Darkest Before Dawn

“
I
’d stand
in the shadows of your heart and tell you I’m not afraid of your dark.” – Andrea Gibson.

L
ila’s crying
. Sobbing as that man ties a gag around her mouth. I watch the material cut into my baby sister’s pale cheeks and I can’t do a damn thing. My hands are bound and I’m tied to the dining room chair. Pops is out cold, secured by rope to the chair at the head of the table. Mother is in the chair next to him, bound and gagged as well. Somehow, these four men tripped the security system, sneaking in without the slightest of sounds. I woke to a gun against my temple and a gloved hand over my mouth.

“Wake him up,” one of the men says.

Guy number two walks to my father, smacking him hard across the face. Pops startles, his eyes cracking wide with fear. His gaze drifts around the room as he takes in the sight of his captured family. Tears well in his eyes. Never have I seen my father cry. Never. “Ah, look, Frank,” the guys says, “he’s gonna cry like a little bitch.”

“Now, what a predicament we’ve fallen into here, huh, Jacob?” The head guy, Frank, talks to my father with such hatred thick in his voice. “I’m sure you know why I’m here. An eye for an eye and all.”

My father tries to speak around the gag, but all that comes out is a muffled noise.

“Oh, don’t worry, Jacob. I’m not going to hurt your precious children. You know I have a soft spot for them. I am a father myself, after all.”

He turns to face me and smiles, deep wrinkles settling around his eyes. His golden eyes. “Untie the boy,” he orders one of his men.

My heart goes into a frenzy as I watch the massive bald man stalk over to me. “Don’t try no funny shit, boy,” he says, spitting a wad of chewing tobacco on the floor. He quickly undoes the rope and hauls me up by both wrists. I may be a well-built sixteen-year-old, but I look like a fucking drowned rat next to this steroid-pumped beast. I don’t stand a chance in hell. The guy shoves me in the back and I stumble, stopping in front of Frank Donovan.

His grin widens, his white teeth gleaming under the dim lights. He pulls a gun from the waistband of his jeans and places the barrel against my temple. The cold metal sears into my skin, and my eyes slam shut from fear. Death is something I’ve yet to think about, but suddenly, the finality of it has become far too real. I can hear the stifled sobs of both my mother and sister. My dad is grunting against his gag.

“Now, boy. I won’t shoot you if you do as I say.” Frank hands me a pistol. I take it in my hand, the weight of it heavier than it should be. “You are going to choose one of your parents and you are going to shoot them, because I don’t get my fucking hands dirty, understand?”

I shake my head vehemently from side to side. “No. Please. I—I can’t. I can’t do—”

“You don’t, I’ll have Ralph there shoot them both. Your choice. You murder one, or by an act of defiance, you murder them both.”

My heart sits in my throat, one beat indistinguishable from the next. And now this gun feels like a lead weight in my sweat-slicked palms. My gaze bounces from my mother to my father. She closes her eyes, and part of me thinks she’s praying even though we aren’t religious. My pops stares me down, trying to talk with his eyes. I lock eyes with him and he nods.

“Chose one, son,” Frank whispers in my ear, his heated breath blowing over my neck.

Lila’s muffled cries are so loud. I’m terrified she’ll suffocate with that gag on. “Please,” I say. “Take the gag off her.”

Frank laughs and nods for one of his guys to do it. The second the material slips away from her face she screams. “Why would you do this? Max. Don’t do it. Don’t!”

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath.

“Do it, or I will have all of you killed.” Frank laughs again. My sister cries. “And you”—I open my eyes to see him pointing at Lila—“shut your mouth.”

She doesn’t listen, and Ralph crosses the room, pistol-whipping her. Her head rolls to the side. Blood trickles down her temples.

“She’s fine. She’ll just learn to keep quiet,” Frank says. “Now. I’ll give you to the count of ten to choose one.” He takes me by the shoulders, his gun still pressed against my head, and pushes me across the room so that I am standing in front of them both. “Choose.”

How do you choose whose life to take? I’m tempted to turn this gun around and blow my own goddamn brains out.

“Remember, if you don’t, you all die. Four deaths as opposed to one. Think of those statistics.”

My mouth has gone dry, the room spins. My father stares me down, his eyes widening in a plea to take his life.

“One…two…three…” Frank counts down.

Mere seconds to come to grips with what the fuck is going on.

“Six…seven…”

I raise the gun, watching it shake in my unsteady hands.

“Boy, my patience is very thin. Eight…nine…”

I cock the gun. Tears pour from my eyes, the salty taste running down the back of my throat. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I love you.”

“Ten.”

Pow
. I attempt to close my eyes, but I can’t. His head slams back, then forward. I watch a small hole appear in the center of my father’s forehead, followed by a steady stream of blood that runs down the bridge of his nose. Mother is thrashing in the chair next to him, her face twisted in anguish, blood splatter all over her satin nightdress. I drop the gun. It clatters over the floor, and I swear Frank is laughing.

I fall to my knees, sobbing. I just took my own father’s life, the man who meant more to me than anything. And I killed him.

