Chapter 1

Chapter I

The room is that of a girl who's in senior high school. Posters hang on the wall of the hottest fuckboys in Hollywood. The purple carpet is covered in a hurricane of clothes, and thirty pillows lay on the headboard of the king bed. In the air, a smokey haze and the strong scent of skunk.

And on the bed, a seventeen-year-old girl wearing Winnie the pooh bottoms and an overtly large drape tank top. Between her legs is a bong. Her red eyes stare across the room at the double wooden door. There is a lot of screaming coming from this door. As down the hall, past the three other bedrooms, in her father's office, her stepmother and father are having a screaming match.

Some things are getting tossed.

Her father's voice rises above all other sounds, echoing in the large estate.

Her stepmother screams.

Her father—

"YOU TAKE MY FUCKING THRONE. YOU STEAL MY FUCKING HEART, AND NOW YOU TURN HER AGAINST ME—

Colleen sets the bong down on the bedroom floor and stands.

"LISTEN TO ME LAURA. THIS ISN'T A GAME. THIS IS THE WORLD. MY WORLD. OUR WORLD. OUR CHILDRENS WORLD."

"I KNOW!"

"THEN USE YOUR FUCKING HEAD—"

Colleen opens the door and steps into the hallway. A few doors down, Colleen's younger brother, Michael, is standing halfway out of his bedroom door. His one hand loosely grasping a freshly opened beer.

Son and daughter like father, no?

Colleen shuts the door behind her, and Michael turns to face her. Colleen looks as if she just rolled out of bed.

"Hey sis," Michael whispers as he throws his hands behind his back. A futile attempt to hide his beer.

"Before we get into why we're both listening, give me the beer. If dad knew you were drinking again, he'd have a fit."

Colleen, with an extended and open hand, approaches her brother.

Michael tilts his head to the side and gnaws at his lips.

"C'mon Coll, it's Friday night. . . I was already drinking before they started losing their shit."

Colleen heaves a sigh,

"Whatever then. Just close your fucking door and go back to doing whatever you were doing,"

"And what are you going to do?"

Colleen looks down the hall. At the base of the large double wide office door, a bright line of light. The door is open a crack.

Michael, with boggled bright eyes, back steps into his room.

"You know w-what? I don't even want to know. Goodnight Coll,"

Michael says, and as quick as he can, closes the door.

Colleen steps forward, feeling a little jumpy from being high. With each step a little more buoyant. Her movements translucent and smooth. As if walking down a hallway of clouds. Colleen drags her free hand down the left side of the wall. Her eyes locked into the beam of light on the floor—

And then, gunfire.

Not one shot.

Not two.

Hundreds.

Her heart jumps. Her hands jump off the wall. She sprints as fast as she can towards the office door.

A thousand thoughts fill her mind.

Behind her, Michael springs out of his bedroom into the hall with full force.

"Colleen!"

—is halfway down the hallway when the gunfire halts.

NO NO NO NO NO!

She hits the large office door, the size of a cathedral entrance, and grabs the nearest object—a lamp.

Colleen blinks a few times as she stares at the open crack between the doors.

She can taste the gun powder.

Whatever happens. I pray.

Colleen bites her lip, her eyes rising to the mural of angels and demons and a volcanic eruption raining down a wave of fire on a burning city.

Colleen inhales, and boot kicks the open door

* * *

The white curtains blow in the wind from the open glass doors that lead to the wooden porch. Through the curtains—transparency of a nightgown; you can see the back yard with a pool, a garden, a fountain, and an open gate beneath the moonlight. The sound of screeching tires fills the fall air.

`A cloudless, midnight black sky with exuberant stars fills the horizon.

