My heart beat rapidly against my heated chest as I stared into the eyes of the man I adored, helplessly stuck gazing into his thoughts. That starry, moonlit gaze carved into me with an honesty I couldn't have possibly imagined before this moment as his emotions began to show in a watery pond on his lower lids. Down beneath me on his knees, his words were choked out by the emotions swirling in the air around him. He was trapped in the moment, just as I was captured by the sight of him. As he opened his mouth in an attempt to find a single word to say, his voice was stolen by the weight of the air. My hoarse words were barely audible as I wheezed out, "It's alright, John. He's not going to hurt us. We'll be alright." 

Hands bound behind me, wrists tied to the chair, I could see his disbelief in my sentiment as he began to lose the strength to remain upright. He too was trapped, wrists bound behind his back by thick rope. My legs were individually strung to the legs of my chair by the same material which held his legs together at his ankles and thighs as he remained kneeling on the ground. The muscles in his back and neck slowly weakened as his body collapsed over itself, his forehead barely pressed on the ground above his knees as his chest rested against his thighs. The dark colors of our navy bedroom twisted in the strange light of the single lamp which was left on by our bedside. The pale, shag carpet gave off the impression of grass which had not survived autumn’s first frost. The warped windowpane gave sound to every passing gust of wind, but that was not the sound I listened for.

Instead I attempted to clear the panic from my mind as I stared at the door behind my husband, watching the light below to check for disturbances. Before, I had been able to hear his footsteps, listen to our captor's voice as he gave orders to his accomplice, and internalize the orders that he was giving. The last thing I had heard was his demand for a knife. According to the clock on our nightstand, that was nearly twenty minutes ago. Now I knew nothing of what was to come.

Graveyard silence in the distilled air made the perfect playground for demented horrors to play out in my mind as I thought of the many scenarios that could eventually surround us. My thoughts kept turning from kitchen utensils to the tools John had left in the shed for years. One by one, each hammer, every axe, his hunting bow and arrows, and the toxic pesticides all took on new life forms, every one of them racking my body with a thousand new scars from the inside. The dried stains on my cheeks were the only outward effect on my body so far, but, by the end of the night, I was certain this wouldn't be true. Outside of fear, the only silver lining I could think of was that she wasn’t here to witness this.

A creaking came from the floorboards beneath me as I leaned forward a small bit more to see John's face, which was buried in his legs. The bloodstain on the carpet didn't seem to be drying up the way his watery eyes surely had by now. My movement caught his attention just enough to get him to lift his head and continue looking directly into my eyes once again. Those eyes, that gaze was the only part of him that seemed to truly be him. Every other ounce of his flesh had been combed over by the jagged edges of the aged rake, which the boy had stolen from the garage. Somehow he had missed those God-sent eyes which soothed me immensely, but that did not detract from the mangled flesh over the majority of his face. If nothing else, his impacting gaze only worsened the wicked scene before me.

"Molly," he said with strain in his voice, "tell me we’re going to be alright." From the rough, exhausted tone of his voice, I could tell he knew his desperation would be in vain. If there was nothing else I knew about John, I knew he was the kind to hold onto hope for as long as possible. He was a fighter. He didn’t give up and he didn’t give in. Had it not been for the knife the boy had held up to my neck while his accomplice bound my husband, it would have never come down to this.

After he said this, I wanted to be able to reassure him, but-- I couldn’t. With everything that had happened this past year, with everything that I had been through, with the misery and heartache I’d seen so far, there was no light at the end of the tunnel for me. There was no bright side. I could not pull hope from anything in here, so the only truth I was able to declare was, "I can't lose you too, John."

He didn't say a word in response. He only sighed and swallowed hard.

That very moment, the light under the door was disrupted, and the young boy came in, knife in hand, barreling toward my husband and bashing John's left side, digging into his rib cage with his foot like the highly in-shape soccer player he was. As soon as John was winded, unable to fight back, the boy's rough grip came around behind him, grabbing his shirt and lifting his upper body from his knees only to toss him back to the floor. John landed with a heavy impact as his blood smeared the carpet once more. The boy then gruffly spoke out of malice, "I’m sorry, did that hurt, Mr. C?"

"Danny," my husband grumbled.

I followed, "Please, leave him alone."

