Page 15 of Ricochet
“Then let them scream. Let them shout, and beg, but they are not here.” He turned me around, finally releasing my back. “You are.”
He cupped my cheeks, the blood on his hands smearing over my skin. I couldn’t focus on his face. I couldn’t focus on anything but pain.
Pain in my body would have been bearable, but the pain in my head was tearing me apart. I didn’t want to accept what he was saying. I didn’t want to see the truth that’s been there all along.
I was my own destruction, and I was my own pain. I was the bearer of everything bad, and I had to let it go. I had to let this misery go, this sorrow in me. The guilt over everything I’ve done was going to eat me alive, and if I couldn’t learn how to control it, I might as well be dead.
“Ekaterina.” His voice was distant, as if I was underneath the water—floating, drowning.
Our wounds would never close if we continued poking them, if we continued slicing the same spot, over and over again. The human mind was a fragile thing, but it was also stronger than most of us thought. Was I going to be a little bitch and cry over the lives I’d taken, or was I going to put my big girl pants on and be what I was supposed to be?
An assassin.
I was their biggest nightmare, and the sweetest dream, and if I couldn’t carry the burden of our family, of this life, somebody else would.
Did I really want to be remembered as the girl who couldn’t handle the pressure? Who couldn’t control her demons?
My demons were my own, and if I allowed those bitches to take over my life, I would never live life fully. I could never be free if I couldn’t accept who I really was.
A murderer.
A monster.
Maybe a psychopath.
But that was me. That was what this life made me, and I could let it control me. I really could. Let it take over me, let my fear and my doubts be the two things leading me through life. Except, I wasn’t born for that.
I was born to be this. This darkness I feared so much. I wanted to run away from it, but the truth was, I was running away from who I really was. Some people were destined to become doctors, lawyers and politicians. I was destined to become an assassin.
The best one the Syndicate ever had.
What was I thinking, allowing my feelings to get involved? Wasn’t that the first thing Papa tried to teach me?No remorse, no pain, death comes to all of us anyway.
And who gave a fuck if you died today or in fifty years?
If you got involved with the Syndicate, you knew what you were signing up for. There was no mercy, no salvation for those who wronged us. And if I had to be the one who would bring justice, I would be the last thing you saw before your soul became eternally damned.
All of us would burn in Hell, we just had to choose which kind of Hell we wanted to have while on Earth.
“Ekaterina?”
I snapped my eyes open, suddenly annoyed with the name he continued using with me. All this time I’ve tried splitting myself into two different people.
Ophelia, the girl my friends knew. The one who could walk with her head held high.
Ekaterina, a murderer my father created.
I had to come to this point to realize that there was no use in me splitting those two. Lying to myself and trying to be somebody else would never have worked. I was who I was.
I was both good and bad.
I was both lover and murderer.
Ophelia and Ekaterina were the same person and it was about time I started acting like that. It was about time I stopped acting like a child.
“My name isn’t Ekaterina, Papa.” I leaned toward him, looking into those blue eyes—the color almost the same as mine. “My name isn’tonlyEkaterina.”
“No?” He smiled at me. “Then what is it?”
