Venomous Mistake

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"Where were you?" The booming voice barely registers in my head. It's dark, and I have just arrived from god knows where. The torn clothes on my back and the pain in my body make me seethe with a rage I've buried since Javier placed a knife in my hand and kicked my feet from beneath me. That was eight years ago, just two years after Russians brutally murdered my parents.

Those two years after their death? No tengo ni puta idea how I arrived in a fucking convent with dirty kids and barely any food. Yes, I came from a small neighbourhood where people dropped dead like fucking flies, but I did my research, and these putos policías sucios didn't give a fuck. Do you know what I think? Their wallets were bigger since the last death, and they just didn't give a fuck.

Estoy tan enojada. I've learned to hate everybody and everything. Odio el mundo. One look, and I'm ready to tear their throats for watching me the wrong way. One look, and it's like they could tell my story like it was their business.

You know what I regret?

Esa puta llamada telefónica.

I shouldn't have run back to that house. I should have stayed with the dirty children and barely any food until my eighteenth birthday.

Today was that day, and Dios, I wanted anything but what happened. I'd do anything for a time machine to get my parents out of that house or never force a jammed window open with my nails to run into the dead of night with ten pesos I stole from the sor. Everyone got a hard paliza with El Azote for my sin, and I didn't care. Maybe that's why everything happened today-eight years later.

Maybe I'd take it upon myself and perform self-flagellation like I've seen the sors do whenever they'd sneak into each other's células monásticas and execute the unholiest acts of self-gratification amongst themselves. Last I remembered, that's not what a nun should do. They've engraved the worst in our minds with psychological abuse.

I'd take anything but standing here in the dark, wanting to kill the man nursing a glass of aguardiente.

I'd prefer to suffer for eight more years, knowing their punishment would be worse than mine and not have a greater discipline with the thoughts of murder. I've never killed until today-three men, all by myself. I'm in denial. I can't focus because I can't believe I've become like the men who took my parents lives. I'm no different than them, aren't I? Cold-hearted murderers who've sold their souls for devotion to a happy life after they've ripped a soul off this earth.

I've ripped three souls all to protect myself. They'd have stolen from me my only innocence, and I don't think I'd want to leave after that. It would be the breaking point from years of enduring torture. I had to fight. I wouldn't make my mother disappointed. I'm stronger than that.

My sweet mother would have been thirty-eight this year and Ruben? Forty-five. I've stopped calling him Papa in my head. It didn't feel honest or proper because I was ten years smarter than I was at eight years old.