Page 6 of Ricochet
I just didn’t know anymore where the good ones ended and the bad ones began. During dinner yesterday, I caught myself imagining my father bleeding out from wounds I caused. I imagined his body mauled and destroyed beyond recognition, and I was the culprit. I was gripping the handle of the knife so tight, I could still feel the steel digging into my hand. Was this darkness always inside of me?
I caught Ava’s worried eyes on me, and I managed to fake a smile, trying to erase the murderous glare I was no doubt sending in Cynthia’s direction.
“What the fuck is wrong with you lately?” I should’ve known she wouldn’t let it go. Ava knew me too well, and after I tried avoiding her for the first two weeks, she knew something was up.
I just wasn’t ready to talk about it. What would I say, anyway?
Oh, darling, I’ve been initiated into something called Syndicate, run by my father. Saturdays are stabbing days, you know, to slice somebody up. Also, did you know that if you cut someone’s jugular, it takes them less than ten minutes to completely bleed out? A piece of art, really. Oh, and your family is in on that business. I am basically part of the Russian mafia now, so no, I can’t go shopping for a prom dress because there’s another person to kill.
Yeah, I couldn’t exactly tell her that. I wasn’t even sure if she would ever be privy to that information, and the less she knew, the better it was. If my pretending to be a distant bitch meant she gets to live in ignorance, free of the chains they put on me, so be it.
“What do you mean?” My voice pitched, trying to sound cheerful, trying to show her that everything was okay. The scowl on her face told me I was failing.
Majorly.
“Don’t act coy with me, Ophelia. I know something is wrong. You’ve been avoiding me lately. You’re not going out, you don’t speak to me, you’ve become withdrawn… what the fuck is going on?”
Her tone increased with every word spoken, and I felt like the shittiest person ever to walk on this Earth.
“Is it,” she lowered her voice, “Kieran?”
I flinched at the mention of his name, and her eyes widened thinking she got it.
“It is, isn’t it?”
“No—”
“You don’t have to see him tonight. We can go and do something else.”
But I actually wanted to see him. I wanted to talk to him about the things that were haunting me day and night. I needed to hear how he functioned with all of this; how did he cope with this shitshow? I had to talk to somebody, otherwise I would go mad.
The fact that I was in love with him, or whatever this ridiculous feeling was, didn’t even pass my mind. I just had to know I would be normal again. Well, as normal as I could be.
There was nothing normal in being a seventeen-year-old in training to become a killing machine. Father was happy with my progress, and my cold demeanor and indifference I showed with every guy he brought to me.
Truth was, I was screaming inwardly, begging to be released, hoping this was all a nightmare I would wake up from. This darkness clawing at my chest, begging to be released was a heavy burden. Maybe I was always a monster—a dormant one, but a monster, nonetheless.
“No, no, I want to welcome them home. I haven’t seen any of your brothers for almost a year and I miss their stupid faces.”
“Are you sure? They would—”
“Yep.” I smiled at her. I could only imagine how deranged I actually looked—like a walking bipolar disorder. One minute I was lost in my thoughts, imagining somebody’s death, the next I was smiling like a lunatic.
How do people do this?
How do they shut down all their emotions and manage to kill without remorse? How is it possible that I never saw any difference in the way Kieran and Cillian were behaving, or my brother for that matter?
Theo didn’t pass the initiation, but he was still part of the organization. Why the fuck would our parents put us up for this shit? I hoped, and hoped, and hoped my father would change his mind. Maybe I wasn’t good enough, maybe I wasn’t strong enough.
But with each passing day, with every glance at him, I knew he wasn’t going to let me go. God fucking dammit, I just needed somebody to talk to. Someone who would understand what I was going through.
I really hoped Kieran would have answers to some of my questions.
Like, why the fuck he never told me what our families were involved in? Not that we were best friends or anything, but they all knew, and not one of them said anything to me. I was pissed at my parents, I was pissed at myself, and I was pissed at all of them for keeping this from me. My chest hurt. My mind felt like a distorted picture, and I didn’t know who I was anymore. Two months ago, I was a daughter, a friend, a sister, but now… Now I was what the darkest nightmares were made of.
“Are you even listening to me?” Ava’s voice pulled me from the fog enveloping my mind, an impatient expression visible on her face. “Or are you just ignoring me? Again?”
I shouldn’t have come here today. My mind was already a mess, my attention span even worse, and she didn’t deserve it. “I’m sorry. I guess I got distracted.”
