.

(Sacrifice)

The gun in her hand felt too heavy, she thought about putting it back in its holster, but saw the blood on her shaking hands and stopped. The pain began to register in her brain as the adrenaline wore off; her thighs burned, and her dress was wet from the scalding tea. "I can't clean it," Anna whispered between shallow breaths as she stared down at the blood spatter on her legs and shoes "I can't do it." Maybe she could leave, maybe she could sneak out without being seen, and no one would ever find out what she did.

But even through her clouded judgement, she knew that leaving without being noticed was nearly impossible. She had to call someone, but Nina was out of the question, and she wouldn't even know where to find her.

Anna closed her eyes for a few seconds, listening to the unsettling sound of birds chirping and singing as if people were calmly drinking tea in the garden. As if nothing were out of the ordinary. Unable to bear it a second longer, she opened her eyes. She would have to call Christina and hope that she knew what to do. There was no one else to trust.

She turned her back on Callahan and began to walk toward the house as she tried to put him out of her mind so she could think more clearly. Legs shaking, she stepped around Patrick's body. She felt the ground sway under her feet when her eyes focused on the blood that had pooled around him. She stopped and closed her eyes until she was steady enough to walk.

She opened the door and stepped into the house, walking out of the brutal reality that her actions had brought to a surreal scene in the sitting room. Nina and Margaret stood in front of the sofa, guns drawn, their sights set on each other. Margaret in a bright, white sundress, and Nina in funeral black.

Anna's voice came out as a hoarse whisper. "What are you doing?"

Margaret spared her a quick glance, and her hand began to shake. "There's blood all over you, Anna. What happened?"

Anna wanted to answer, but her mouth went dry, she couldn't even move her lips to form the words. Her eyes welled up with tears as the scene in the patio flashed in her mind.

Nina's voice was calm and steady. "Are they dead?"

Anna managed to nod. The weight of the weapon in her hand threatened to pull her to the floor. She wanted to set it down, but Margaret was pointing a gun at her sister.

Margaret's voice broke. "My father is dead?"

Anna couldn't stop the tears from rolling down her face. "I'm here, aren't I?"

Margaret nodded and set the gun on the end table next to the sofa.

Nina didn't budge, she spoke to Anna with sharp steel in her voice. "She was going out there to kill you."

Margaret shook her head. "I was going out there to check on my father."

The silence that followed was crushing, no one moved. Anna wondered how Nina was able to keep her arm so steady while she couldn't stop shaking.

"What were you doing out there, Anna?" Nina questioned without taking her eyes off Margaret.

"How did you know I was here?"

"I asked around, you weren't exactly subtle."

"How did you know I was in the garden?"

"I snuck into the house," Nina gestured to Margaret with her head, "I caught her going out there, armed."

"I wasn't going to kill Anna!" Margaret yelled. "I was watching from my bedroom window, and I saw her and my father struggling-" She wiped tears from her cheeks. "It doesn't matter, we're even now."

Nina's eyes bore into Margaret as she spoke through clenched teeth. "Even? We will never be even."

"Nina," Anna walked up to her sister and gently put her hand on her arm. "We should all talk."

Nina lowered her gun but kept her eyes on Margaret. "We are not even." She repeated. "Who killed my father? Was it your father?"

Margaret straightened her posture. "It was me."

Nina inhaled sharply as she raised her gun.

"Why?" Anna asked the question that had brought her to the Callahan's home. The question that had caused that horrible chain of events.

Margaret didn't hesitate. "Because I thought that if Richard was dead, my father would spare Nina."

Anna saw the fire in her sister's eyes, she put her hand on Nina's arm. "He wanted to kill Nina? Why?"

Margaret looked from Anna to Nina, then back to Anna. "Because she killed my brother."

Nina's voice dripped with venom. "Robbie deserved it."

"What…" Anna's head began to throb. "Robbie died five years ago, Nina was just a kid then." An image flashed in her head, and her blood ran cold. The night of Nina's first field mission, her first kill. "...Why didn't you tell me it was Robbie?"