And yet what fills the large office are the many groans of a man begging for breath, struggling as he inhales— clawing at his chest to exhale. And from the main door, a shattered vase, a destroyed bouquet of roses. In the corner of the room, adjacent to the glass door, is a tipped over chair. Beside the chair, a black fedora hat, and a trench coat. In the center of the room, a coffee table and a trail of ash that leads to a metal tray where three cigars still burn. Parallel to the coffee table, Bobby Vellets lovely yellow couch has fallen forward, littered with bullet holes. A pile of empty golden shells sinks into the maroon velvet carpet, showing a Hanzel and Gretel path of golden gumdrops leading to the untouched, and unmarked mahogany desk. On the back wall, many bookshelves with dozens of novels—exploded and destroyed—sending pages upon pages to the floor. And behind the desk—leaning on the bookshelves, is a man, with one hand grasping at his chest, the other gripping his M1911 loosely. His eyes opening and closing to the faint beat of his heart that gets more gradual as each second passes.

His eyes fall to the large, double doors that fly open.

Oh, Colleen—please. . .

He struggles to breathe as blood fills his mouth. He spits it out onto his pearl white suit, revealing teeth stained red. And every time he exhales, his open neck wound gurgles and gargles as his main artery sprays up the bookshelves like a fountain. He knows his death is near, he can see it in the way his memories flash in front of him, projecting on the desk and couch. The memories of his childhood and his father that taught him everything he knew. The next flash, one of him and his mother in the kitchen—oh that naive woman who never learned of how good a man she had at home. In the next scene, he and his late wife playing with his daughter on the lawn of their new home. Oh, she was such a cutie—his daughter, not that late wife of his—that whore he put down like a dog. It's incredible—how such a whore could give him such an angel. He closes his eyes, fidgeting with his neck—trying to keep the blood inside his body—yet unable.

He's accepted death. It comes with the business, after all. However, it is not without regrets.

The sight of his daughter, her glass eyes soaked with tears, tells all.

I'm sorry you must see your father like this.

He cackles. He can only wonder if this is how his father felt on the old ports of Italy. When his son, Bobby Vellet, a young sixteen-year-old, walked in on his father being hung upside down and tortured like a pig. Isn't that how his uncle Joe brought him into the business?

Join the family, Bobby, Join the Vellet family. You see your dad's throat here? Cut it—from ear to ear. Cut him like a fish and watch it spray—

Unlucky for my father, between life and death, he and I play by a different set of rules.

"DADDY!" Colleen rushes across the room, dropping to his side.

Panic fills her. Colleen lashes out, gripping his white pearl suit soaked in blood with both hands.

Bobby smirks, and with all his might, takes her hands in his.

"It's a dog eat dog—"

A surge of pain fills his cheek as his head whips to the side.

If only he could laugh, he would.

"WHERE IS SHE! WHERE IS THAT FUCKING WHORE!"

Slapping her old man on his death bed. How fitting.

But it's the slap that ignites his dying flame. His eyes fall to the desk, looking more and more lifeless each second.

She shakes him.

"You're mother is not a—"

Bobby's head whips back with another slap; his eyes glassy as he watches his daughter, act out in the same fashion as him.

Pure anger.

"ENOUGH WITH YOUR SHIT! HOW COULD YOU LET HER—"

Bobby shoots his hand outwards, gripping Colleen by the neck.

Pulling her as close as he can. Blood sprays up from his neck onto the side of the wall, and with his fleeting strength, he tightens his grip.

"Look, don't hate Laura for this, please,"

"SHE FUCKING SHOT YOU!" Colleen shrieks.

Bobby's face grows stern and rigid as he wipes the tears from beneath her eyes, covering her face with streaks of blood.

Devils. Blood.

He pulls closer. Crossed eyed.

She can hear the spit and blood that pools in his mouth.

He clears his throat.

Chills fill her core.

"I know you have a lot of anger in your heart. But I need you to listen, okay? Call Mr. Deen, Gramps, remember? You met him once—"

Bobby takes a deep inhale, his chest fluttering. He feels like he's drowning in his own blood.

He is.

He spits. Bubbles of saliva mixed-blood form at his lips. He tries to speak, clenching harder.

The projector inside his head stops, and the once velvet carpet and yellow couch turn a white and black.

