There is violence. You've been warned.
He hated that blindfold, hated it with a burning passion.
That had been their first "order of business" upon entering his home – the very place that he lived, the very place that his children were to be raised and that he and Deryn, beautiful, beautiful Deryn, were to grow old together. And the first thing they did was blindfold him and tie him up, just so that he would be helpless to save them, and helpless to cover his ears against their terrible pleas for mercy, their cries of despair.
He tried reasoning with them, telling the men that he was the one that they wanted; he was the one that had put them in prison all those years ago. But they were deaf to his argument, just as they were deaf to his family's screams.
But he was not deaf. He heard the men's footsteps, heavy even where the carpeting muffled the sound of their German-made boots. He listened to them bang open every door in the house and drag out a cursing, kicking, fighting Deryn. But she was outnumbered, and though her maternal instincts to protect her children at all costs must have kicked in, just as his paternal ones had, it was not enough. She was outnumbered. He listened to those hateful men gather up his children, one by one, until they must have had all three.
He smelled the sharp tang of oil that must have been leftover on the fabric that now covered his eyes and nose.
His wife's familiar Scottish lilt filled the room, shouting robust, furious, desperate curses at the men who shoved her beside Alek. He tried calling out to her, but all that escaped his lips was a sickening wheeze that reminded him of the pain in his throat where they had broken his windpipe with a boot heel.
He listened to her call his name, then shuffle to him, sobbing and repeating his name over and over.
"The…chil…children…" he managed.
She screamed. It was a primitive, ear shattering sound. The word 'banshee' drifted into Alek's mind as he heard her jump up. A few of the men give startled yells. Glass broke.
Alek strained against his bindings with all of his might. He broke the pipe his arms were bound to and brought it over his head. He felt it collide with something or someone before he brought his hands to his face and ripped off the blindfold.
The scene in their modest living room was one akin only to that of war; hell itself, chaos personified. Deryn was fighting off one man with her bare fists and feet while struggling for control of a handgun in another's grip, her eyes wild, her nightgown torn and bloodied. She screamed, incoherent by now. Another man was attempting to tie two of their wailing children to their couch with a length of coarse rope, the same kind they had used on him. Their coffee table, a gift from Lilit, shipped from Istanbul, was overturned, and their prized ancient Chinese vase had been shattered on the ground. Two men lay unconscious on the ground before him, one no doubt taken out by his courageous wife, and one that must have been struck down by the blood-stained pipe that now dangled from his still-bound hands.
Somehow, he managed to let out an earthshaking roar and charge one of the men attacking Deryn. He beat him with his rope-bound pipe as the man fell backwards, the knife in his hands rendered useless against Alek's rage-driven rain of violence.
A thunderous BOOM rang out, and all he could hear after a few moments were his children, hysterically crying, crying, crying, for her, for him, for themselves. Blackness rushed up, covering his vision as fully as the wretched blindfold had, and the only thing that powered his movements now was his children's voices.
"Please, no! No! No! Don't, mister! Daddy, Daddy, help us!" He tried. He tried to help by lunging at the man who would bind them to their death. He slipped on the blood splattered all over the carpet and tried not to look at what used to be his wife. Her murderer got to him first and struck him across his already abused face. He spiraled down to the ground like a leaf in the wind and landed, hard, on the glass shards and the slick blood. He staggered up once more, ignoring the pain.
"Daddy! Mommy! Get up, mommy! We need you! Mommy! Daddy! Help! No! Please, no!" The men ignored Alek, slow and injured as he was. The gun aimed at his children. Only two? Where was the third? Where was his youngest son? He prayed that he had escaped and not been the very first of their victims.
Two shots rang out.
Alek closed his eyes for the last time, glad that the next shot was for him.
Man, I put Alek through some shit! Sorry about that, I'm reading "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote right now for a summer assignment, so my mind's on murder. Anyway, he'll get some respite tomorrow with 'Summer Afternoons." I might actually continue this story with the one kid that survived. That'll be interesting. I don't really know where I would go with it though…hmm…anyway sorry again for the depression.