BRIANN P.O.V
The prison gates groaned open and for a moment,I couldn't move.The air outside felt different.Too bright,too free and too cruel.My legs were heavy,my chest tightened,as though the world beyond those bars no longer belonged to me.
But then…I saw him.
My father.
He sat in a wheelchair at the far end of the entrance,his frame was thinner than I remembered,his skin was as pale as paper.His eyes which was once fierce and full of life were now weary,trembling with emotions he could no longer hide.For a heartbeat,I thought my eyes were deceiving me.But no…it was him.My dad.
The moment my mind caught up,my heart shattered.I ran faster than my thoughts,faster than my tears.
"Dad!" The word tore out of me,a cry that echoed through the prison courtyard.
When I reached him,I fell to my knees before the wheelchair,wrapping my arms around him,sobbing into his chest like the little girl I once was.His familiar scent,faint,mixed with medication and old cologne broke me even more.
"Where have you been?!" I screamed,my voice trembled with grief and anger. "You abandoned me to face the world's threats alone! You left me, Dad!"
He said nothing at first,just held me,his hands were weak but warm,trembling against my back.Then I heard his voice cracked and became heavy as if every word cost him a breath.
"I'm sorry,sweetheart…I tried…I shouldn't have sent you into the Mason family"
"Sua is dead and it was all your fault,I don't even know how to blame you for this"
"I acted like a coward and left my daughters to the cruelty of life.I only wanted power and wealth,but neglected my daughters. I'm really sorry...."
I lifted my head to look at him and the sight nearly killed me.His eyes were hollow,red-rimmed with pain,his lips trembled between a smile and a grimace.His body looked frail like he'd been fighting a war I never knew about.
"Dad…" I whispered,my throat tightened. "What happened to you? Who made you like this?"
He forced a small smile,one that didn't reach his eyes.
"I'm fine,Briann"
But I knew he wasn't.His lie was written all over his face.Something in my chest ached,the kind of ache that warned you a storm was coming.
Then,out of nowhere,he froze.
His eyes shifted over my shoulder,toward something above us.His hand gripped mine tightly and before I could even ask,I heard a faint shot,mechanical click that sliced through the wind.
My heart stopped.
"Dad?"
His gaze darkened with terror.And then he shouted "Briann!"
The gunshot rang out.
He pushed me away,so hard I fell to the ground and the next thing I saw was blood.So much blood.It splattered across his shirt,blooming like a cruel red flower.
"DAD!" I screamed,crawling toward him as the world spun out of control.He slumped forward in his chair,his breath shallow,his hand reaching weakly for me.
I caught him before he fell,holding his trembling body against mine.Tears poured down my face as I pressed my hand to the wound,trying to stop the bleeding that wouldn't stop.
"Stay with me,please! Please,don't leave me again!" I cried,shaking him.But his gaze was fading,soft,sorrowful and full of unspoken words.
And then,through my tears,I caught a glimpse of movement above like a shadow on the rooftop.The figure looked just like Agnes.
She was there,lowering a sniper rifle,her hair blowing with the wind.Our eyes met — only for a second — before she disappeared behind the ledge.
I wanted to run after her,to scream,to tear the world apart,but all I could do was hold my father's bleeding body in my arms.
His hand brushed my face one last time.
"Briann…" He whispered.And then....silence.
I let out a cry that broke something inside me,a sound that didn't sound human.The world blurred,the sky dimmed and all I could taste was the salt of my own tears.
My freedom had just begun and it was already gone.
I crawled backward on my knees before the world narrowed to the sound of my own ragged breathing and the wet,horrible heartbeat in my ears.My father laid a soft and terrible weight against my thighs,his blood seeping cold beneath my hands.I repeated his name until it meant nothing.The courtyard blurred into a smear of sun and stone.
Then someone else's footsteps,so light and cruel sliced through the haze.Agnes came down from the rooftop as if she had walked out of a dream made of knives.She moved with a cat's grace,a gun tucked in the pocket of her coat like a secret she had been carrying for years.Her face was calm,but something hard and cracked lived behind her eyes.
She crouched low until we were level.Her breath smelled faintly of perfume and smoke.For a single,impossible second she looked almost small.Then she smiled,not with kindness,but something close to triumph.