His eyes close. He's unable to open them—

"What are you saying!" Colleen screams.

He knows his time on earth is fading. Falling deeper and deeper from reality.

"Dad!"

They're heavy, and he no longer cares to breathe.

He cackles and shakes his head.

"It's a dog eat dog world. A dog eat dog world, and I need you to sharpen your fangs. You don't need to be the biggest dog, Coll. But you need to be the most ruthless."

His chest stops moving, and the steady blood that sprayed up against the bookshelf halts altogether.

Colleen stands. Her eyes glued to her father's lifeless body. Anger fills her. Vengeance on her lips.

The sound of the double oak doors closing, Colleen—heightened senses, turns around.

It's Michael.

Michael looks frozen. A statue.

He looks down at the lifeless body of Bobby Vellet, his father, and back up to his older sister.

He takes a few steps back and blinks.

"He's. . . He's gone, Michael. . ."

He can see a lot of their father in her now, more than ever.

I—I know that look. That's the look Dad gives me before he beats me.

Colleen tightens her fists to her hips.

She turns.

"And it's on your fucking blood! Your fucking coward of a mother killed him!"

Rage. Anger. Hatred. Three emotions that can be seen on Colleen's twisted face.

Three emotions that send Michael looking around.

Oh, boy, fuck.

"Look, Coll, please don't take this out on me." Michael steps back into the hall. Trying his best to back away. Right now, Colleen reminds Michael of the kind of predator you don't want to disturb. At any cost.

Colleen steps forward, traversing the room; all rational thought—gone.

"Coll, I'm on your side, please,"

Colleen stops in front of her brother, looking up at him and yet staring down.

She wants to strike him. She wants to kick and scream and slit his throat.

You killed my father. I'll kill your son. Laura.

Colleen wipes the tears from her eyes. Her fists clench her side. Her frustration overboiling from the pot.

It's not his fault—I don't care! REVENGE!

"WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN TO US, MICHAEL? WHY DOES OUR FAMILY CONTINUE TO TEAR ITSELF APART?"

"Colleen—" Michael opens his arms, prepared to embrace his older sister, to comfort.

"THIS ISN'T FAIR." Colleen continues, her mind rushing back to the night Bobby sat them and down and told them that Katherine Vellet, Colleen's mother, wasn't coming home.

Colleen clears her throat, locking her fists to her side.

I asked if she was an angel, then.

And Dad laughed at me.

"This isn't fucking fair. First, dad murders mom for being a fucking whore, and now—now his mistress, your fucking mother killed our dad!"

Colleen shakes her head, and her lips tremble. She refuses to cry.

"And now," She inhales deeply,

"I won't stop until your mother is dead."

Michael looks away, steadying his breath.

He drops his hands to his side.

"SAY SOMETHING!" Colleen snaps, extending both hands and shoving her younger brother down. She wants a reaction. She NEEDS a reaction.

Michael falls hard on the office floor; his body slow to react by the booze that flows in his veins.

Michael raises his hands to cover his face and bursts into tears.

"Please! Coll, this is a lot right now!"

Colleen steps over him. She reaches down and grips his neck by both hands.

Michael's eyes look to pop out of his skull in fear of death.

"PLEASE! IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY! WE DON'T HAVE TO CONTINUE THE FAMILY WAYS, OKAY?"

Colleen nods. Her eyes burning with anger. Oh, how badly she wants to squeeze her palms.

"You're right, it doesn't have to be this way. But it will be this way. The question remains, what are you doing to do about it?"

"You think I'm going to kill you?"

"I don't know, are you?"

Michael looks over at the corpse of Bobby and back up at Colleen.

He swallows hard.

"No."

"If you try anything. I'll gut you like a fish." Colleen raises a fist, punches him in the face twice before releasing her grasp and leaves.

And Michael, wiping his blurry, tear-filled eyes, folds into a ball. His eyes staring at the corpse of his father.

Bobby's lips move. Bobby smiles. And Michael, wide-eyed, vomits.