How to Raise an Assassin

CHAPTER 32: THE TUNNEL OF PUNISHMENT

I ran.

With each step I took, I received a blow. A bat to the gut. A fist to the face. A shot to the arm. All non-lethal in small doses. But a tunnel full of them could potentially kill me.

From what I gathered, people had three or four options to choose from to torture me with. They could use a wooden bat. Those who did usually aimed for my back or gut. They could choose boxing gloves or bare fists. Those who did usually landed a blow to my temple. They could also choose a gun. Those who did had only one rubber bullet inside and aimed for my arms and legs.

The worst wasn't the rubber bullets coming from the revolvers. I noticed that those who selected that as their weapon also wore the olive badges of the LSD protection force; and even then, few had them. Why shoot one bullet when you could smack a person in the head three to five times?

The fifth stage was a classic gang initiation—a beat-in. Members were beaten to a pulp and if they somehow managed to survive, they were a part of the gang. The only thing was, this was just stage five of the initiation.

As bats to my stomach made it difficult to stand straight, shots to the leg made it impossible to run, and blows to my temple made it difficult to see or think straight, I finally realized why Ash was so scared for me.

In stage four, a member you love risks death. In stage five, you risked death. I imagined many members enduring the first four stages and dying on the fifth one because they only made it half-way through the Tunnel of Punishment.

I barely was a quarter of a mile in and I was already about to cave. My legs couldn't support my weight or stay balanced as I kept slipping on my blood. My stomach felt like I was bleeding internally. My head was probably concussed. I didn't think anyone could make it through this tunnel alive.

Then I saw a blob of red strike me in the face. I fell backwards onto the ground. The source of the punch was a young kid who looked nine. His dark skin and curly hair morphed into the light-skinned boy I leveled the barrel of my silenced gun at during the night Noa died.

"Zay."

As a bat planted itself in my chest, I saw a Latino woman with a burn mark across her face shedding a tear. Her olive clothing and face morphed to the Mexican woman dressed in a cleaning scrub, waiting for the bus home after her shift in a local neighborhood who ended up at the front of the bus in the wrong way that night.

"Zay."

When a bullet exploded from the barrel of a Russian LSD officer, his olive uniform morphed to the blue and black of a Chicago PD officer who lost in a game of Russian Roulette.

"Zay."

All the faces around me morphed to the shadowed faces of those who I had murdered. They were getting their revenge.

And I deserved it.

"Zay you have to get up and run!"

"Ash?" I muttered as the world spun around me and the taste of blood was the last thing I felt in my mouth before that had gone numb as well.

"Get up Zay. You promised!"

I shouldn't get up. I deserved to die. I killed so many people. This was the ultimate form of karma. There was no way to escape this tunnel alive, but Auntie and Ash gave me hope that it was possible.

This was my own option 3. And as the queen of crushing hope, I knew this was fruitless.

As the blows continued, I saw the legs of someone walking down the tunnel. He wore dress shoes that reflected the light piercing through the canopy of bodies. He wore slacks that were ironed to a crisp. From the waist, I could spot his jacket.