled, but managed to raise Elise well and send her off to a good preschool. And then, suddenly, Marie hooked up with her parents again, and up and left me, bringing Elise with her to Washington to live with them; your sister was five.

“I was sad, but knew it was for the best, and knew that, because of our impenetrable relationship, she would keep in contact regularly, and, eventually and over time, send me the money she owed me. I was willing to wait.

“She never gave me any means for contacting her, promising that she’d call, or visit, or write. After a month, my patience was still soundly intact. Then it grew into two, then three, and then escalated to five, six, seven, and eight…

“I was thrown into a state of depression, almost unbearable. You have to understand…” he paused, looking at her with hooded, emotionless gray eyes. They were hard as steel now, but if Riley could have seen past the surface, his fragile, hurt soul could be seen, hardened against weathering and erosion. She would have seen his battered, abused heart, turned cruel and bitter with time.

“You have to understand that I loved Marie with all my heart, in many ways. We were acquaintances, friends, lovers, and everything in between. We had different stages to our relationship, and I had grown so accustomed to her, and soon Elise’s, presence, I found it hard imagining a life without them by my side; it was much harder actually living through it.”

Riley’s face contorted into a look of sympathy, but it was too subtle and quick that he didn’t dwell on it, for pity made him angry, and her smooth, unfazed features were back as soon as he caught a glimpse of her emotions. What was it to her anyway? She didn’t like him at all. She couldn’t, and wouldn’t, allow herself to feel sorry for him.

“After about two years I found her parents’ phone number, and left a message on their machine…the father, your grandfather, called back about a week later, telling me coldly to never attempt to get in contact with his daughter or Elise again. I think he got the impression that Elise was my daughter, or perhaps Marie told him that, but either way, it wasn’t, isn’t, true. I had, since she left, recognized a skill I hadn’t used since high school: political maneuvers. I was good at speaking and negotiating, and soon found refuge and pay in an underground, sophisticated—well, something like a gang anyway, though not as crude—in New York City and in Richmond, Virginia. I rose high in the ranks of the elite gang, and learned about survival and fighting and weapons and sneakily negotiating my way into powerful peoples’ good graces. I was, figuratively, a snake, sneaking and slithering and striking from hidden places.” Neil paused with a small smile, looking at the ceiling, and stopped to scratch his foot and empty a pebble from his boot.

They heard sobs on the other side of the door, drifting through the splintered, thin door. Neil smiled, and Riley frowned, her brow furrowing over Elise’s apparent distress over her absence.

He picked up a knife and began to saw at the edge of the already worn down table with one of the daggers he possessed, continuing. “It was only four years after that when I found, because of my high status that made certain information available, that Marie had acquired a small apartment near Seattle, where her parents still lived. I drove up there from my then present station in California and went knocking on her door. We were reunited, though rather awkwardly, and years of happenings were exchanged between us. By then she had had you; you were five, so I doubt you remember me. Elise was about eleven, though I didn’t get to see her; she was at a friend’s house; there had been a birthday party.

“I left soon thereafter, not lingering longer than it was necessary to exchange a few pleasantries and to tell her how badly she had hurt me. She paid me three grand, only a fragment of what she owed, but again, out of my affection for her, I let it slide.

“I then went back to work, trying to forget about her, but alas, it was not to be. I researched her further, and found out that she acquired a boyfriend soon after she arrived in Washington, something she neglected to tell me. I was jealous, now something I will admit openly to, and I went on a quest to find out about her boyfriend, who now would be your father, Richard Beal. Respectable man, he is. He was one of those dashing, polite men with—how did Marie describe him when I last saw her?—oh, yes, ‘honest brown eyes and a lovely sense of humor.’ Bah.

Riley looked angry, but her mad look turned quickly to one of amusement. “Like you can judge other people; especially nice people, you not knowing what it’s like.”

Neil glared, but continued as if nothing had happened.

“And soon, before I knew it, they were engaged, and then married, and now I believe they are in the midst of a divorce, am I correct?”

Riley glared at him with smoldering eyes; it was obviously a sensitive subject. “Yes.” Her voice was tense.

Neil raised his eyebrows. “Ooh, touchy, now, aren’t we?” he said, mocking her.

“Shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

As soon as the words were spoken, something occurred to him, and he realized that he and Riley had many similarities; too many. The suspicion that Riley might be his daughter popped into his mind, but he pushed it aside roughly, not willing to believe that Marie had lied to him.

