Killing For Ace Hernandez ✓

15 | Lost Hope

These walls cannot hold a prayer, nor a spirit. And so, I call to the universe, I promise all the good things I will do when I am released, and at first it appears that nothing happens.

Yet when she does, it'll be some random occurrence of happenstance, something I could never predict. So, though this wait is tough and I long for the sunshine and the grass, the passing is a little easier for knowing I have my children.

I hear the sound of breaking glass, yet this time it is a music that vanishes deep scars; for I am the one escaping a prison invisible to others.

Being sedated is the worst thing ever done to me, because when I awoke terror refilled me. I see Rose between my legs, and I breathe in relief. My heart rate slowly dilatating back down. I pull her body against my own. I see they only left her in the towel I wrapped her in, in a hurry.

I unzip my jacket and wrap it around her, the prison cell was barely six feet by four. The walls were the same thick grey stone as the dwellings of the region, but instead of a wide window with a flower box there was a mean barred opening with thick metal bars and no glass.

The bed was a plank of wood on legs, there was no mattress, no cushioning and only one thin blanket. It was either suffocatingly quiet or pierced with the screams of tortured inmates. Then, I remember exactly where I am. Because this is the same place my father locked me in when I got the supposed abortion.

I look down at the watch, pressing the button on the back. I brush Roses hair, knowing they gave her a high dose of sedative. I knew something didn’t feel right, but Marcel? No. Most definitely this has been planned.

Is Ace okay?

“I’ve missed you.” I hear the dark voice appear, I look up from the floor and into his eyes. “You’ve grown so much.”

“What are you doing Adrian?”

“I didn’t know we were on first name bases.”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone!”

“Because, I don’t want to. Especially since you are holding heirs of Mafias. Not only the Greek Mafia but the Spanish, Italian and American. Who knew my daughter would be a w***e?”

“I am no whore.”

“I do not see a wedding ring? You are a w***e. And for that, I shall punish you for many things.” He steps towards the bars. “You broke Omerta.”

“I don’t have Omerta.”

“Oh, but your daughter does.” My eyes widen. “You failure. I expected nothing less.” When I'm feeling triggered the world and everyone it is behind fifty feet of glass.

Loving bonds become inaccessible. In this mode I have to take great care not to damage bonds of love, the relationships and people who are everything to my heart and soul. For in time the glass disappears and my love returns.

“You are as much a failure as a father than me as a mother, I protect my daughter, I put my life in front of her.” I wish I could stop the triggering, but if I feel unprotected or left to fend for myself it returns - it is survival mode, cold and indifferent. Yet even in these times I am cognisant of my morality. I still make good choices. “Something you are too coward to do.”

I can still imagine what the better version of me would want me to do and then carry that out. I can't undo the trauma I've been through, but I can adapt and overcome. Frustration rapids into himself, he hates being told the truth.

“I am no coward, but since you act like such a protector, protect her from this.” He opens the cell door, and I see three men walk towards me. I immidtaley hold onto her, before watching them rip her of me. I scream, screaming as I try to attack my way to her only to be roughly slammed against the wall. I groan in pain, watching them throw her into the cell opposite me.

“Now, would you like to have her beaten?” I shake my head, as I cling to the bars watching the men enter her cell. She slowly wakes up, and looks around.

“Mummy?” Rubbing onto her blue eyes, she stares at the men entering her cage.

“Rose! Rose-No please! Dad please!” I yell, but it doesn’t stop them from grabbing onto her. “Have me! Do what you want with me! Don’t hurt her! Don’t touch her!” I cry out, my father chuckles walking towards me.

“Beg.”

“Please-Please don’t touch her.” I remembered everything he did to me when I was her age, and I promised myself to never let it happen to her.

“Get out.” Adrian shouts, I see Rose crying as she brings her knees to her forehead, hiding herself as her cage shuts. Instead, my cage door opens and I know exactly what is about to happen. “Beat her.”

“Rose! Cover your eyes!”

“Mummy let me help you!”

“Rose, mummy needs you to cover your eyes and your ears and sing our song.” I yell, I hear her cries before I feel a fist connect to my jaw. My face collides to the ground, the sedative weaking me to being limp. They flip me over, punching me over again in the face like a repeated scene in a movie. I tried to keep in my cries for help, not wanting to worry Rose.

The man, pulls me to my feet and I feel his fist collide into my stomach, my eyes widen in pain as I remember Charlie inside. That’s when he continues doing it, as if he was trying to achieve something, then one last blow to the mouth before dropping me. I notice my father left already; the men begin unbuckling their belts. I know exactly where this was going to take me.

“Are you-are you, coming to the tree, they strung up a man, they say who murdered three, strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be, if we met at midnight, In the hanging tree.” I whisper, Rose closes her eyes as she sings along.

The hold me against the wall, as one of them stood opposite me, he rips my shirt of with one hand. They throw me to the ground as if I am their play doll. They push onto my arms to stop me from moving. And then it began, one whip to the back. I bite onto my tongue, feeling hot liquid leave my back as he does another whip.

“Mummy can I open my eyes?”

“No! Keep them-” I screamed; I should have held it in but I screamed. I hear Rose cry, and I know she’s seeing what’s happening.

“Let go of my mummy!” Another whip, and it happens, again, and again, and again. Until they stopped, but the stinging pain of my open wound didn’t. They kick me in the face roughly before making their way out and my eyes caught the sight of one of them. “Mummy, don’t leave me….” My eyes were giving up on me, but I had to keep a watch on Rose.

I had to protect Rose.

I lift myself up, grabbing the cell bars as help. But I gave up midway, the pain, the stinging, it over bared me way too much. But I rested on the floor with a good eye on Rose, “mum…mama…Ace is going to come, he is going to save us.”

I wish I could believe that. I wish I could believe what she said, but I had no hope.