Circles and Wings

Chapter 19

*Scarlett*

"What happened?" He asked gently.

I could almost laugh at the simplicity of the question. What happened...? too much.

He was still rubbing my head and it was soothing. It was soothing and distracting, but not enough. There were still flashes of memories coming back. There was still a shadow.

"Don't fight, and you may live." He said, "Don't fight it and you will see her again." Dad spoke in absolutes and commands. He had come to take me to Hell, since I turned 18 today. He had come to take me home. But Mom said no. Mom wanted to keep me.

So, in Dad's eyes, Mom was a threat. And threats, as Dad always told me, were to be eliminated before they became problematic.

"No." Mom said. "You can't take her, she's all I have."

"Mom." I pleaded, "Please, he'll kill you." I wasn't scared, it was simply a fact. If Mom got in Dads way, he would kill her. It's his nature. "I can come visit, just please... For me—"

"I'm fighting for you, Scarlett." She cut me off

"You're being foolish." Dad growled. "Come my pride, let us be off." He held out a hand to me. A sign of peace. For me he would try not to kill her. For me he would make the first move of peace. Because he loved me.

I nodded and took a step towards him, but before I could place my palm in his a shot fired. Dad ricocheted to the ground as the bullet passed clean through his shoulder. "Don't do this." Mom pleaded. "Don't make me kill you."

Dad laughed as he stood, "My dear Emily..." he took a step toward her. "Lower your weapon."

Mom took my wrist and pulled me away from Dad, pushed me away from her. "No." She fired two more shots, into Dad's chest. I couldn't suppress the scream that built in my throat. "Scarlett, run." She said frantically, "I'll find you, just leave this place please. Leave me, leave him, go to Europe, go home if you must."

"Home?" I asked, a tear leaving my eye, "Mom, this is home."

"No, my home." She said, "Go there if you must, to get away. Go to Hea—"

She was cut off with a gurgling noise as blood began to pour from her mouth. A glance slightly down from her face showed an arm stuck through her chest, her heart firmly in a fist. Dad's fist.

I looked from her chest to Dad's face. The sad, sad look on Dad's face. I wrinkled my nose against the sound of him sliding his arm from her chest. I watched her fall to the floor, a lifeless mass where Mom once lived. Then I felt something warm in my palms I didn't realized I'd raised.

I looked down to watch two midnight tears fall onto the still beating heart of my Mother. The one who raised me and cared for me. Mom's heart. And as it beat it's last beat I looked up to Dad.

"You may keep it in your apartments." He said flatly, "A sign of her ever lasting love. The love for you that got her killed."

I didn't speak. I didn't know what to say. He killed her. He killed her because she loved me too much. She died because she loved me. She died because of me. It was all my fault, and nothing would bring her back. She was gone and it was all my fault.

"Come my pride," Dad said placing a guiding hand on my shoulder, "We must't linger."

"Scarlett?" It was Raph's voice I heard. Not Dad's. I looked up at him. He was done drying my hair, he had brushed it too. And I looked up at him as a single obsidian tear tumbled down my cheek. I nodded at him, "Hey, where'd you go? Your hair started to glow a little then you weren't responding to me and..."