“Give me a reason why I should,” the young boy growled, his tussled dark caramel hair dusting over his face, teeth bared, and fists clenched. He was furious. Humanity was absent from his typically kind frame.

Behind him, the hall was empty of physical beings, but sounds radiating into the atmosphere were shrill. "Danny, come on! Bring them down here!" Her youthful amusement was evident in her tone. The excitement in her voice was disturbing, but her giggles from beyond my sight were more thoroughly repulsing.

The pit of my stomach filled with desperation as words spilled out of my mouth. "Please, no! Please, just- leave us be."

From above, Danny snarled, his darkened eyes, wide pupils directly addressing me. "Why should I?"

I didn't know what to say. I didn't have a reason. Knowing the boy's motive for doing what he was doing, I couldn't think of anything to say aside from, "This won't bring her back, Danny. Please!" The boy did not respond. He looked at me for half of a moment, clenched his teeth, and turned away.

He then called down the empty hall, "Lily! Get up here!" At first, nothing happened while he stood and waited, but the moment I was able to hear her heavy footsteps as she pounded the floor with the familiar tattered combat boots whose chocolate leather would be laced around a pair of tight black leggings, I knew the face at the other end of the hall would mean trouble. I couldn't help but notice how the girl posed for a moment at the furthest end of the tunnel behind Danny. She stopped, leaning a moment against the wall, one hand on her hip as she grinned deeply at the sight of us. Her blonde locks falling to curls along her back, I had forgotten in the moment that she wasn't the kind, adorable kindergartener I met so many years back. When she strolled closer, robin's egg eyes brightly highlighted by her porcelain skin, I couldn't believe this child was the one I'd known since she was too young to spell her own name.

"Take her down with us," Danny demanded. She didn't resist even a little. Instead, she bounded toward me, taking pleasure in slitting the ropes from my legs with the thin blade she'd pulled from her pocket.

As she sliced, I whispered down to her, "Lily, what are you two doing? You're just kids."

"So was she!" Her irate screech was just enough to startle me into silence. I didn't have a comeback to her words anyway. They were too powerful. I almost wished she had just stabbed me in the stomach instead. It would have been kinder.

The kids then lifted us, Danny pulling my husband's hands up and forcing him to plant his feet on the floor. Lily allowed me to lift myself from the chair, taking some kind of sympathy to me instead of taking her rage out on my body. Together, the two forced us down the hall, knives drawn, both in better shape than either of us at the moment.

As we walked through the pail hallway, my eyes wandered up to the pictures hanging on the wall above me. Nearly every frame encased an image of her, her dark charcoal hair curled and framing her face, her rose lips turned upright into a serene smile, her bright eyes gleaming in pure joy. She was absolutely breathtaking in every memory, but almost none of them were memories in which I had participated. Nearly all of them were void of either of her parents. One of the few memories I could recall was the final picture my eyes landed on. It was an image of her and John, both sitting on a park bench, John fixing her slip-on shoe into place while I stood a short distance away with the camera, capturing the moment as I had done so few times before. They looked so at peace with the world, neither of them having anything but contentment on their minds. Then again, back then there was very little to complain about.

Once I was ripped from the image by Lily's forceful blow to my shoulder directing me down the stairs, a new set of injuries was raked over my body. Unlike before, I wasn't spared the painful smash to the back of my skull as they forced us to the floor. Around me, all I could do was see a set of memories from the year I took off to raise Addison, my one and only daughter. I could see her as an infant- her small body sprawled out on the floor as she stared up at the arch of toys above her. The most wholesome smile I had ever seen was her greatest accessory in addition to her stunning eyes that constantly found a new item to laugh about. She was absolutely incredible, the happiest baby I had ever laid eyes on.

Just like that, the film reel of her history flipped to her third birthday, a mint dress covering her arms and legs as she bounced about playing with the Barbie doll her grandmother knew she would adore. That long black hair had been braided into pigtails. Her clumpy words were strung into sentences that were, for the most part, completely decipherable, but were definitely only at a three-year-old's clumsy level. Back then, her favorite thing to do was twirl about, eyes closed, jutting her arms out like she was a helicopter. I could see her playing like this as though it was only yesterday, but it couldn't last forever.

