Our Life Our Story - Book 1

Chapter 8 - A Murder of One

"I was a murder of one for so long I forgot what it was like to be part of a flock."

Datu Larkin, also known as the "Tarred Raven" was Los Valburn's resident sneak attacker and lookout. The untameable beserker with a smirk and a twinkle in his eyes, a machete swinging, the blade glinting in the moonlight. The monkey of the group, the surprise attacker.

The "Tarred Raven", with his slicked back hair and cold eyes. He would wear flannel shirts and fake leather jackets, with a necklace of dog tags shining in the light of car headlights. His right ear would sport a single silver earring through it, and his brown-silver eyes would be hidden by a pair of dimmed sunglasses balancing on the ridge of his nose. A machete in his hands and the sun at his back, the raven would look more like a darkened phenix, eternal and tainted of soul.

Datu was meticulous in his killings, the cuts bloody and lethal, yet just shallow enough to bleed out. To suffer, and yet just deep enough to ensure the agony of a drawn-out death didn't take too long. He was vicious, yet he was careful. Careless, yet full of empathy for the ones he loves. Pure in intentions, tainted in actions. Loyal and trustworthy, able to keep a good face up in spy missions and quite literally put a knife in your abdomen.

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Datu was born in the middle of a civil war. He grew up with drills and the knowledge of how to take care of gunshot wounds, with the routine of emergency drilled into his brain for years. He thought himself prepared, but knew he was far from that. They say you can't teach an old dog tricks, but no one ever mentioned the new generation.

When he was younger, his life revolved around routine and alarms. His father was a soldier, and his mother was a medic to one side of the war, and he had been in routine from the time he awoke to the time he retired for the night. He remembered late night practice alarms, waking up from naps with sleepy eyes and legs already shuffling forward.

He remembered the rare days of peace. The days of pure bliss and comfort as his parents would spend the entire day with him, without the rough, bloody uniforms the two would always be in. But he also remembered the day of the end of all days of bliss.

They had been in the house, happily eating homemade Halo-Halo in the makeshift kitchen when there was a loud knock at the door. Datu remembered how his father had stiffened, his eyes flashing with something unrecognizable. His mother had stopped what she was doing, a spoon still caught in her raised hand, her cherry red lips parted in distress.

He didn't remember much of what happened next, the moments blurring together in a flurry of blood and screams and the feeling of emptiness. He felt rough hands and the feeling of angry spittle at his face, the glazed over look his parents had. His mother had been impaled through the heart with a pole she had been brandishing that was taken from her. His father lived enough to see as his little Raven was aggressively taken out from the house, a wide-eyed look on his face as he watched his Pa bleed out slowly on the family carpet.

He was under capture for a short amount of time, but to young him, it felt like an eternity. When he was finally able to escape his captors, the war was winding down and the soldiers guarding him were lax with carelessness. He took a run for it when he was allowed outside for a break, and Datu had run and ran and never looked back as he smuggled himself to Los Valburn via a ship.

The life there was dangerous, sure, but so was every life with him in it. And at least this time he knew that his friends and chosen family wouldn't abandon him. He would just have to make sure to protect them. And they would do the same for him. He knew it.