He smirked. “Precisely the opposite, my dear. I’ve known your mother longer than you have. My guess is, from Marie’s earlier actions when we were still on speaking terms and living together, that she got bored with Richard, being the nice man he is, and longed for more adventure in life. I knew she would never settle down for long, always wanting to go to new places and meet new people. Richard was the type who wanted to start a nice, loving family somewhere in a nice house in a nice city with a nice job and a nice housewife and a nice group of little girls. And Marie doesn’t do nice, and she would never do housewife of her own free will. So, their marriage wore out when the romance faded away, which was about a year ago, and she went looking for younger, more exciting men. Actually, she had probably already found one, and didn’t have any trouble doing it; she looks only half her age, thirty at the oldest.”

He now noticed one silent tear had made its way down the side of her cheek, and watched as it dripped off of her chin. She didn’t bother to wipe it away, as if she wanted him to see how miserable she was so that she herself could recognize it.

Her voice cracked a bit as she spoke, not wanting to argue with him anymore, not wanting to listen to his blunt, harsh words about the dilemma her family was going through. “You don’t have to do this. Is this about the money?”

“Yes, I do. I’ve suffered too much to go back now; I need something from your mother. And no; hardly; I don’t need any more money.”

She stiffened, and then cried, “You need something from her? What is that? I tire of your mind games!”

Neil tensed as he felt a shred of remorse for his actions flit through him. But then again, it was only a shred, and he pushed it aside. “I need her to acknowledge me, I need Marie to know exactly how much she hurt me; and oh, how she hurt me. I won’t even deny it. She’ll know that she must’ve pushed me over the edge, because she knows I’m slow to anger and would rarely act as I have.”

“And the money?”

“With the upcoming divorce and the financial instability your family will undoubtedly face, I think you’ll need it more than I. Besides, I have a better paying job than your mother; if she has a job at all.”

Riley glared, but nodded. “If you let us go, I’ll give her the word and not rat you out. And I’ll make sure that my sisters don’t say a word.”

He laughed a humorless chuckle. “Right,” he said sarcastically. “Oh, and before you go thinking you have an advantage over me because you have an insight into my personal life, think again. Marie means nothing to me. I’ve put the past behind me.”

Before she could speak, there was a commotion in the larger cafeteria, and Neil grabbed his gear quickly and with practiced ease before rushing out through the door, a gun at Riley’s head. What he saw made his throat lurch.

Robby stood over with his knife point at Elise’s throat, digging in so far as to draw blood and make her squirm in pain. Caroline was motionless in the arms of Brent, and Kevin stood with both his guns pointed at the door. Caroline quivered with silent sobs.

Marie stood in the doorway, no weapon in hand, staring forlornly at her two daughters. As they entered Marie’s eyes flickered to Riley, who gently pushed Neil’s gun away from her head, signaling to him that it wasn’t necessary and that she would remain in place. Marie looked at Neil then, her green eyes meeting his, sparkling the color of an empty white wine bottle. He froze as he looked upon the face that he had seen only twice since she left him eleven years ago. She spoke, her voice hoarse and strained with stress and fatigue.

“Neil?” It was said with such trepidation, with such lack of force that Neil had to scrutinize her carefully before he would admit to himself that it was her: his Marie.

“Marie. How nice of you to pay us a visit,” he said, his voice not overly cold or warm. Nor was it emotionless, as he almost saw her tense as she heard the barely recognizable tender longing in his voice, accompanied by unmistakable emotional distress and hurt, possessing a bitter edge.

As Neil looked deep into her eyes, he finally saw what he’d been waiting for: remorse and regret. It flooded across her face and her eyes took on a haunted look. But even amidst her strife, he was glad to observe the spark in her eyes had returned, glaring at him through her trance of sadness. She still managed to show some backbone after all the years they’d been apart.

He saw her hand tremor, but he knew not whether it was in sorrow or rage. He guessed the latter, and he was right.

“Let my children go, Neil.” Now she backed her words up with a force; pent up frustration seeped out. He was glad to have a challenge.