The next stop on my travel through time was a memory I wasn't quite so fond of overall. Instead, it was one of those many memories that would forever replay in my head as one of my biggest regrets. Addison was simply relaxing on the couch, her iPad in her hand, scrolling through some website I didn't know. She was eleven now, and had traded in all those bright colors for toned down, bleaker versions of the clothes she once proudly wore. As she relaxed alone, babysitting herself the way she had since she was nine, home alone as usual, she didn't expect me home for another hour. The moment I barged through the door, I snapped and hollered at her for the meeting her teacher had set up with me. Right then, all I knew was that Addie was slipping, her grades were plummeting and she didn't participate in class. Back then I didn't realize there were other forces at play.

That night, and many others like it, Addison didn't argue a single word. The next memory I had, however, didn't go over quite the same way. She was fifteen now, her sophomore year mirroring every other year since fifth grade. She wasn't trying, she wasn't studying, and there was nothing I could do to help as I was constantly away on business trips. Her father tried when he was around, but lawyers had even less free time than photojournalists. By the time I got home that Saturday night, Addison and Danny had found a way into the liquor cabinet. For once, Addie didn't watch her words, and for the first time since she was small enough to be spanked, she stepped so far out of line that I finally broke and laid into her with a single slap to the cheek.

One year later, Danny and Lily had convinced my daughter to throw a party while John and I were, once again, absent. These kids had no idea that it would mean an end to their bright futures when they called the upperclassmen to the house. By the end of the night, Addison, Lily, Danny and half of their class were being picked up from jail after using weed and drinking alcohol as minors. Addison didn't say a word to either her father or me, but... at that point she was so wasted it wouldn't have mattered. By the time he and I got home the next evening and attempted to talk about it with her, the few slits in her wrists drew our attention more, and we were silenced. Instead, John found a therapist for her. We never said a word to her about the drugs, alcohol or cutting. We left it to the professionals and somehow became more distant than before.

The final scene I could see before my watering eyes was the crushing, terrifying, life-altering scene of Addison lying on the floor. I had come home after a long trip to find her limp body sprawled out across the shag carpet. A bottle of Scotch had formed a pool beside her. Froth from her mouth had spilled over onto her chin. By the time I got to her, cradling her in my arms as I screamed and wailed, her barely covered skin had become as chilled as the winter's breeze. The EMTs pronounced her dead before they even got her on the gurney. An autopsy declared her death accidental, a mixture of pills and alcohol in excess consumption finally causing an adverse reaction, seizures dropping her to the floor, eventually amassing to enough to stop her heart. She was three days away from her seventeenth birthday.

Now, almost three months later, her friends had finally hit the pinnacle of their madness as they stood over us, wrath beating through their veins in the same way the drugs likely were. I knew by the look of their widened pupils and their distinct scent that these two were intoxicated. They were making a mistake. They seemed certifiably insane.

"Danny, come on, let's just kill them!" Lily had always had the most questionable morals. She had always been the most violent. I guess some combination of drugs, alcohol, heartache and rage had finally caused the girl to snap.

Danny on the other hand had never seemed like anything more than a troubled child. He had always been kind and sweet, but-- he was always a submissive type. Especially when under the influence, no matter what anyone told him to do, he would do it with eagerness and thorough execution. He even sometimes wound up convincing himself it was his idea, which seemed like the obvious conclusion here. "No," he hissed, "Let's make them suffer first." His squinting eyes went from my husband to me and then back to John. He then knelt down beside John and turned his head to study the gaping wounds over John's face. "You know, a bit of salt might make that feel better." Danny's head then twisted toward me. "And I'm sure you'd like a matching set of injuries, wouldn't you?"

"Come on," my husband grumbled as he struggled to lift his head, "If you're going to kill us, Danny, then just kill us. You're not a monster. You're just a kid. Do yourself a favor and give yourself the opportunity to get out of jail under an insanity plea."

"Shut it!" Danny bit back hard. "I don't want to hear you spew your legal crap! Not when it's the reason Addie-...," he caught himself by surprise. He swallowed back on the sudden burst of pain that had forced tears to pool on his lids. "Not when your job caused her death."

With a shuddering breath, I told them regretfully, "We didn't know she needed help. We would have done anything to change what happened, but we can't. She was our daughter. No one misses her more than we do, but this isn't going to bring her back!"

