Lucio lay on the bed in disbelief, tears streaming uncontrollably down his face. He had read the message again and again and again and the short message had torn him to pieces. The government had written it, and the wording spelt all that he feared and worried about in life. It was written in a cold, clinical voice that spelt out all the official "pain" and "Grief" that they felt for him.
They're dead. He kept repeating in his head. They're fucking dead. They can't be dead. He let out a howl of anguish and buried his face in the pillow. All he wanted was to make things better for them, to make it so they didn't grow up in the place he had to. Now, all his love, all his devotion had been thrown away in a careless hit and run from some bastard.
Lucio didn't want to hear what had happened to him. He didn't care about the life of some scumbag. He didn't want to hear how he was to be sent to prison. He didn't care about what the public would call "Justice"
His family was dead, and everything was awful now.
All the fight had left his body, all the tension he held. He sat and let his tears drop onto the pillow.
Just then, his phone rang. He ignored it and sank deeper into the pillow.
It rang again, and in a fit of Anger, Lucio went to throw it against the wall, when he saw who was calling.
No. He thought. That's impossible.
With a shaking finger, he moved to answer the call.
"Ola Papa!" came the thin, light voice he had heard hundreds of times before and he let out a sob of disbelief. The voice spoke in well-formed Portuguese, but with a small lisp from a loose tooth. "How are youuuu?" He knew she loved to sing, and he pressed the phone to his ear tight, and put the volume up so as to hear every moment of his girls voice.
"I'm, I'm" He began to choke his reply, when his wife's imperfect Portuguese; richly accented, cut in.
"Have she told you about her boyfriend, Lucio?" Lucio pictured her teasing smirk, his daughter pouting at the accusation and began to feel the first moments of hope flowing in.
"He's not my boyfriend" Anna retorted. "He's just Joseph"
"Our little Anna is a star" Essi explained. "She's got the lead in the School Play"
"I'm going to be Mary" Anna excitedly said. "Will you be there to watch?"
Lucio could see Essi tensing at the question, knowing full well he couldn't see her, and formulating a response as to why. Before she could explain, he talked down the phone.
"Yes!" he muttered, his voice still choked with emotion and relief. "Yes, I will come"
The other line was silent, clearly surprised by Lucio's voice. He heard movement and crinkling on the other side, as Essi took the phone from Anna and switched voicemail off.
"Kulta, Is everything alright? You haven't been hurt, have you? Zarya told me she would keep you safe!"
"It's not that" He replied. Checking through his phone again, he saw that the message he had received was not there. Deleted or not, he was thrown in a loop of confusion.
"I received a message" Going on, he told Essi what he had gotten, Essi remained silent, and then coughed.
"Kulta, We're fine. Please, believe me"
"I do" Lucio replied. He had been certain he had received the message. But, now it was obvious that was not true. He was talking to his family. Frowning and confused, he stood up. His anguish was replaced with relief.
"Please keep talking" He urged Essi. "I need to hear both you and Anna's voice"
Just then a crash came from down the corridor. Followed by a shriek.
"What was that?" Essi asked.
Lucio did not want to find out. He did not want to move away from the phone. But still, he knew he had to find out what was happening.
"Essi," he said. "Send me a picture of you two" He opened the door. "I'll call back. Something is going on" He could hear his daughters worried questions in the background, and forced back the guilt he felt.
"Now wait-
"I love you two" with that, he closed the connection.
Stepping out, he quietly moved down the corridor, and gasped when he saw the holes punched into the walls. Clean through to the wood beneath. Now he started to run, and swore once he saw who had made the holes.
Zarya stood wide-eyed and crazy, her balled fists dripped blood onto the floor and staring through Lucio like a maddened bull. Lucio screamed as she started barrelling towards him while shouting in Russian. Dodging out of the way from her flying, bloodied fists, Lucio ran for the stairs, easily outpacing the much larger body builder. Moving quickly, he made for the garage where his equipment waited for him.
The door to the living room burst open, and before him stood Zarya. She howled as she cut off Lucio's escape to the garage, and he narrowly dodged a lethal punch. He ran back to the open corridor, and straight into a corner in a panicked state.
"Damn" He was thrown back into Brazil, being chased by police baying for his arrest, into a corner. Trying to calm himself, he remembered what to do in such a moment.
"Come on" He muttered. Zarya was just behind him, grimacing with the maddened look of an animal possessed. Satisfied that he was cornered, she charged forward with a brutal punch at Lucio's head.
The punch was so close he could feel the wind from it brush pass his face, moving under the arm and past Zarya's side. He managed to get through her. Narrowly dodging a vicious backhand he ran down to the corridor.
His sound generator was ready for him, all he had to do was pull the trigger. Yanking it off the wall, he turned to see Zarya breaking into the garage.
He pulled the trigger, and Zarya was blasted with concentrated sound, she howled and put her hands to her ears, blood trickled through.
She was on the floor, and Lucio stood over her. Only when certain when she would be disorientated for long enough, he shut it off.
Silence followed from the blast, and Zarya rolled onto her side, and Lucio grimaced when he saw the blood trickling from her ears.
"Lucio" She muttered. "I'm sorry" She collapsed in a state of disbalance, as Lucio had expected, the sounds had burst her ear drums. He really hoped Angela could fix them.
"Lucio" she continued. She fixed him in place with a single look. "We were attacked," She said. "Check on the others"
He nodded and looked through into the living room, and the corridor beyond it. Open-mouthed, he saw the open door and the footsteps leading out of them.
Someone has stepped out. He realised. In -20 weather. The rooms above were quiet. Making a quick judgement he moved back into the garage, and began to pull on his deep cold clothes.
Zarya watched and shook her head.
"Someone has stepped out," she said. Lucio nodded.
"God" She tried to stand up, but immediately fell on her side, Lucio ran to her side, and was pushed off.
"Go!" She muttered. "Find them."
Lucio nodded and ran out into the night.