Bam
. I jump from the sudden gunfire. When I look up, my mother is slumped over in her chair, half her face blown off.

“You fucking—” There’s a blow to my head, a crack. Everything spins and goes black.

And from that moment on, everything in my life is black…

I
t’s been
five months since I’ve spoken to Lila. I feel like hell for it, but I’ve tried my damnedest to stay as far away from shit like this as I can.

Crime is something that runs through my blood. Born into it. Raised in it. I’m numb to it, and when you are numb to bloodshed, in order to keep your hands clean, you have to remove yourself from it completely. You don’t move a recovered crack addict next door to a crack house—well, you don’t place a reformed criminal anywhere close to crime. And my sister, Lila, well, she never got out of it. She’s a dealer—a messy dealer. And up until three years ago, I was no better. I was a thief. I stole, I fought, I set shit on fire, and I dealt drugs, too. Hard upbringing you ask? Yes and no. My upbringing was one of
monetary
privilege, but that is where that privilege ended.

Our father worked for the mafia—and what we were raised in, by no means can anyone come out of that normal. You can try, but when when you witness murders as a child, when you’re beat by people who are supposed to care for you, when you murder your own family…well, that does something to your mind. There’s a darkness that runs through my veins most people will never understand, because honestly, to understand someone like me you have to have that same dark devil creeping through your blood as well.

I wanted to be a normal person. I’ve tried. Hell, I even enrolled at a university in an attempt to make an honest living. Although, I know the kind of lifestyle I was once accustomed to can only come from illegal activities. For all intents and purposes, on paper, I am normal. The thing is, shit like this—well, it’s a virus you can’t ever get rid of. I feel myself failing. I feel my bones aching to sink back into this sick little world of greed and sin.

The winter wind whips through the breezeway of the apartment building, stinging my face. The door to apartment 3C shakes when I pound my fist over it again. I’ve tried calling her. No answer. And if there is one thing a drug dealer usually does, it’s answer their fucking phone. I shake my head in frustration.

“Lila, it’s Max,” I shout. “Open the motherfucking door already.”

The door across the hallway opens and a man leans out, tipping a bottle of gin back as he stares at me. He’s skinny as fuck. His wife beater is stained, his jeans torn. His frail bicep is covered by a Porky the Pig tattoo. “She ain’t been home for a few days,” he says as he wipes the liquor from his cracked lips.

I turn back to the door and brace my arms in the doorway. My pulse is picking up. If something has happened to her, I will blame myself. I should have watched over her. I should have fucking checked up on her more.
Fuck!
Taking a step back, I stare at the door.
Just call the police…
But rationality has never been my forte. My shoulder slams into the door. The hinges give way, and I fall into the only room there is. The apartment is a mess. Paper plates litter the counter. Syringes lay scattered on the coffee table, along with crumpled cans of diet soda. I hang my head, rage building inside my chest as I pull my cell phone from my pocket to call the police. She’s gone.

* * *

“
W
ell
, Mr. Carter,” the police officer says as he thumbs through a stack of papers on his desk. “As I’ve told you, we have put her on the Missing Persons list, but…” A frown sets on his face and he tugs a piece of paper from the stack. Leaning back in his chair, he skims over it then clears his throat. “Lila Carter, you say?”

“Yes. That’s her.”

“Date of birth August ninth, nineteen eighty-eight?” I nod, watching as he stands, hitching his pants underneath his beer gut as he drags in a deep breath. “You do realize your sister was a—”

“A criminal? Yeah, yeah, I do, but that has—”

“Last arrest was for prostitution down by The Tabernacle and possession of illegal substances.”

My pulse stalls before it goes into overdrive, forcing a thin sheen of sweat over my brow. I knew she dealt, but prostitution…

“Look, Mr. Carter.” The officer makes his way around his desk and places his chubby, pink hand on my shoulder. “Sorry to say, but we get cases like this by the dozen every day. Not to sound heartless, but most of the time, turns out they’ve overdosed or just ran off to avoid another arrest, so you understand why her report is at the bottom of a list filled with teenagers and children?”

Heat consumes my face and my fingers ball into tight fists. “She’s my sister,” I say through gritted teeth.

“I understand, but what I need
you
to understand is that we have to prioritize cases like this and a drug dealing prostitute is not a top priority.”

I want to knock this motherfucker’s teeth down his throat. My skin sizzles with adrenaline, my breathing falls ragged. The officer slowly places his hand on the gun hanging from his belt as a warning to me, and as much as I want to punch him, I know I can’t. I take a single step toward him, placing my finger inches from his fat face. “A fucking life is a fucking life you…” I stop myself before I say something that may get me arrested, and I turn to leave the room, my vision swimming with anger.

Sometimes you realize the proper authorities will be of no help to you, that your only chance at hope is taking matters into your own hands, and if I’m honest, I’m more deftly equipped to handle this than they are. The police are bound to protocol and procedure. I, on the other fucking hand, am not. I’d kill a motherfucker before I ever tried to negotiate shit.