Adrenaline

chapter 1

revenge
noun
1. the action of hurting or harming someone in return for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands.

The dictionary definition of 'revenge' has always seemed a little... patronising to me.

My mother, Anne Taylor, devoted her life to saving people. The career she chose took her away from her family, from sleep, from tranquility, yet the sacrifice was a worthy one.

My father, Dominic Rose, desperate to save children from a trauma-fuelled childhood like his own. A social worker who opened his home to the youth he swore to help, bailing more than a handful out of prison with money from his own pocket.

So forgive me for finding my mothers murder as more than a 'wrong'.

Forgive me, for thinking my fathers near-decapitation was more than a mere 'injury'.

Hell, a meagre paper-cut is an injury. Stealing a dollars worth of sweets is a wrong.

Yet, when you awake to your beloved parents laid dead on the living room floor, the blood pooled around their heads like scarlet ink, only then to be subjected to two further hours of vicious, relentless psychological and physical torture... I've discovered revenge isn't a strong enough word.

We took our time planning our response. Eleven years of waiting, observing, training to be the best, working to be invincible.

At first, we took the small jobs. Tiny deviancies from the norm, such as robbing a few corner-stores, only to be subsequently caught. You see in crime, the progress lies in failure. Getting arrested, being seen, it allowed us to detect certain cracks, blind spots in the system where we could slip through, unscathed and undisturbed.

Then, we began to move up in the world. It wasn't long before local gangs would pay us in small instalments to remove brave rivals from dealing on their territory. We got better at tidying up after ourselves, usually leaving a place cleaner than we found it. As forensic technology improved, so did we. Shifting with the tide we created.

Eventually, word got out that we had scaled the ladder right to the very top. We were the best, undisputed and entirely merciless with a penchant for flair. Unsurprisingly, it was the politicians that came crawling first, begging for their competitors to disappear whilst paying big money for their mistresses to take any secret affairs to their grave.

However, it was all a means to an end. Every second, every hit, every night spent screaming into a pillow. All for the sake of a very fulfilling, very bloody end.

"I don't know nothin'!" Peter Marcelo kneels by my feet, spitting blood and muttering vague prayers to a dozen Gods. His hands are clasped without fingernails, the wounds fresh and oozing red.

I wonder if this if how mom begged for him to spare her, to spare us. I wonder if my dad prayed like his killer, asking a God he didn't believe in for mercy. The pain of the hypothetical warms my skin, urging me to cast self-control aside and let this man, this monster, finally meet the devil.

"So you do know something?" Alec slices the air with a crowbar, the wind rushing past Marcelo's skin as he lurches back, landing haphazardly on his side.

"I said I don't know nothin'!" Bizarrely, he begins to crawl towards the door, his left arm broken beyond the point of usefulness.

"That's a double negative, darling." I take a step closer to his shrinking frame, taking a moment to enjoy how he curls up that little bit smaller, eyes wide as he grasps at the concrete floor. Searching for an ounce of relief.