Hope
My heart was racing so hard in my chest, I thought I might faint.
Months of silence had lured me into a false sense of security.
Or else, I just hadn't cared anymore.
After Hunter's death, I had been just about done with reality.
But now that I was staring him in the face again?
Every survival instinct inside of me had kick-started back to life.
"Girls. How long I've waited to get you two alone," David managed to wheeze before breaking into a fit of coughing.
In one hand, he held a sleek, black gun. In the other; a bloodied tissue he used to wipe his mouth.
"You should really lock that front gate," he continued to rasp. "Anyone could just walk right in on you."
"You fucking bastard," I snarled.
This was on him.
His fault.
His command.
Hunter was dead because of him.
I had lost everything because of him.
All the pain.
All the sorrow.
All.
His.
Fault.
Losing all thought for reality and logic, I dragged myself out of my chair and moved towards him, my battered heart demanding I avenge my lover, only to quickly halt in my tracks when he aimed the gun at my stomach.
Another contraction hit me then, more forceful than all the previous ones, and I cried out in agony.
"Take one more step and I'll blow what's left of that boy clean out of your stomach," David snarled, hacking violently into his tissue.
My mother was on her feet in a heartbeat, standing in front of me, shielding my body from threat, like a lioness would protect her cub.
"I see the cancer has finally caught up with you, David." Her small body was shaking, but her voice never wavered as she kept her back to me, and her eyes trained solely on him. "My prayers have finally been answered."
"Not fast enough, Delia," he wheezed, training the nozzle of the gun at my mother's chest. "As you can see, I'm very much still standing." He tilted his head to one side, studying my mother with cold eyes full of malicious intent. "Your god hasn’t worked his magic yet."
"But for how long will you be standing?" Mom countered, voice detached from all emotion. "Another day? Another week? And when you're bedridden and gasping for breath, who will be at your bedside?" She shook her head. "You will be all alone, David. All alone to choke to death on your own blood. Because you are incapable of human emotions. Because you have chased and tortured and provoked every single person with your blood running through their veins. Everyone that could have loved you now hates you, and prays at night for your death. You did that, David. You alone have brought this misery down on everyone. You are going to be all alone. You are going to die roaring, and I can't think of a better way for you to go."
"You know," he growled, tone raspy and hoarse. "Sometimes I really do question if there is any sense left inside that tiny brain of yours." He wiped his mouth with his tissue before saying, "Maybe old Jimmy beat it out of you all those years ago."
"Maybe he did," Mom agreed. "But I still have my heart, which is a lot more than can be said about you."
He laughed cruelly. "Think your heart's going to save you now?"
"Look at yourself," Mom continued, tone angrier than I'd ever heard. "Standing here, pointing that thing at your great-grandchild?"
"And look at you," David countered with a hiss. "Without that bulletproof husband of yours to keep you alive." His chuckled laughter quickly morphed into a cough so violent it sounded as if he was hacking up a lung.
"Don’t worry, though," he strangled out when he was able to speak again. "I won't touch your precious Kyle." David grinned widely and I heaved at the sight of the blood on his teeth. "Knowing that he's lost you both will be more than enough for me."
Another contraction rocked through my body, causing me to back up against the counter for support.
I bit down hard on my bottom lip to stop myself from screaming out, but a pained sob still broke through, resulting in my mother rushing to my side and David to laugh cruelly.
"She's in labor?" he mused before spluttering a phlegm ball into his tissue. "Well, that is an inconvenience."
"Yes, she is!" Mom snarled, shielding my body once more with hers. "Your granddaughter is in labor, and if you have a shred of humanity left in your body, you will let us go."
"And where would the pain be in that?" he sneered. "If I let you go?"
My mother shook her head in disgust. "You are beyond redemption."
"Well, luckily for me, I'm not looking for redemption," David snarled, slowly cocking back the hammer with a loud click. "I'm looking for revenge."
"That makes two of us," a male voice announced seconds before the sound of a gunshot ripped through the air.
My grandfather collapsed in a heap on the floor.
The gun he had been wielding at my mother and I skirted across my freshly polished floorboards, knocking against my shoe.
My mother quickly reached down and retrieved it.
But I couldn’t move.
Because I was staring at a ghost.