Nina didn't answer but spoke to Margaret instead. "Your brother started this feud, we were willing to let things be after he died, gave your father the opportunity-"

"How could you expect my father to do nothing?" Margaret yelled. "You killed his son."

"And he killed my mother, you killed my father, I think you know the only thing that would make us even."

"Stay away from my mother, she's innocent."

"So was my mother."

"Stop." Anna pushed down Nina's arm. "The mess I left back there… that's enough bloodshed." She felt a knot in her throat and heard her own voice break but refused to let tears fall. "Why did Robbie try to kill Father?"

"Your father made him look incompetent after the weapons deal in Libya went bad."

Anna looked at Nina for clarification, but her eyes were still on Margaret. "What is she talking about, when did this happen?" She received only silence from her sister.

"When you and I were little," Margaret looked at Nina as if waiting for her to speak but continued when Nina said nothing. "It was my father who had forged an alliance with Libya. When one of the weapon shipments was intercepted by the authorities, Richard managed to save the other three. Then he took credit for the deal my father had made. He was all but ostracized from the cause even though he cared more for his country than your father ever did."

Everything made more sense, knowing that the Callahans were in the IRA. She knew that Richard wasn't, but in that instant, she couldn't be sure. She wanted to ask, but the fact that she had been kept in the dark for so long was beyond humiliating. She had revealed enough of her ignorance to Margaret.

"Your brother was incompetent," Nina finally spoke. "Your father should have known better than to send a kid to do his dirty work, he's the one responsible for all the blood on our hands, for his own son's death."

Margaret shook her head. "My father didn't send him, Robbie thought that if Richard was dead, everyone would look to our father for leadership and advice again..." She looked at Anna. "I'm so sorry, I wish I could bring your mother back."

"I'm glad your father can't come back." Anna heard steel in her own voice, and it chilled her to her core. How could she be capable of such actions, of such dark thoughts?

"I'm not sorry about your father, either." Margaret wiped the tears from her cheeks and gave Anna a sad smile. "Remember when we were little, we thought you'd marry Robbie, and we'd be sisters one day."

Anna remembered Robbie's smile and his big, green eyes, she had always had a crush on him as a little girl. The boy who murdered her mother, the boy who was murdered by her sister. It was a vicious, brutal cycle, when would it end?

Margaret's voice was quiet. "I don't have Robbie anymore, but you two still have each other."

Anna looked at Nina, saw the cold determination on her face. She had lost her sister the same day Margaret lost Robbie.

"There's still hope for the two of you...for me."

Nina scoffed. "Hope? Hope for what?"

"To move on, to stop this. I can go back to Germany with my mother, and you go wherever you want."

Anna shook her head. "...It can't be that simple."

"It isn't," Nina said harshly.

Anna wanted it to end. She wanted it to stop. But there were two dead men in the garden. Could Margaret put that behind her? Or would Anna and Nina have a target on their back for the rest of their lives?

Anna looked at her former best friend. "I don't know if we can do that…" She looked at Nina, who remained silent. "How can we just pretend that we didn't kill each other's family?"

But if they didn't put it behind them, what was the alternative? Killing Margaret? Her heart began to drum in her chest at the mere thought. What if she had to? She couldn't do it, she was sure that she wouldn't be able to do it.

Margaret sighed deeply. "If you didn't think it was possible, you would have shot me on the night I killed your father."

"You saw her?" Nina's biting tone made Anna's heart beat faster, her hands shake. "You knew it was her this entire time, and you didn't tell me?"

Anna wanted to look away but made herself look at her sister. "Yes."

Anna gasped when she saw Nina pull the trigger, her breath caught in her throat when she heard the gunshot. When she turned her head to look at Margaret, she saw her on the floor, still. A red stain over her heart spread and saturated her immaculate, white dress.

Anna inhaled, trying to fill her lungs, they felt empty, dry. It hurt to see Nina standing there with that ice-cold glare and stony demeanor. Her chest felt tight and her arms heavy as she half-raised her gun at her own sister, but quickly lowered it and rushed to Margaret. She knelt next to her, but she was already gone.

"...Why?" Anna asked, she felt dizzy for an instant but then looked Nina in the eye. "Why would you do this?"