The cold, ragged edge returned to his voice, but his eyes held fire. “Your children? Very well,” he drawled with certainty. “Brent, release her,” he commanded, twitching his fingers as a sign for Caroline to be let go. He halted his two fingers towards Robby, though, so he would not be mistaken and let Elise go, too. “But of course, it’s not as if you’ve been a very stable or supportive mother, having them all with different men and then cheating on your loving husband. You haven’t been stable at all.” Marie did not reply, only stared at him with unspoken anger at revealing her shameful motherhood. Neil knew she was a tender mother, but she was unstable as a person, growing up as a child with abusive parents and ending up being promiscuous as an adult. He didn’t fully blame her for her failure.

Caroline ran to her mother, sobbing. Marie was mute as she cradled her youngest to her, smoothing down her hair and humming in a way that made the redheaded girl relax against her.

She paused before speaking, this time with greater anger, “All of them. Now.”

He laughed, sending a chill up everyone’s spine. “Marie, my dear Marie, when will you learn?” Nevertheless, he released Riley and gently prodded her in the back. When she didn’t move, he said, “You can go!” talking to her as if she were daft.

She crossed her arms, glanced up at him, then looked towards her mother. Still she made no move.

Elise was the next one to speak, which earned her a bigger gap in her pale, delicate swan neck. “I know, Mom,” she said. And that was it. And though Neil tried to convince himself that he had no idea what she was talking about, he knew, too. He was certain.

Neil gestured for Robby to release her, and he did. Elise stood there, unmoving. So they both stood motionless, when they could have reunited as a family once more. Riley whispered, just so everyone could hear, “I know, too.” Her voice was so small; Neil cringed at the lack of willpower she possessed in addressing her mother.

Caroline was oblivious, as was the rest of his party. Riley, Elise and Neil seemed to share an unspoken connection, and beads of sweat ran down Marie’s face as she was cornered by their odd actions.

Riley spoke up. “I need you to tell me, Mom. You’ve never been open with me about your past, about our past, and you might as well start here.”

“Yes, Marie, why don’t you tell them about our past?” Neil said, the look in his eye giving away the fact that he knew she was hiding something.

Elise was sobbing quietly, which shocked him, because she had been as adamant and stubborn as not to show any fear or weakness while she was around him. “Who is my father?”

Marie looked at Neil in shock, which morphed into anger. “What have you done? What have you said to them that have made my own flesh and blood turn against me?”

Neil stood there like a limp, lifeless dummy, unable to speak. When she had said “my own flesh and blood” something jolted inside him, bringing him to an unfathomable realization that blew him away; because, as he thought he was certain of past events before, he now was one-hundred percent certain.

Moments later, he found the strength enough to reply, though this time he looked at her disbelievingly, shock and anger and doubt and happiness written plainly across his face, though at the same time he knew he shouldn’t be surprised. Part of him had known the first time he laid eyes on Riley; maybe even when Elise was born. He had always had a suspicion.

“They’re my flesh and blood, too.”

Marie gazed at him with a mixture of emotions running across her face. She ended up crying, along with Elise, looking utterly lost.

Neil looked around, Kevin the only one of his men remaining, the other five already fleeing, having noticed the tides changing and, as brainless as they were, sensing that nothing would end up as they expected.

Marie ran to Neil, and he gripped her forearms tightly, almost bruising, as she wept bitter tears, her fair head resting on his chest. He roughly lifted her head up to meet his eyes. “Is it true? Is it true, Marie? If it is, I long to know what reasons you had for abandoning me and leaving me a coldhearted, bitter man with no path in life but to pursue you. You left me, taking away my other half and my children, our children, never even letting me know of Elise’s fatherhood or of your second pregnancy. In truth, you left me heartbroken and broke. You left me believing—and yes! I actually believed it, in my idiocy and blindness—that you had gotten pregnant by another man, and then when I didn’t forsake you, but held fast, you forsook me! Were you trying to get away from me?”

Marie’s answer was so faint he barely heard it. “Yes. I couldn’t bear the thought of you having to live with me in the uncomfortable place we were in for the rest of your life with a misguided woman such as me. I wanted you to have a future.”

“A future.” He laughed a maniacal, mad laugh that had him in tears. “The irony.” Then he continued, in a softer tone, but not less firm, “My future was with you. I was happy, Marie, in my misery. I was. Were you?”

She sighed. “Sweet misery. I was, but not in the position I was in. I wanted better for us, if there ever was to be an ‘us.’”

Riley stamped her foot. “God, I knew it! Something tipped me off. I knew I was related to him. Mom, why didn’t you tell me?”

