Dangerous Possession

The night was cold and the wind howled against the windows, as if to warn us. We didn't listen to him. After all, who could have imagined that that evening would be the last? I was eleven, not old enough to know the dirty world we lived in, still too naïve to really understand it. Our home was our refuge, a corner of normality in an existence that had never been normal. A small bubble that my parents had created in which we lived. A normal family, with a normal life. Every night we sat down at the table for dinner and laughed together. No one knew that this family was hiding a secret, I certainly didn't know it, I was too young to know, but one night it made me grow up so fast that I don't remember ever being a child. I could still remember it today, when I closed my eyes the scene repeated itself in slow motion in my head, as if I were analyzing every single step in search of something I could do to change the course of events that evening. I was sitting on the couch, listening to the laughter of my sister Evelyn playing on the living room carpet. She was only six years old and thought the world was a safe place, because Dad and Ryan were there to protect us. Ryan, my older brother, was on the phone at the time, probably with one of Dad's contacts. He had that authoritarian tone he was learning to use, a way to show that he was ready to take charge. Me? I was the spectator, the middle child who observed and learned in silence. Mom was in the kitchen, preparing dinner. The smell of stew filled the air, mingling with the sound of the floor creaking as Dad paced back and forth. He had that strange tension in his face that only appeared when something was wrong. He kept staring at his watch, as if he was waiting for something. At the time I didn't understand the reason for that behavior, now I do. Then he arrived. A sharp blow to the door. It was not a normal knock. It was loud, insistent, a noise that silenced everyone in the room. Evelyn stopped, her small hands clutching the doll. Ryan looked up from his phone, and Dad froze mid-step. "Are we waiting for someone?" asked Mom peeping out of the kitchen. Ryan shook his head as he slipped his phone into his pocket and reached behind him, looking for something. "Get in the kitchen," Dad said in a tone that left no room for discussion. I stood up, grabbing Evelyn by the hand. She protested, asking what was going on, but no one answered. We dragged her towards mom, who looked at us with concern. Dad walked over to the door and looked through the peephole. "Who is it?" he asked. Silence. Then, without warning, the door exploded. Shards of wood flew in all directions, and a group of men in black burst into the house. They wore monster masks and had guns already pointed. Dad tried to fight back, but the first shot hit him in the chest. The sound was deafening, a thunder that shook the house. Mom screamed, and Ryan lunged toward the living room, trying to reach something—a hidden gun, perhaps—but one of the men pointed the gun at him. "Stop," growled the killer. Mom pushed us towards the pantry, her face pale but determined. "Hide, Jaxon," she said. "Take Evelyn with you and don't make any noise." "But..." "Do it!" Her voice was a sharp whisper, full of despair. I had no choice. Grabbing Evelyn, I dragged her into the pantry. It was a cramped little space, full of shelves and boxes of food. Mom grabbed a wooden part of the wall and opened a small hidden door, the space was cramped but she still pushed us both inside, closing the crack and leaving us in the dark. Between the cracks in the wooden planks was a gap through which I could see out of hiding. The men moved quickly, methodical as machines. One of them approached Mom, who was desperately trying to defend herself with a kitchen knife. She had no chance. The sound of the knife falling to the ground was followed by a sharp blow, and she collapsed. Evelyn began to cry, but I put my hand over her mouth. "Don't make any noise," I whispered to her. Her tears were wetting my hand, but I couldn't afford to comfort her. Not now. Ryan lunged at one of the men, screaming like an animal. He hit him in the face, causing him to retreat, but a second gunman pointed his gun at his head. "Enough," said a voice. He was a tall man, dressed in black like the others, but without a mask. His hair was gray, his face marked by deep wrinkles. He seemed to be the boss. "We don't want to waste time," he said, staring at Ryan. Then, without a moment's hesitation, he raised his gun and fired. Ryan's body fell to the ground, blood spreading across the carpet like a dark lake. I heard Evelyn stifle a scream, and for a moment I thought they were going to discover us. But the men were too focused on their orders. One of them was rummaging through drawers, probably looking for documents or money. "Is that all?" asked one of the men. "Almost," replied the chief. Then he turned to the rest of the room. "Burn it." Burn it. My blood froze in my veins. But I couldn't move, I remained immobilized in my place while from my crack I watched the men spread gasoline on the bodies on the ground of my family, as if they meant nothing, as if they were simple cannon fodder. They left a trail of gasoline as they walked away from the kitchen. They didn't bother to check that someone else was there, they didn't care in the slightest. I looked into the crack, and heard their voices move away. Quietly, I opened the door to the hiding place and I dragged Evelyn behind me as I walked out of the pantry. I looked at the pool of blood where Ryan lay and felt bile rise up in my body "Close your eyes Evie" I said to my sister and she obeyed "Don't open them for any reason in the world", I added as I walked, bypassing the lifeless body of my older brother. His empty eyes stared at the ceiling, in the center of his forehead he had a hole still smoking. I paused for a moment and took the gold necklace he wore around his neck, and then glimpsed the gun he still held in his hand. I took it and slipped it into my pants, and then continued. I didn't look at my mother, I didn't want to see her, I wouldn't have been able to continue if my eyes had rested on her. I could hear voices coming from the entrance as I stealthily dragged Evelyn down the side hallway, to the garage door and the door to the back garden. I heard footsteps behind me and immediately flattened me against the wall, hiding Evelyn behind a piece of furniture. "Did you find it?" said the authoritarian voice. "There is no leader here," he heard one of the men say, "Maybe we were wrong," he said then. "It doesn't matter, the Vances knew too much, set everything on fire," said the voice. I stood still, looking at the end of the corridor and expecting someone to come up at any moment to pick us up, but no one came. I stood with my eyes fixed on the wall and saw clear shadows form, then from my position I saw fire advancing on the floor, and the bursting of window panes as the fire advanced. I grabbed Evelyn, taking her in my arms and ran through the back door, running at breakneck speed towards the garden of the house next door which unfortunately was uninhabited. I heard the men giving each other orders as I dragged Evelyn into the bush of the untended garden and hid in the bushes. Eyes focused on the house that was slowly engulfed in flames, destroying everything that had been, everything I had been, leaving no trace of my past, of my family. That night left me with something more than a scar on my shoulder. It left me with a void. A darkness that has never gone away. From that moment on, I was no longer Jaxon Vance. I was just a guy looking for revenge. And that fire that I saw consuming my house has never been extinguished inside me.