"She went for the gun," Nina stated calmly.

"No, she didn't, she-"

Nina shook her head, her jaw tight. "Were you looking at her?"

"I…" She'd had her eyes on Nina, that was a fact, but Margaret wouldn't have reached for the gun… And Nina wouldn't have shot someone who posed no threat. Anna shook her head. "She set the gun down, she...she wanted to end this. And she chose to spare your life, how could you do this?"

Nina scoffed as she holstered her gun on her hip. "She would have died trying to kill me, so this was her destiny. And she put down the gun because she thought she was outnumbered, as soon as she saw that you were distracted-"

"You didn't have to do it!"

"I did have to do it, and you're lucky I'm here."

"Lucky? How?"

"How?" Nina shook her head. "This is your first time, and you came into a house with three trained killers without any backup? What were you thinking?"

Anna felt a surge of anger and stood up to face her sister. "You sound just like him! You patronize me just like he did, you doubt me just like he did, and you're cruel and unfeeling just like he is!"

"Was." Nina corrected through clenched teeth. "He was. He no longer is, and you have her to thank for that."

Anna couldn't speak through the knot in her throat. She rushed out of the sitting room and crossed the dining room, then pushed the door into the kitchen and set her gun on the counter. The thought of being in the same room with Margaret's dead body nauseated her.

Nina followed after her. "Where are you going?"

Anna walked to the end of the kitchen and leaned against the refrigerator. "She wanted to be done."

"That's what she told you, but she tried to shoot you the second you looked away." Nina stood next to the breakfast table, as far away as possible. She didn't want to be in the same room with Anna, it was obvious.

"Did she really, Nina?"

"Did you really think it could all end here and now? Did you really think she was going to let it go? No, Anna, that is not how this works, nothing is finished until it's finished. You can't stay naive forever, I can't be around to clean up after you every time you make a stupid mistake."

"You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

He was dead, he was gone, and he still haunted her. Looking at Nina, she realized that Richard Williams lived on, that he would never really die.

"Doing what?" Anna repeated. "Making me feel worthless, just like Father did, making me feel like I'm the weak link."

Nina's eyes hardened. "You are not eight years old anymore, you are practically an adult, and you just killed two men. You're old enough to hear the truth, not a sugar-coated version, the real truth. And the truth is that I am done, done protecting you. One week ago, I would have done anything for you, Anna, anything. But you betrayed our family, you betrayed Father, and you betrayed my trust. You knew who his killer was, you knew it that night, why didn't you tell me?"

Nina's words seared her to the core, but she pushed that feeling deep inside and focused on the anger. Focused on the fact that her father stood before her, speaking through the woman who was her sister by blood, but nothing else.

Anna felt her nails biting into her palm, she needed to feel pain, she needed some sort of release. "I knew that if I told you, you would kill her, and I wanted answers. But you're lying, Nina. You say that you would have done anything for me, and that's not true. You would have killed anyone for me because that's how you solve problems; because that's second nature to you. But if I had asked you to leave this life behind, to turn your back on Father, you would not have done it. "

"That was what you wanted me to do?"

"Yes."

"Is that what you wanted to do?"

"Yes."

Nina scoffed. "No, it isn't."

Anna shook her head. "You don't know me at all."

"I know that you're just like Mother. You both said that you don't want this life, and you both had opportunities to leave, but you stayed."

"You think father would have let her take you if she left him? You think Mother would have left without you?"

Nina gave a short, wry laugh. "And you think that she had no idea the life Father led when she married him? She knew, and still, she had two children with him. She could have left when we were babies, she could have left before she got pregnant, she could have chosen not to marry him. And you… Father is dead now, you will be eighteen in less than a month. If you didn't want to get your hands dirty, all you had to do was tell me who killed him, or tell Aunt Christina, or even say nothing and let me figure it out on my own. You could have walked out the door on your birthday and gone anywhere, but you didn't. You chose to stay, just like mother did."

"She regretted staying, but when she had made up her mind, when she couldn't take any more, Father already had his claws so deep in you that taking you would have been impossible. She couldn't bear to leave you behind."