Lily then questioned with malice in her subtle tone, "You want her back? You? You basically threw her away! You're the reason she's dead! If you two had given her an ounce of attention, she would still be here!" There were no words for a response. Anger still hung in the air around the pair as they studied us, each of them gaining more fury in their eyes by the minute. Danny then finally shot up off the ground and fled the room, leaving the psychotic child we knew well to watch over us. When he got back, as he wandered in through the front door back our way, he smashed his fist against the radio's power button and pressed his finger into a familiar button. Immediately, "Don't Worry, Be Happy" began rushing through the air, leading the way for Danny to come directly at us, two old baseball bats in his hand.

When he reached our group, he handed one to his partner with focused eyes darting straight to my husband. Once Lily's hand was tightly bound along the grip of the bat's neck, he straightened up and told us, "Consider this a taste of the emotional beating you put your daughter through." Lily's smile returned. Her eyes lit up. He became unaware of the world around him, tunnel vision directed at John. There wasn't anything about either of them that was recognizable anymore. They were entirely different kids. It was almost as though their bodies had been stripped of their souls.

Danny's hands adjusted, tightening around the grip of the bat as it hung low, near his legs. A deep intake of air lifted the boy's chest, then hollowing out and collapsing to release what he'd gained. Another breath of air began to fill him as his muscles pulled upward and he lifted the bat higher and higher into the air. His chest and shoulders spread as the butt of the bat hovered over his head. Without a trace of hesitance in any fiber of his being, Daniel's eyes widened and his arms shot down, impacting John's spine with the sound of a snapping branch behind it.

John groaned trying to hold back the sound of his pain. Danny reloaded. A second blow beat the lower half of John's back. Blood began to seep through his shirt in both places. I hollered out. Speed then became Danny's strong point. A third immense blow was smashed into John's upper back. A third bone-crushing sound pierced my ears. My heart stopped as hopelessness began to claim my breath. A fourth was delivered, this time accompanied by more than just by sound. In the back of his head where Danny had planted that fatal blow, John's blood began to pour out from beneath his skin in a rushing stream of thick sludge. The next few blows to John's head were planted in the side of his face as his neck was no longer able to hold his head upright. My sobs went unnoticed. There was no mercy. Only blood. By the time Danny was finished, gray matter was spilled out on the carpet around us. My hoarse screams and tears had proven ineffective against the pair above me.

Out of breath, splattered by the insides of my husband's skull, Danny looked to Lily. "Your turn."

My eyes were still focused on my husband's shredded corpse as tears blurred all visuals from me. While I wept into the floor and begged them to, "Please, don't! Please, no! Please," I could tell by her building stature that Lily was prepping for the thrill of her life. She too breathed once as she studied her prey, playing with me more than anything. After that round of air was emptied out and another began, she lifted the bat over her shoulder and loaded her weight like a true softball player. As she directed her aim toward my body, a second outlet of air and a third intake passed over her lips. She lifted the bat. She was completely prepped.

Bang! The child never got a single shot in before her lifeless body dropped to the floor before me, a bullet hole gaping through her chest and pulsing out what seemed like the entire supply of blood in her body. Danny froze, shocked by the sight of his friend's corpse. He panicked. His head moved between Lily and three cops flooding in. He had to make that primitive choice: fight or flight. When he did, his body jutted out from his spot directly toward the officers. He was strong of will. He'd chosen to fight. Still, no matter how strong he was, a .38 caliber was stronger. His body dropped to the floor after a short segment of time when he struggled to realize he too had been impacted by a similar bullet.

My heart pounded against my ribcage. My eyes filled with tears, holding within them a mixture of emotion. I was safe. That was the only thought that I was able to register in my mind. For a short moment, relief swept over me before I suddenly remembered the man beside me. By the time that thought came to mind, however, a cop had made his way beside me. He was crouching down beside me, blocking my visual of my husband. As he knelt down in front of me, running his hand gently along my back, he softly uttered, "Everything will be alright," as he cut my arms loose. When my eyes then peered toward the door to the house where the cops had entered, I saw Addie standing there, one hand on the doorknob, watching me. She then turned her back to me and gracefully drifted out the door. In that moment, I knew I was truly and utterly alone. I would never be able to escape the truth. I was the reason she was dead. I was the reason they were all dead. That truth would haunt me for the rest of my life.