Marie looked down. “I was afraid you’d think of me differently. I didn’t want all of you to have different fathers.”

Elise gave out another sob. Yes, but you outright lied to us. You told me my father had raped you, mom. That he was some random guy you met at a party. You left me with no hope of ever finding him.”

Elise hauled herself off the ground, coming to stand beside Riley. “You have the same eyes, and he and I have the same nose.” It was true, now that he looked at it, and Marie smiled, an honest, genuine smile.

“You do at that. I never noticed it before,” Marie said.

Neil touched his nose, feeling the straight plane that had been broken more than once, imagining it similar to Elise’s. It was.

He brushed back a strand of flaxen hair from Elise’s face, touched the top of Riley’s small head, and laid a hand gently on Marie’s slender shoulder. He looked at Caroline, who was staring up at him with wide green eyes. His mouth twisted into a grimace; she was not his child, but there was nothing he could do about that.

He sighed, wiping the small droplets of blood away from Elise’s neck. The wound wasn’t too bad, just a cut. “What now?”

Marie smiled up at him. “We go home. It’s almost too good to be true.”

“We?”

“Yes, we,” Elise said firmly, staring at him so strongly it was almost a glare.

He smiled; not at the prospect of “home”, but rather the absurdity of it all. He kidnapped her children, and suddenly everything is great between them? It couldn’t be. He battled with the possibilities, turning them over in his mind, scoffing at the future that they might hold. Could it work? Could it happen?

No; it couldn’t. He wouldn’t put his soul at risk again, wouldn’t risk her leaving him again. He had made a future, no matter how unethical, for himself, and he wasn’t about to break down the barriers that surrounded him. He would not be hurt again.

He was not happy, but then again, he never was. Why would that change now? It wasn’t to be.

He pushed away from them. “No. I won’t let you do this to me, Marie. I won’t let you pretend to love me and then leave without a trace.”

Marie gaped. “What? Neil, be sensible,” she scoffed, not willing to believe he would turn his back on everything he had just recently acquired; a wife, three children, a home, money…a life.

Rage bubbled up inside him. How could she say that? “Sensible!” he cried. “You’re asking me to be sensible? Well let me tell you something, Marie;” he spat, “you are the only person in the world that has no right to ask that of me. You didn’t set a very good example.”

Silent tears slid down Marie’s face and off her chip to land on the floor. The sound of wet drops on stone was deafening in the now silent hall. Elise and Riley stared at him in disbelief, and Caroline refused to look at him, latching her arms around her mother’s narrow waist.

Riley stepped forward. “Don’t get mean. Everything was fine just a minute ago. Why don’t you just come home, be a father to us?” She was a ten year old girl again, looking up at him with wide, innocent gray eyes, giving him a view into the mind of one he knew wasn’t as she appeared; ruthless cunning rested beneath the surface of those silver eyes, his silver eyes, and he would not fall into her logical mind trap.

“Actually,” he said, his voice now just a whisper; a menacing whisper. It did the desired affect. “I think I’ll go home instead; though not without a reward for my hard work.”

Marie instinctively grabbed her children close to her, but her arms only numbered two, and he managed to snatch Riley into his arms.

The ten-year-old screamed bloody murder. She beat him with her fists, and stomped on his toes, and sent her knee towards his crotch. But, alas, it was to no avail, and after a minute she went lax in his arms, breathing heavily. Her cheeks glistened with newly shed tears.

Marie put her head in her hands as he backed up towards the hallway entrance, which would eventually lead to the back exit of the prison. “Neil, please…oh, please, Neil, oh God, don’t do this…” She choked on her tears.

What was he doing? Did this make any sense?

Oh, yes, he told himself. This was the revenge he was waiting for. It had finally come. Marie deserved this.

Neil was lost. His nearly black heart swallowed up his mind, soul, and common sense. He was drowning in his misery, never to resurface. This night had pushed him over the edge. He walked backwards, and then, with a wicked smile on his face, and with a final scream from Riley, he walked back through the doors, dragging Riley behind him. The giant oak doors creaked closed, their once oiled hinges now rusty with age.

Marie collapsed on the floor, knowing that there was nothing she could do. Her young, remaining daughters held her, there on the floor, crying with her, their salty tears intermingling in rivulets.

They had lost a family member tonight, probably never to see her again.

They had lost two family members, and a soul. It was a blackened soul, but a beloved one nonetheless.

They were lost.