Vengeance

chapter 1

I couldn't hear a word they were saying anymore. I mean, it was obviously a cruel and ill-willed joke.

My parents couldn't be dead, couldn't have been murdered... After all, they were so good it was practically sickening.

I felt tears hit my face and shoulders and disgust shuddered through my frame. My aunt must have mistaken that for tears though because she only crushed my frame further.
God, what a pitious woman...No backbone in the slightest.

Cruel as that may be to say, the woman had never done anything of merit in her life. The most notable thing she'd ever done was get pregnant at 14 by some loser who buggered off as soon as he found out. From there she simply kept bouncing from man to man, taking her poor son with her.

And now, here she was soaking my shirt over her sister's death while I just wanted her off.

The policewoman looked me over. Pity washed through her gaze and it was all I could do not to tell at her, tell her and her partner to sod off and ruin someone else's life with depressing news about murder.

Slowly, I reached up ignoring everyone's expectant gazes and pulled my aunt off of me. This was not a place I was going to stay. It was entirely too formal, too uncomfortable, too cold. I turned around and walked down the hall. My aunt's sobs almost drowning out the conversation between my uncles and the policemen.

It suddenly felt cold in the mansion. And big. I mean, it was always big but now? The emptiness just made it ominous in a way.

I navigated the hallways, acting on instinct. The gym? No. The office? No. My room? Definitely not. And then there was the library. I didn't take 2 seconds to look at the door before I was amongst old friends. I breathed in the smell of dust and sunlight on my way to my favourite window nook.

Sitting there was somewhat sobering. I kept looking at the wood panelling and inspecting every groove I could find, finding the faces I created when I was so young.

I remembered my father's gaze as he told me about the little nook. Long, long ago he proposed to my mother as she sat reading her new favourite novel. He spoke of how absorbed she was in her book that she hadn't realised he'd been kneeling there for 45 minutes, waiting for to look up.

He laughed about it then and every time he told me that story, as often as it was. He didn't even tell her how long he was kneeling there until up on the alter when he said his vows.
"I will love you just as much in the days to come as I do in this very moment, even when you make me wait on one knee for 45 minutes to propose..."

Everyone in attendance had laughed that day. Laughed at the both of them but also with the both of them, he once told me.

The memory of his love-filled gaze faded from my view and I huffed a sigh, looking out the window.

The sun shone down on the garden outside and with the windows open I could smell the gentle aroma of my mum's favourite rose bushes.

Tears began brimming in my eyes, falling heavy down my cheeks. I could feel my shoulders begin to tremble. Harder and harder until it was all I could do to pull myself into a ball to make them less noticeable were anyone to walk by.

With tears down my cheeks and flooding my eyes, I couldn't see the wooden faces anymore and despite the sun shining on my body, I felt cold as ice.

I wasn't sure how long I sat there crying and grieving but it wasn't until nightfall, when the chill began to encompass me and my shivers were no longer from tears that I finally got up. My limbs were stiff and awkward as I shuffled down the halls.