Chapter 113
Elena’s Point Of View
We were pulled into a wider, open yard dimly lit by a single, buzzing, yellow streetlamp. The air here was heavy with the smell of wet dirt, exhaust fumes, and stale alcohol. Somewhere distant, a dog barked once and fell silent, as though even the strays of this neighborhood knew better than to intervene.
And standing right under that flickering light, her arms crossed over her chest, a faded patterned scarf tied tight around her head, was my mother.
She didn’t look worried. She didn’t look relieved that her children were alive. Her dark eyes were cold, calculated, a bitter, vicious smirk curling the corners of her mouth. In that instant, I understood with total clarity that whatever love I’d once imagined she held for us had been a lie I told myself to survive… a story I had clung to through years of neglect and cruelty, simply because the alternative was too unbearable to face.
I thought of the birthdays she’d forgotten, the bruises she’d explained away, the countless times I had made excuses for her in my own head simply because the truth was too heavy to carry.
The man threw me forward. I collapsed onto the wet gravel at her feet, my hands scraping raw against the sharp stones.
“M- mom I croaked, the word choking me, tasting like ash and betrayal on my tongue.
She tilted her head, her gaze cutting down at me like a meat cleaver. “And where,” she said softly, venom threaded through every single syllable, “did you think you were taking my money to p>
I stared up at her through my swollen, tear-filled eyes, my chest heaving. “What… what money p>
Her laugh cracked through the night like a leather whip. She stepped closer, her heavy shadow falling completely over my broken body. “Your sister, of course,” she said, her voice dripping with absolute casualness, as though she were discussing the sale of an old piece of furniture. “Since you don’t want to be useful, since you want to fight me at every turn, you’re better off dead to me anyway p>
Without warning, her heavy, calloused hand came down.
CRACK.
The slap hit my already bruised cheek, snapping my head back into the dirt. Heather shrieked. Dave wailed from behind the men.
I lay in the mud, every nerve in my body screaming in unbearable agony. But as the copper taste of my own blood filled my mouth, something inside me… that last, fragile thread of filial love, snapped clean in two. Whatever remained of the daughter who had once begged for her mother’s approval died there in the gravel, replaced by something harder, colder, and far more dangerous.
I felt it happen, felt the shift settle into my bones like ice, and strangely, it brought a kind of clarity I had never known before, as if some merciful hand had finally cut the last rope tethering me to a hope I should have released years ago.
Slowly, agonizingly, I pushed my bleeding palms into the gravel. I dragged myself up onto shaking, unstable knees, forcing my battered body to stand. Tears cut clean, pale lines through the dirt on my face, but my eyes locked onto hers with a fierce, deadly intensity.
“How My voice came out as a hollow rasp before rising. “How can you call yourself a mother p>
My mother’s eyes narrowed, her jaw clenching tightly.
“Your children mean nothing to you!” I screamed, the words tearing out of my chest like broken glass. “Then why give birth to us?! Why p>
The scream ricocheted off the surrounding brick buildings.
“Not once!” I shouted, taking a trembling step toward her, ignoring the men stepping up behind me. “Not once have we felt a single second of motherly affection from you! There is no difference between you and a dead mother p>
Her face went crimson with sudden, explosive rage. “You ungrateful little whore p>
CRACK.
Her hand lashed out again, striking me so hard I stumbled backward, falling onto my hands and knees once more. Gravel bit deep into my palms. Blood dripped steadily from my lip onto the dark earth.
But this time, as I sat in the dirt, I began to laugh.
It was a jagged, broken, hysterical sound, spilling from my bloody lips like something wild and untamed. Perhaps I had finally cracked. Perhaps this was what happened when a person had nothing left to lose… a strange, terrible freedom in reaching the very bottom of despair, where even fear lost its grip and something like recklessness took its place.
I pushed myself right back up, swaying on my feet, wiping the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand. “Is that all?” I rasped, my eyes wild. “Hit me! Do it again! Prove to everyone here what a monster you are p>
Her nostrils flared, her chest heaving. “I put a roof over your head!” she spat, her voice shrill, defensive. “I fed you after your useless father died p>
I laughed louder, a bitter, ugly sound full of years of swallowed trauma. “You did nothing for us!” I hissed, taking another step right into her space. “Nothing! All you ever did was remind us every single day of how useless father was! I feed my siblings! I clothe them! I work until my fingers bleed to pay you rent just to sleep on a moldy mattress! So tell me, mother… what do you do for us p>
Her lips curled back over her yellowed teeth. “I gave you life p>
“Life?!” I roared, the sound shredding my throat entirely. “Did you just say life?!” Tears burned like fire as they poured down my face. “Is this life?! The same living hell you made for us every single day p>
I stepped even closer, my voice shaking with a terrifying, unstoppable fury. “Even in death, father is a million times better than you p>
That was the final blow.
My mother’s face twisted into something utterly demonic. “You arrogant bitch!” she shrieked. She didn’t just slap me this time. She grabbed me by my hair, yanking my head down, and brought her knee crashing straight into my stomach.
