Only you

Chapter 5 | Cartel

14 years old.
I stared at the black gun that rested on the counter. I could feel my legs shaking from under me, daring me to fall to the ground. My eyes started to water, the tears struggling to make their way down my face as Aldrik stood beside me telling me things in my ear.

Telling me how worthless I was, how my father never loved me, how he would've sold me right when I turned eighteen no matter how much my mother would have begged him, and how I could never be loved by someone; That I would never make it out alive in this world.

And the sad thing was that I believed him.

I believed every word.

He muttered more words to me, but I couldn't understand what he was telling me because all I could hear was my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest. He picked up a blindfold off the floor and stood behind me putting it over my eyes. I shook as the fear slowly began to take over me, but I tried to think of my mother's beautiful voice telling me that I could do anything because I was strong.

I would do this every time I felt like I was close to breaking but Aldrik's voice always outweighed hers until all I could hear was him in my head instead.

If I didn't hit the middle of this target, the only thing I could be sure to expect afterwards was pain. Aldrik did this every week without fail. He would have me stand in front of this target with a gun in my hands, blindfolded, and I would have to hit it right in the bullseye or he would torture me more than he had before and every time it would only get worse to the point that sometimes he would let his men deal with me.

I took my shaky hand and grabbed the gun from the counter with my blindfold still on. I pointed the gun up and guessed that I had it right where I needed it to be. However, instead of just going for it like all the other times, I thought of how I had stood there before and tried to estimate how much I was off by.

I took a small step to the right and pointed my gun up a little. My hand stopped shaking as familiarity began to replace the fear of holding the gun in my hands. I took a deep breath and pulled the trigger, the loud sound bouncing off the concrete walls and back to my ears making them ring.

I stood there ready to be pulled by my hair and dragged to a room where I would be tormented for failing, but I didn't hear any rough footsteps like I did the other weeks. The only thing that I heard was silence as my ears started to gain their full hearing back and wondered if Aldrik had left the room because of how quiet it was.

I took the blindfold off and hoped I wouldn't get beat for doing so. My eyes were overwhelmed with the brightness in the room and I blinked a few times trying to clear my vision. I looked at the target and I saw a hole right in the center.

I blinked a few more times in shock, trying to see if it was just my imagination or if I had really hit the middle. Once my vision was all cleared, I stared at the obvious fresh hole that the gun had pierced through the bullseye.