Have you ever watched a butcher slice a piece of meat? That slicing sound at the skin removal, the smell of blood in the air. The sick satisfying look the butcher had on his face.
Well, my father was my butcher.
His breathing, my screams, the ripping and slicing, those were the only sounds you could hear. Do you know how it feels when your body is trying to heal itself, to close the wound, but something is stopping it?
“Can you feel that, moy malen’kiy drakon?”
He still thought I was his little dragon? Papa loved me, he still loved me.
“Can you feel your skin trying to close down? I can almost see it beneath my fingers.”
“Papa, please!”
“No, goddammit.” He pressed into the other wound, my whole body coiling from the pain. “I asked you a question. Can you feel it?”
More pressure, more pain, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Papa,” I yelled. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“Answer me!” he roared out, punishing me with his hands. “You better answer me, Ekaterina, or you are not coming out of here alive.”
He would kill me. I knew he would. Papa always kept his word.
But he loved me, he really did. I was his favorite, his little dragon, his heir. But I had to be stronger than this. I had to be stronger than my mind.
“Yes, I can feel it,” I finally answered. My mouth was dry. The lack of water for the last three days was insufferable. My lips were parched, breaking apart. I could taste blood from them, but I didn’t know if I was the one who broke through the soft tissue or did it happen when one of the guards hit me in the face.
“Your body will always want to heal itself, but you have to let it. Can you let it heal?” my father started again. “Can you accept who you really are?”
Could I accept myself? Could I accept the monstrosities I committed? Could I run away from the voices in my head, from all the faces haunting me in my sleep?
“You need to let it go, dorogoy. You need to fucking let it go.”
“But they are here,” I cried out. “They are everywhere, Papa. They’re calling me, haunting me, screaming my name—”
“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’t only Ekaterina.”
“No?” He smiled at me. “Then what is it?”
“My name is Ophelia Ekaterina Aster.”
“And are you ready now, Ophelia?”
For the first time in my life, he called me Ophelia. Not Ekaterina, not darling, not a little dragon, but by my name. A name given to me by his father, which he never wanted to acknowledge. Was I ready? I almost didn’t want to answer, but if I were to start being who I wanted to be, I had to suppress my fear.
If I were to take him down one day, I had to stand tall and face everything he was throwing my way.
“For what, Papa?”
“To be who you were always meant to be.”
I lifted my head, the last atoms of strength slipping from my grip, but I wouldn’t fail now. I wouldn’t bow my head to him. Not now, not ever again.
“And who is that?” I asked. “Who am I meant to be?”
He touched the crown of my head, a faraway look in his eyes. If I didn’t know better, I would dare to say that he looked wistful. Almost human.
“A true leader, dorogoy.” He removed the strands of hair falling on my face. “A leader of Syndicate.”
His form was blurring in front of my eyes. My head felt heavy, the wounds on my back throbbing, and I just wanted to sleep. I needed to rest.
“Papa—” I started, but he cut me off before I could say what I wanted to say.
“I have a job for you.”
My eyes snapped open, the aggravation rising up in me. Did this man see what I looked like right now?