Nina chuckled and shook her head. "You are just like her. Making excuses, forming your own reality, living in denial, making your own little shelter to hide from the truth."

"Maybe I don't know the truth because you all hide it from me. No one told me that Robbie killed Mother, and no one told me that you killed Robbie. Today, you went looking for Father's killer, and you didn't tell me. So stop slandering Mother and tell me, why do you always treat me like I don't matter? I can understand why Father did it, I was always nothing to him, but you, why?"

Nina slammed her fist on the table. "To protect you. I have been trying to protect you since the day you were born. When you took your first steps, I remember walking behind you, trying to catch you so you wouldn't fall. I never stopped trying to protect you. What would you have done if you had known the truth?"

"I guess we'll never know."

"And you say I'm slandering Mother, but what about you? You keep saying that Father never cared about you, but he was trying to protect you too, he was trying to make you strong. He never told you anything because you weren't ready to hear it. So stop painting him as the villain, he cared for you more than Mother did, he tried to prepare you for this world, but you choose not to see it because the truth hurts too much."

"The truth that he never told me!"

Nina shook her head and casually crossed her arms. "No, Anna, the truth that was always plain to see. That mother chose him over you that she loved him more than she ever loved you."

Anna let the anger course through her veins, she let it flow. She let it guide her as she propelled her body toward her sister. She let the adrenaline fuel her as she knocked Nina to the floor, as they grappled knocking chairs down.

They wrestled until Nina forced her off, but Anna wasn't done. She scrambled up using the wall as support and grabbed a frying pan from the hanging rack. She threw it at Nina and heard dishes shattering and metal clattering as she dodged a plate that broke when it hit the wall millimetres away from her head.

Nina charged and pushed her hard against the wall. Something heavy hit her on the head, making her dizzy, she felt Nina shoving her again, and she hit her hip on the corner of the counter. Her gun was there, she picked it up as a reflex, without giving it a second thought, she turned and aimed it at her sister's head.

Nina's hand went to the gun holstered at her hip.

Anna felt the bile rising in her throat, she was pointing a gun at her sister, her flesh and blood, and for a second, she had wanted to pull the trigger. But now, if she put the gun down, what would Nina do?

Nina spoke in a quiet, even tone. "You can't kill me, Anna."

"Because you don't think I have it in me, or because you're faster than me?"

Nina was silent, her eyes didn't change.

Anna lowered the gun and leaned against the counter, feeling nauseous. Nina didn't know anything. She didn't know about the letter or what Anna and her mother had sacrificed for her. Maybe Nina was right, maybe their mother had loved someone else more than Anna, but it had not been Richard.

Rebecca had sacrificed one child for the other, she had sacrificed Anna without her consent. They could have left, could have made a quiet, normal life somewhere else in the world, but they had stayed for Nina because Rebecca could not bear to leave her behind. In the end, their sacrifice had been for nothing. The Callahans were dead, Rebecca and Richard were dead, and Nina and Anna were murderers.

"Mother should have left without you," Anna said quietly.

"Yes."

Nina turned her back on Anna and walked out.

The light in the kitchen was dimming. The sun was setting. Anna decided to wait until dark to leave the house and find a payphone to call Christina. She stood in the kitchen looking at her gun and the blood on her hands. Thomas Callahan's blood. In the next room, his daughter lay dead.

Anna walked back into the sitting room. Everything looked normal, pristine, for a moment, she thought that she was walking out of a nightmare, about to wake up. But Margaret's body lay still on the floor, her white dress marred with blood. The scene was too real, just like in the garden.

She knelt beside Margaret, feeling exhausted. Defeated.

"Give her eternal rest, O Lord," she said quietly. "and may your light shine on her forever…" She didn't know how she remembered that prayer, she didn't know why she said it, or if it did any good.

She stood and turned her back on the grizzly scene. She could walk away from it, but she could never leave it behind.

A/N: I hope this chapter was not too hard to follow. I'm not trying to get into events that happened in the past, I'm trying to tell the story through Anna's eyes only. Also, I'm sorry this story is such a downer, I didn't really mean to do that, it just kind of wrote itself that way. :)