Hero?

1

Damon is angry with his father. They were here to collect a debt. The man cowering before them obviously doesn't have the money. He could tell his father was going to take both the man's life and the woman's.

"Wait, don't kill me! Take my daughter as payment for the loan." Now Damon was sickened. The man was willing to give his daughter to slavery to save his poor life. He looks over at the woman and sees that she doesn't have a problem with that either. "She has skills, let me call her in to show you."

"Ana! Get your ass in here now!" The girls father yells for her. Shortly a young girl, she couldn't be much older than seven or eight years old enters. 

The girl is terrified as she looks from her parents to Damon's father, her look turns curious when she looks at Damon and then Calum.

"Ana, strip and dance," her father orders. Damon clenches his teeth in anger, but the girl immediately does as she's ordered. Damon had noticed that she moved like she was in pain. His father won't be accepting the deal, at least not like the man hopes. His father is wasteful and is ruining the Phoenix group.

The girl dances and although Damon isn't attracted to children he found himself responding to her. It's obvious that she's having trouble, whatever is causing her pain is affecting her dance. "I accept, but she won't be enough to pay your debt."

With those words Damon pulls his father away and argues with him about what his father is going to do. After arguing for several minutes Damon storms out of the house and Calum follows him out. 

The cool night air helps to clear the anger from Damon, but hearing the silenced shot he rushes back inside. The woman is down with a bullet hole directly between her eyes. Damon watches as the girl is forced to pick up the knife his father holds to her. The gun in front of her terrifies the girl, sort of. He's not sure just what the expression is on her face.

"Slit his throat." Damon's father demands of the girl. Damon is sick at what his father is demanding of her.

"I don't know how," the girl's soft voice replies.

"Just slide the knife with pressure across his neck from under his ear to his other ear." Damon's father tells her.

Damon watches stunned as the girl does just that with no further words or hesitation. Her father falls dead at her feet as she is sprayed with his blood. She stares at the knife in her hand before letting it drop to the ground.

"Very good, now go upstairs and shower the blood off." The girl, Ana, doesn't look at the man and just turns to the stairs and climbs them. Shortly the shower is heard turning on.

"What the hell? Have you lost your freaking mind?" Damon demands once he's sure that the girl won't hear him.

"What's your problem?" Damon's father asks as he pulls a lighter out of his pocket and flicks it alight. He goes over to the curtains and lights them on fire. The flames eagerly take to the material and soon the whole room is alight.

Damon is beyond sickened when he realizes that his father intends to burn the girl alive. "I won't let you do this."

His father turns and smirks at him, "Oh? What do you intend to do about it Damon?" The smirk dies when Damon picks up the discarded knife and throws it at his father. It wasn't a kill shot, but it does incapacitate him. Damon goes over and takes the gun from his father and shoots him.

"That, goodbye father, hope you burn in hell." Damon doesn't bother watching his father fall.

Damon turns to the stairs, but the fire had already blocked them off. The water had turned off and the girl screams as she realizes that she is trapped in a burning inferno.

Damon rushes outside. "Did you see her?" He demands of his best friend.

"Yeah, she was at that window, but I think the smoke or heat has overcome her." Calum replies to Damon's urgency. "What's the big deal? She'll be dead soon. Where's your father? We should leave before the fire department shows with the cops."

"He's dead." Damon spies a ladder and has an idea, he hopes the ladder is tall enough. "Help me get this to the window."

"A lot of trouble for a young slave, Damon," Calum says but he's not stupid enough to fight with Damon.

"She's not a slave, Calum. Hold the ladder steady," Damon demands even as he starts climbing. He's never been happier for his father forcing him to carry weapons then he was in that moment. He takes his gun out and breaks the window on his first try. The smoke billows out around him making him choke and cough.

He takes his jacket off and uses it to go over the razor sharp glass shards that remain. He climbs in and finds the unconscious girl. She is so light that he's easily able to carry her out on his shoulder and go back out to the ladder. By the time he's back down he's coughing pretty hard almost constantly from the smoke. He's finally able to get his breath back, "Take the guns and hide them. If the cops find them we'll have a hell of a time getting out of this."

Calum takes the guns and other weapons and rushes to their car and hides them in their secret compartment. He brings back a water bottle and a blanket. Damon takes the water bottle and starts drinking it immediately, Calum wraps the blanket around the girl.

Once Damon stops coughing he takes the girl from Calum and they go towards the firemen that have already started working on the fire. "Are there any others inside?" A fireman demands of Damon.

"The girls parents and my father. But they weren't able to get out. They were downstairs and trapped or something. I yelled for them, but they didn't respond. I heard little Ana's scream and my friend saw her in the window upstairs. I was able to get her out, but not before she passed out." Damon is comfortable mixing the truth with the outright lies. There will be no hiding the bullet holes in Ana's mother and his father.

Damon carries Ana to the ambulance and is urged to get in as well. They will both be taken to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. Calum nods when Damon looks at him, after the police take his statement he'll go to the hospital to pick up Damon.