[complete] #2
"This isn't amusing. You're smiling, and your face is all bruised and bleeding. Is that not putting you in more pain?" Ren shifted on her feet and placed a hand on her hip. I smiled wider when her cheeks began to flush.
"Maybe just a t...
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G A B R I E L
All my friends were at the hospital, waiting for Zion to come out from his bullet-removal surgery. He was wearing a bulletproof vest, but Zandra was too close to him, so when she shot at his torso, his ribs cracked from the force. The other bullet went into his shoulder.
I knew all of this because Riot was at my front doorstep, telling me everything I was too afraid to ask. While all his friends were visiting him in the hospital, Zion's best friend wasn't there. I was at home, too nervous to be around everyone else. I didn't want to think that any of them would blame me, but sometimes it was difficult not to think it was somehow my fault.
"I came here to tell you something important, kid," Riot's rough voice lowered. "I'm not meant to show you this, but I know how much of a suka Zandra was, and I know there's no excuse to explain the fucked up things she did-" [bitch]
He sucked in a sharp breath and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. It was folded, but I already knew Riot must've pulled it out of the FBI evidence to show me. Whatever it was, I was eager to see it.
"You need closure, Gabriel," Riot's eyes remained on the paper as he spoke to me while unfolding it and handing it to me.
I took it from him, parting my lips at the sight of the gruesome image. A faint shudder rippled through me when I realised it was someone's back, carved up in initials and burned with cigarette blunts. They were old wounds, almost barely visible.
It was Zandra's back.
"We figured where her trauma came from," Riot cleared his throat and shifted in his spot, clearly uncomfortable where this conversation was going. "Do you want to know?"
I hesitated before concluding that knowing this information would give me the closure I needed. "Yes."
"She grew up in a house full of drug addicts, in a group home. They abused her, raped her, carved up her skin, and gave her cigarette burns. They practically shared her until the day she turned twelve. Little Zandra got a hold of a gun and shot everyone in that house. All men - if you could even call them that. She lived on her own for a few years, homeless. Then she met Iris, my brother," Riot stopped talking as soon as his brother's name was said.
I finally glanced up from the image and saw that Riot was raking a hand through his long hair and stepping back. It looked like he was trying to reign himself in, trying not to give in to the anger seething through every deep breath he took.
Everything made sense - why she carved her initials into my skin, how she reacted to the burn I gave her. The pure terror in her eyes was like she was revisiting those memories, and suddenly, I felt nauseous.
