“It may take a year or it might take a day, but what’s meant to be will always find its way.” —Unknown
LILY’s POV
I walk towards Kane ever so cautiously, taking one step at a time. And with each step that I take, I tell myself that this is not a dream. Kane called out my name.
This is reality.
I stop in front of the mahogany desk he is sitting at and he looks up from the paper he is scribbling on. Our eyes meet and my heart starts to pound with a mixture of both joy and fear. Do I go to him or do I stay? What if it wasn’t my name he had called out? What if the physiotherapist heard wrongly?
Kane drops his pen and stands up, towering over me. I had forgotten how tall he is.
“Lily…” he says my name and at that instant, my walls come crumbling down. Tears line my eyes and my lips quiver.
“You remember me?” I whisper. I can barely breat
ROSE’s POVMOMENTS BEFORE ROSE’S SCREAMS.Night has come and I sit in front of my dressing table, combing my hair but I cannot concentrate. Is this the tenth or eleventh stroke?It is too noisy downstairs, I am unable to concentrate.Then I hear them laugh; Lily, Kane and even that annoying Russo. I know they are laughing at me, they’re all hiding in the study room talking about me and plotting to get rid of me. My hand grips the brush so hard that my knuckles turn white.Wicked…they’re all wicked people.Wendy starts to cry in her rib and my head snaps in her direction. I just fed her, why is she crying again?“Shut up!” I yell at her but she too does not listen to me. No one respects me.“Shut UP!” I yell again, throwing the comb at the crib. It lands at the side of the crib, breaks into two and drops onto the flood with a thud. Wendy’s wails escalate to the point w
“We’ll meet again. Don’t know where, don’t know when, but I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.” —Vera LynnLILY’s POVThe instant seems frozen in eternity. I hear the blast of explosion from the pistol and a thud is heard.And then a wail.It is Wendy’s.I open my eyes, not realizing that I had closed them earlier and see Kane holding the child in his arms. There is blood on his shirt. He had wrestled the gun out of her hand and she had shot him.“Kane!” I yell, running towards him only for Rose to swing the pistol in my direction.“Stay back! Don’t move!” she screams. She seems confused, scared even. The blood on Kane’s shirt blossoms like a red rose.“I shot Kane….” she whispers, her fingers start to tremble. Her eye remains fixated on the pistol in her hands and she looks as if
LILY’s POV All my life, I’ve only wanted one thing. LOVE. Why, you might ask? It is because love is meant to transcend all things. Love speaks out for justice and protests when harm is being done. Love points out the consequences of hurting oneself or others. Love allows room foranger,grief, or pain to be expressed and released. Love is a force of nature. However much we may want to, we cannot command, demand, or take away love, any more than we can command the moon and the stars and the wind and the rain to come and go according to our whims. LOVE. It is also the one thing that killed my father, drove my sister to insanity and lead me to where I am today. My name is Lily, and this is my story. *** “Lily! Rose! Wake up!” mother calls us from the creaky wooden door, lighting up our darkened room with a candle. The orange fl
KANE’s POV I shake my head as I look down at the dying man. “Puh…please…save me,” the man begs as he drowns in a pool of his own blood. “Should have thought about that before you tried to kill me,” I sneer and slap off the man’s bloodied hands from my knee. The man wraps his hands around his own neck, where blood is spurting out like a fountain in an attempt to stop the bleeding. But it is too late for him. I have sliced him across the throat. He will be dead in seconds. Traitor. He crumples onto the ground, twitching in spasms before he finally lays still. I pull out my blade and wipe it clean with the back of my shirt before marking the dead man’s body. It is the mark of Kane. Now all who see it will know that I am back. And all who betrayed my father will pay. I get up from where I crouch and a wave of dizziness hits me. The man may be dead, but he did put up a good fight before biting the dus
Father is carried piggy back style by another neighbour. I gasp at the sight of my old man. His bruised hand hangs limp by his side as he is laid on our straw bed. He moans in pain. Little Thomas starts to whimper and I have to shield him from seeing father. Mother kneels down by the side of the bed, softly calling out to father. As she calls him, she wipes the flood of tears that come streaming down her face. “Tim,” she whispers, choking back sobs. I want to cry too. Father’s face is bruised, his eyes swollen shut and there are bloody welts across his back. He had been whipped. Rose steps out of the bathroom and stifles a cry. “Hurry! Get cloth and water!” I manage to croak out before pushing Thomas into the arms of Samuel’s wife. She has come to help. Swiftly, she carries a bawling Thomas out of the room. I seethe with anger. Beasts. The mafia are beasts. How could they do this to father?! Rose comes back in with a wooden round basin
LILY’s POVIt is decided. I am to venture downhill in search of a doctor. Or a pharmacist. Or anyone who can sell us some fucking medicine. Father’s wounds are badly infected and he needs help. Mother has warned me to be careful. We have not told anyone from our village, lest they try to stop us. But how would they know the pain and rage that torments us at this moment? How do they know the agony that father has to bear every second? How would they know? How can they know? They are not the ones who were brutally tortured and had their bones broken, nor are they the ones who were whipped until their skin tore with a poisoned whip. They would never understand. I have to go, there is no other way.It is the witching hour now and father’s fever is getting worse.“I love you,” mother whispers as she hugs me tightly in the tiny bedroom that Rose and I share. She does not want to let go and I have to pry her fingers away.I
KANE’s POV I sit in the darkened office of Owen’s Pharmacy and stare into the eyes of the man who killed my father. There is fear in his dull brown eyes, but it is a fear that has come too late. He rubs his palms together, begging for mercy on his knees as Tore, my right-hand man holds him at gunpoint from behind. I trust Tore with my life, he has stuck by my side ever since we were children. We’re pretty much blood brothers though we look nothing alike. Tore wears his light brown hair sleeked back and tied up in a little ponytail and has the build of a Greek god. Even as he cocks the gun at Owen, Tore towers over the trembling man. “Please, I have a wife and a kid,” Owen begs with a quivering voice. I lean forward from the worn-out plastic stool that I sit on and stroke the man’s pudgy cheeks with my blade. It's sharp and pointy, and grazes Owen on the cheeks. He winces in pain and a streak of dark red blood appear. “S
ROSE’s POVIt’s been less than two hours since Lily’s been gone but to me, it feels like an eternity has passed. I wonder if she will be able to find any medication for father, but more importantly, I have to wonder if the medication will work at all given the condition that he is in right now.I look at Thomas who is sleeping soundly next to me on my bed. He has kicked off his blanket in his sleep and is drooling all over our pink worn-out mattress. I love my little brother, but I hate his drools. They stink. In the next room, it sounds like father has woken from his sleep and is talking to mother, but I cannot be sure. All I can hear are incoherent sounds coming through the paper-thin wall between our rooms.I stand up from the torn and tattered bed and walk towards the only window in my bedroom, wishing for some fresh air. The room is too stuffy. But as I open the creaky wings of the window, I am not greeted by the cool morning air,