AUBREY

three

"You think you're tough guys, do you?" Carlos asks, beckoning the room in eerie silence. The commandment in his voice pricked every hair and demanded no words to be spoken in his presence.

We all nod in agreement.

"Okay, if that's the case, then I have a pretty big job for you to do, and if you do this, let's just say you could be where I am now," he grins, rubbing his hands together slightly. Circling around the room, wolf-like, he continues, "you all know the Thornes? Big family, big sum of cash."

He's right - the ice princess doesn't just acquire her money from nowhere: sitting right at home in comfort lies her trust fund, Gabriel Thorne. There's been rumours about him floating around, nothing solidified or true, and definitely nothing that puts him at a disadvantage to us. Unfortunate.

"So what about it?" I interject, folding my arms across my chest.

"Well, Villareal, in order to get the money, everyone needs to be killed out. His weakest link is his daughter, Aubrey, and sources have confirmed that she is his legitimate daughter. Take her out first, she needs to be out of the picture; only then do we go for the kill, okay?"

" That's ambitious, boss," one of the goons points out, very aware of the risks.

"Too ambitious for you low lives?"

"No. I'll do it," I say with steely determination, my face etched with ambition. "She practically wants to sleep with me, so I can make it happen."

"You're a young kid, you think you can take out a family like that?"

"Carlos, don't forget what I did to mark my place here."

"Nothing is set in stone until this job is done, Cain. Then you can act all cocky as much as you want."

I nod fiercely, standing my ground. To even get to this rank where I am now took a lot from me, and I've had to make countless sacrifices, never putting myself first to get what I need: to be feared, to taste power practically at the tip of my tongue - that's where I will end up, no matter the cost.

__________________________________

Walking the same lone path to class, the bustling noise and chatter of everyone else amplifies twice as loud as posters for the dance spreads across the walls, each poster attracting swarms of groups with high pitched squeals. Amongst this chaos, I expect to see Aubrey being the most excited with her brat behaviour, but to my surprise, she stands alone in the middle of the crowd - making her the most noticeable. Her ice eyes stare emptily, her presence completely distant and far, as if she isn't even standing there.
This is my moment to take what will be mine, to mark my place.

I stroll coolly over to her, my face composed and calm. Truthfully, I'm not calm: the ice princess rubs me the wrong way, but it's clear that I need to seduce her to use her. Normally I'd feel bad if she wasn't so desperate and bratty.
"Aubrey, how's things?"

The cold glare in her eyes gleams again, only this time it's directed towards me; she doesn't respond with her usual retort, nor does she seem to have interest for me. Ice princess is obviously playing hard to get.
"You're not still mad at me for the other day, are you? Pretty girls like you shouldn't hold grudges over those types of things, y'know."

Tilting her head in a slow, angular movement, a hollow laugh parting from her lips. "You are so selfish, I hope you know that."

The sting of her words hit me a little, the ignorance of what she says stirring a need to prove otherwise. She knows nothing about what I've done, or about my life; but then again, I'm willing to wipe out her family just for a position to myself.
Perhaps it's the truth of her words that hits the hardest.

"Yes, I am selfish, but is it so bad for me to be selfishly asking you to forgive me? To start over?"

Instead of responding with words, she tosses me a silent gesture and starts to walk away, her hair cascading her back. As she starts to pivot, I take hold of her arm lightly, spinning her around again until we're level.
"Aubrey, please."

Deliberation flickers in her eyes as she stares back at me, my hand still on her arm; after a long, silent pause, she sighs in defeat, but she doesn't shake off my arm. "Fine."

"Y'know my hand is still on your arm, right?" I raise my eyebrow.

This time, something different flashes in her gaze, the corner of her lips widening softly. "I know."

With those two words, my tight loosens and I shrug my grip off, the truth of what she said previously tightening my chest.
"Okay, well, I'll catch you later - but don't think we're friends, or anything," I mutter, walking away from her, back into the bustling crowd.

Am I doing the right thing? Killing an entire family for a sum of money that I don't even know about - countless things could go wrong, and I'd be stuck with that, feeling the same feelings of regret and hopelessness as I had previously. Stalking to the toilets, the blood in my body rushes in rage, the heat and anger spreading everywhere. The look of anger scrawled across my face sends anyone in there to flee before my rage turns on them. I set my hands on the sink on the far left, bowing my head down in front of the mirror, my knuckles turning ghost white as my grip tightens. Everything is going so wrong, but everything is so close; the fate of one family rests in my hands, but so does my future. Cautiously bringing myself to face the mirror, a pair of tired, emotionless eyes stare back at me, matched with the face of a boy who's worn out, and just so, so tired. We both sigh the same sigh of despair in sync, our stare never breaking. The cold stare of the boy in front of me stirs up the same frustration at the pit of my stomach, and any rationality escapes: seeing the boy in a constant state of lost ambition forces me to bring up my fist, breaking the mirror into hundreds of segments splayed out on the floor.
As the familiar crimson pools below my hand, I stare mindlessly at the mirror shards, intensifying my feeling of being lost.

I just hope that whichever direction my future heads to, I finally won't be feeling so lost anymore.