"Why can't you just die?" She asked and the words were a blade.She reached out and gripped my throat with both hands as if to squeeze the breath from me with raw anger and shaking.Her fingers were cold,her nails dug into my skin like questions.I couldn't scream,my father's name was still in my mouth and my hands wouldn't leave his chest.
"Why?" I whispered,though whether I meant it as a question or a plea I didn't know.My voice cracked into pieces.
Before Agnes could tighten her hold,Mr Mason was there,he stormed in a tailored suit.He grabbed her,dragged her roughly to her feet,his hands was like iron around her arm.He looked at her as if he'd been betrayed by someone he thought he'd owned his whole life.His voice tore across the courtyard.
"What the heck have you done?" He bellowed,spitting the words like venom. "Don't you know who you just killed?"
Agnes yanked free with a speed that scared me.For a breathless second, she reached into her coat and pulled the gun free.The metal flashed.Her lips were white.
"I'm sick of your mild games" She whispered,so soft it felt like the bottom falling out of everything. "Why don't you handle everything my way and end it all?"
Mr Mason's face went strange with a pale shade of something between fear and fury.He pleaded,stumbling forward as if pleading might undo blood. "Drop the gun,Agnes...let's talk.We can fix this.Drop it!"
She didn't.Her eyes were hollow,full of a cruel resolve.She lifted the weapon and for a second,it pointed where every instinct in me wanted it to,toward the small heap of me on the ground,holding my father like a lifeboat.
"Don't" I breathed.The word was a scrap,blown away by the wind.
In a flash he moved.Mr Mason lunged,planted his foot and with one furious sweep,he kicked the gun from her hand.Metal skittered across the flagstones with a sound like the last clatter of a falling crown.The two of them crashed into each other,there was a tangle of limbs and fury,each trying to become the last one standing above the ruin they had made.
I should have run.I should have fled like the world depended on it.Instead,I stayed frozen beside my father,clinging to him as if I could stop the tide of fate with the warmth of my grip.The fight between them was a chaos of shouts and thuds,heels scraping stone, sleeves ripping.Dust rose up in angry clouds.For one impossible,brutal moment,Agnes looked like a woman I once might have pitied; the next she looked like the monster who had stolen the last of my reasons to breathe.
I tried to crawl away while they tangled,each movement was slow and terrible.My fingers slipped on my father's shirt.He was so light now,like a book whose pages had been blown away.I could hear someone shouting — a name, or an accusation,or both — but the words were distant and hollow.
Finally their scuffle broke apart.A guard ran toward us then,and another and the world rushed back in: orders barked,bodies moving,the ugly clang of metal.But nothing could close the hollow that had opened in me.Mr Mason's face found mine across the gap of bodies and for one second,I saw not the man who had reigned over my life,but only a frightened,smaller thing who had been glimpsed in his anger.
Agnes was hauled away,wrists bound, her cheeks were wet with an expression I could not name.She did not cry,her jaw was set like flint.As they pulled her past me,I could see a single loose strand of hair fall across her face,a softness at the edge of the abyss and I wanted,irrationally,to know the story that had made her so cruel.
But there was no time for wondering.My father's breath had gone ragged.The world tilted and all the grief I'd been saving to give later came in a single, terrible wave.I pressed my mouth to dad's temple,tasting the cold salt of someone leaving me for good.
"Don't leave me" I begged,though the words were only for me.My body shook as the courtyard roared around me.Guards crowded,voices overlapping into a tide of false concern.Someone called for a doctor to check on Mr Mason as if he was the victim.Someone else shouted for paperwork.The air smelled of rubber,of perfumed fear,of my father's blood and beneath it all,the low, unimaginable thing: that nothing could mend what had been done.
I couldn't stop the sob that ripped out of me.It was a sound that had all the weight of every lonely night,a sound that would not let me be polite,that would not let me be small.Staring at his face, at the way his eyes rested like a promise I would never keep,the truth slammed into me: My freedom had become a funeral.
As they finally lifted him up with gentle hands,careful not to cause pain he no longer felt.I let go only when there was nothing left in me to hold.The world blurred,the petals of someone else's life scattered in gusts of dust.Mr Mason's voice hovered,hollow and broken. "We'll handle this" It sounded like a threat and a prayer rolled into one.
But for me,there were no fixes left.Only an ocean of sorrow and the cold and furious ember of a vow that would not be put out by sobs alone.