Danika's pov
My mother's hands.
They were one thing I could never forget.
I kept feeling them on my shoulders, shoving me into the wardrobe on one end of the room as the sound of feet hitting the stairs got louder.
Fear wrapped around me tightly like a glove, its irresistible hold visible in my mother's eyes.
"Mom," my five-year-old self groaned, and tears pierced the corners of my eyes. I didn't know what it was yet, but I could tell that it wasn't good.
"Just go in, Danika," she said in one breath, pushing me with all her might. "Stay put, and don't come out until it is quiet."
"How will I know it is quiet?" I whispered, just as she walked away, just as the tears broke free. I waited for the echoes of her response to reach me, but all that surrounded me was dead silence.
And my mother never responded.
But the silence broke.
"Did you think you could run away from us?" A voice as steel as ice reverberated around the walls.
"Boss, I didn't do anything wrong." I heard my father's voice break in ways that forever remained foreign to me.
When I heard the first bang, I jumped inside the wardrobe, my fingers itching for the door even though Mom said I shouldn't. It pushed open slightly, and then I saw him.
He stood over my father's body, a tattoo of a bear on his forearm, his back turned to me, and the smoking gun still in his hands. My eyes trailed from him to my father's crumpled body lying on the floor, a gaping hole in the centre of his forehead.
It was my first time seeing a gun wound.
There was another man in the room. The one who had yelled. His huge hands patted the boy on his head. "Good boy," he murmured approvingly. "I knew you had some of that in you."
I swallowed, clueless if crying was the right thing to do. I didn't know how to mourn. I had never been made to face it.
And then, my mother's hands suddenly flailed out, her head shaking insistently. I pushed the door wider, just enough to watch her fall to the ground as well.
A silent gasp escaped my lips, and the boy's head turned in my direction. His icy blue eyes took me in slowly, and for a moment, I thought I saw the gun in his hand move.
I didn't know what to do when he shook his head at me subtly the first time, when his eyes glossed over my features like I wasn't there, when his father tried to talk to him.
Or when his gaze found mine again, more insistent than the first time.
I withdrew into the wardrobe, whimpering as I heard a dark chuckle and the sound of retreating footsteps. Even then, I didn't move, my arms wrapped tightly around my folded knee, rocking myself along to my mother's favourite tune.
I didn't come out until I heard the rooster. I might have fallen asleep in there.
"Why didn't Mummy come to get me?"
Getting out of the wardrobe, my tiny feet moved forward, the house filling bigger than it had ever felt all my life.
"Mom?" I called, even when I could see her lifeless form on the floor. "Mom, you can't sleep on the ground!"
The doctors would later say I was traumatized and my body's way of coping was to act like nothing happened, but that day, I just dropped to the floor next to her, watching her pale skin.
My father was not far from her. The blood on his head had dried up, leaving a sticky look. It smelled like rusting metal.
I felt pain explode in my chest, but the tears didn't come. I could only think of that pair of blue eyes and how badly I wanted to hold that gun he had, pointing it at his forehead and not wasting a damn minute before pulling the trigger.
His blue eyes and his bear tattoo haunted me for years.
"Dad?" I found myself saying, crawling over to him. My palms and knees were stained with blood, but it didn't matter to me. I shook him, gently at first, and then rigorously.
But nothing changed.
"Dad!" My yell became more hysterical. "Dad! Stop sleeping. Please! Remember you said you were going to teach me how to ride a bicycle today? The sun will soon come out."
A strange man suddenly barged up the stairs, his face hidden by the dark room.
"Please," I groaned. "My daddy and mummy wouldn't wake up."
The man didn't say a word as he grabbed my feet and pulled me along with him.
"No!" I screamed, my hands stretched forward, gripping my father's hand. "No! Leave me alone! Daddy and Mummy said I should never go with a stranger."
"They are dead," he spat, his grip on me getting tighter.
Still, I struggled so hard that it hurt. I could feel bruises on my feet, but the man didn't stop.
"This is for your own good," he murmured. It was raining outside, and it cleansed some of the blood on my hands. I didn't want it to go, but there was nothing I could do as he picked me up off the floor and headed into the dark alley.
I screamed so much and so loudly that it gave me a headache and wore me out. My eyes fluttered closed, and my head hung limp on his shoulders.
"Danika!" I heard a stern voice call me from the darkness in my dreamless sleep. His hands gripped that same spot as the stranger in the alley and pulled me out of the bed.
Only that this time, when my back hit the ground, my eyes flew open frantically. "Where is he?" I yell, scampering back to my moth-ridden birth, the one my fifteenth foster father never failed to remind me to be thankful for.
"Dreaming again?" he muttered, his foul breath making me jerk.
"Antonio…"
"Get dressed," he instructs. "It's time to pay your dues."