The air instantly vanished from my lungs. A muted, agonizing gasp escaped my lips as my vision whited out. My knees buckled completely, and I crumpled into the mud, clutching my abdomen, curling into a tight, desperate ball as I suffocated.
“You think you have a say?!” my mother screamed, towering over me, kicking mud onto my face. “You don’t own anything! You don’t even own your own body! You belong to me! And I am selling you to clear my debts p>
She turned toward the boss, her voice instantly shifting into a cold, businesslike tone, as though the last several minutes of violence had simply never happened. “Take her. Take the sister too if you want. Just make sure the money is in my hands by morning p>
“No I choked out from the dirt, my hand reaching out blindly toward Heather, but I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. “No… please p>
The main man chuckled, stepping forward and looking down at me. “She’s got spirit, I’ll give her that. But spirit breaks real easy p>
He reached down, grabbing a heavy chunk of rough, broken concrete resting near the wall. He weighed it in his hand, a sickening smirk on his face as he stepped toward my limp form.
Desperation… raw, animalistic, unyielding, sparked in my dying nerves.
As he bent down to grab my collar, I didn’t reach for my hair. I reached for the ground. My bleeding fingers wrapped around a sharp, heavy cobblestone buried in the dirt.
With the absolute last drop of strength in my body, I swung my arm upward with everything I had.
THWACK.
The heavy stone connected directly with the side of his temple.
A sickening crack echoed through the yard. The man’s eyes rolled back into his head, a line of dark blood instantly spurting from his hairline. He let out a wet, breathless grunt and collapsed sideways like a felled tree, his massive body slamming motionless onto the gravel.
Silence slammed into the yard.
My mother froze, her eyes wide with shock. The other two men stared in absolute disbelief at their boss lying unconscious in the dirt.
I gasped, air finally rushing back into my burning lungs. But there was no time to think. No time to react.
“Run!” I screamed, dragging my battered body up from the mud. I grabbed our canvas satchel from the ground, lunging forward with a desperate, feral roar.
I grabbed Heather’s hand, yanking her away from the stunned man holding her, and snatched Dave by his arm, pulling them both into a dead sprint toward the open road beyond the yard.
“Get them!” my mother’s voice shrieked behind us, shrill and hysterical. “Don’t let them leave! Kill her if you have to p>
Tears streamed uncontrollably down my face, hot and blinding, as our bare feet pounded against the rough pavement. We were running fast, so fast my lungs felt like they were going to burst, the wind screaming in my ears… YANK.
A heavy, ruthless hand clamped around the back of my hair from behind, yanking backward with violent force.
My feet flew out from under me. I crashed hard onto the unyielding asphalt, the impact driving every last drop of air straight out of my lungs. My chin slammed against the road, the world spinning in violent, sickening bursts of red and black.
I gasped, choking on my own blood, completely paralyzed as the pain flared through my spine.
“Elena!” Heather screamed, stopping dead in her tracks.
“Take the bag and run!” I choked out, my voice barely a whisper, blood pooling in my mouth as I tried to lift my head from the street. “Heather… take Dave and run! DON’T LOOK BACK p>
“No!” Heather wailed, her eyes wide with tears. “We won’t leave you p>
My brave, foolish little sister dropped the bag, picked up a heavy wooden stick from the gutter, and charged back, swinging it with all her tiny might against the leg of the man standing over me.
The stick snapped in half against his heavy jeans.
The man barely flinched. He reached down with one hand, grabbed Heather by the front of her shirt, and lifted her off the ground as she kicked and screamed, hitting his arms helplessly.
The third man stepped up, casually scooping a sobbing, thrashing Dave under his arm like a piece of luggage.
“Let them go I wheezed from the asphalt, my fingers tearing into the hard ground as I tried to drag myself toward them. “Let them go… I’ll kill you… I swear to God I’ll kill you all p>
The man holding my hair looked down at me, his face twisted in quiet, disgust-filled rage. He raised his heavy, steel-toed boot.
BOOM.
The kick landed square in my belly.
A horrific, silent gasp tore from my throat as my eyes bulged. Pain… blinding, absolute, paralyzing pain, exploded through my entire core. My body curled tightly into a fetal position, my muscles locking up, my vision completely dissolving into blackness.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fight anymore.
I felt his heavy hands grab me by my waist, hoisting my limp, broken body up and throwing me callously over his broad shoulder. My head hung down his back, bouncing uselessly with every step he took back toward the yard.
Through the haze of my slipping consciousness, I could hear Heather’s screams fading into desperate, hopeless sobs. I could hear Dave’s muffled cries calling my name over and over again, each repetition weaker than the last, as though the darkness itself were swallowing his voice.
I couldn’t lift my arms. I couldn’t scream back.
As the dark night swallowed us whole, carried away into the nightmare we had fought so hard to escape, the only thing left of me was the silent, endless river of tears soaking into the fabric of the monster’s shirt.