Into the Heart of a Killer: Memoirs of an Assassin

Chapter Thirteen

Really, I just wanted him to leave me alone. I didn't want him to talk to me, to look at me, to even breathe near me. I was horrified. My sleep had been restless, filled with haunting nightmares of Ma's eyes. Ma's cold, cold, lifeless eyes. All I saw throughout the entirety of the dream were those eyes. They were open and dead and I couldn't get them out of my head. I found myself wishing I had closed them, wishing I could have given her that final moment's rest. But I had failed her to begin with, so what was the harm in letting her down one final time?

I didn't even know what happened to her body. It could have been found, or it could just remain in the house, rotting, for days. Weeks. Months. I hoped someone would find them, and soon. I wanted them to be given a proper burial that Ceseth would not have let me give them. They deserved better than to be food for maggots and flies and stray cats. They had been better people than I was, than Ceseth was, and instead of giving them the burial of proper human beings, they had been left there without hope of being found. But after all that screaming, all that noise? Perhaps Ma's house was on the edge of the forest, but I would have been surprised if no one had heard anything. God. The noise had been awful.

I thought of Tane quite frequently, but it didn't surprise me. I could hear his voice in my head; I could see him smiling and hear him laughing.

And suddenly it would be ruined by blood pouring from his eyes and mouth, ending with him asking me "why?"

It was a question I couldn't answer. I hadn't wanted to kill him. It hadn't even been my fault. Ceseth had shoved my elbow forward. I had expected Ceseth to stay true to his word and kill me first, but he hadn't. Instead, he had lied and shoved my arm forward so the knife had hit home. Or close to it, anyways. It wasn't close enough, because Tane was still forced to bleed out. I heard his raspy breathing in my ears and felt his blood on my hands. I felt his small body shaking with his efforts to stay alive. I felt my shame and hatred and grief and... and love. I had watched him die. I had been his best friend, I had killed him, and yet I still loved him. The first day he kissed me on the riverbank I hadn't known that the feeling had a name. I had never experienced love before, but Tane had opened up that door for me. He had taught me what it was to love. I would forever be in his debt because of that. Tane was a better person than I would ever be, even in death.

I stared up at the ceiling.

I was covered in a cold sweat and had woken up with a start. I had been screaming in my dream, but no sound had actually come from my mouth. I could still hear my own screams ringing in my ears, tangled with Tane's and Ma's. The dreams would haunt me for years to come, I knew. I would never forget Tane or his mother or the kindness they had shown me. I would never forget the monstrosity that I repaid them with. Nothing soothed me from that one fact; not even that I had tried to warn them. Tried to save them. I had failed. That was it.

I took a moment to reflect on all of the things I would never get the chance to learn about them and their happy family of two.

I would never learn Tane's favorite color, his favorite season, or even his birthday.

I would never learn Ma's favorite food or dance or song.

I would never learn anything about either of them and it made me feel even more lost than I had felt previously. Ceseth had killed Ma, yes, but I felt like I was the one who had snuffed out both of their candles far, far too soon. Tane was my age. His life would've been just as long as mine, if not longer. He could've had a wife, a beautiful wife—a normal wife—and kids. He could have been happy. Even if he had never had a father before, I knew in my heart that he would have been a fantastic one. His kids would have loved him. I felt sorry for the woman who would have married him but now never could. I found myself wishing that I could have been that woman.