Kairos

Prompt: Maine was accused of murdering her parents on her 18th birthday. 10 years later, nakalaya na siya and she meets Alden, the guy who'll make her realize that her life has only begun at 28.

***

After a while, you learn not to react when you watch men teeter on the brink of rage, madness and death.

Maine Mendoza looked at her surroundings, and tried to tamp her concern down for the men who had blood spilling from their mouths. She reminded herself that it was their fault. They knew that violence was her father's drug of choice and those who stand in his way wouldn't emerge unscathed. They should have known better than to go against his explicit orders to leave as soon as they finished their job. They weren't supposed to stay and allow the household help to escape from traps they set out.

"Are you thinking of defying me again?" Teodoro Mendoza Jr. began as he swept his gaze over them. Rage blazed from him and he could hardly disguise the crazed look in his eyes. "Or have you learned your lesson?"

Most of the men murmured the response he wanted while the others merely watched him with unblinking eyes. She couldn't tell if they were still breathing or if her father's torture resulted in some sort of permanent damage. It wouldn't be a surprise. Her father spent days...weeks punishing his men for jeopardizing their latest operation.

"Good."

With those words, she suddenly felt a strange sense of relief.

She was about to leave when she noticed her sister, Coleen, who was shooting one of the men a concerned look.

Maine raised her brow. If she didn't know better, she'd think her sister suddenly grew a heart. Both of them had been trained and taught by their father to be his successor — mostly because he believed that they were a weakness that enemies could use against him. And so their earliest memories were of him beating them and teaching them to fight back. Eventually, he taught them to be cold hearted, scheming and callous. Especially when it came to playing with other people's lives. Her sister was the one who succeeded in ticking all those boxes.

But of course, nobody but their immediate family knew about all of this. To the public, they were nothing more than the daughters of a well-loved politician and a former beauty queen. They were merely young women who completed the façade of a happy family. Nothing more, nothing less.

A loud noise interrupted her train of thought, and she turned toward the source of the sound. Her father was holding his favorite shotgun and firing bullets into his men's skull one by one.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Slain before her eyes.

Eyes gone cold, her father addressed their group. "This is my last warning. I don't care who you are. I won't tolerate disobedience or mistakes. There will be no second chance. Ever."

All of a sudden, fear trickled inside her. She couldn't help but think she'd just received a warning. Her father would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. And he was prepared to kill anyone for it.

***

Maine stood by the windows of the house watching the lightning streak through the dark sky. She couldn't suppress a shudder as the rain poured harder. Storms always reminded her of the night her sister volunteered to kill a person in her stead on her birthday. She'd never forget the way her stomach had plummeted as she watched a man drown on his own blood.