“Devon, child. You are not in the position to ask anything from me.”
She just laughed emptily and took out the gun from her pocket and shot it directly to the window of her father’s home office. The glasses shattered and the security system of their house was alerted.
She heard the alarm in the voices of the men inside and some went outside to check. They instantly put down their firearms when she saw her with bombs strapped all over her body.
“Now that I shattered your window, do I now have the position to ask you a favor?” she said coldly and moved her head and the men ran back inside to check on their boss.
“You bitch!” Gestoni yelled and looked down on her from the broken window.
He paused to take a good look at her and when he saw that she has all kinds of bombs on her body, her tone died down and there’s a noticeable crack
“W-What?! What are you doing outside?! What the fuck are you doing?!”
She smirked when she caught his attention. “I finally got your attention, dad. Now can I ask you where you are hiding my daughter?!”
He gritted his teeth and went back instantly into his cold hard demeanor. “Do you expect me to give in to you after you blow my room? Surely you should expect to find your answer after you beg and kneel in front of me!”
Walking closer to the gate where the men backed out, Devon stared defiantly at her father whom she had always hated secretly ever since the day he attempted to marry her off to that stinking old man. “I already did that but you never listened to me. Tell me where my daughter is or you will die together with me!”
But the old Farrows is not someone you can easily nudge along with a threat. Years of experience in the industry hardened him into the mountain that he is now. “Do that and you’ll not just be killing me. You will also kill your mother, Devon.”
“What?”
He had seen a crack into her resolve and decided to take advantage of it. “Do you want to see her body in pieces? Do you want the world to know how a beloved daughter killed her own parents who love her deeply?”
She can only laugh sarcastically at his words. Her parents love her? They love her? really? That’s the funniest joke she heard for a while now.
“Did you just say you love me? What a skewed view about love you’re having, dad. If you really do love me as your own, then please, let me see Emily. I’ve suffered enough! Please let me at least have a moment of happiness before I die! I just want to see my own child!”
“If you only listened to me when I told you to marry Joffrey then this would not have happened. You are one disobedient child that is why you lost your child!”
She aimed the gun at her father and shot but missed him due to her trembling hands. Is disobedience to one’s parents a good justification for them to hide her child away from her?
No matter where she sees it, it’s just too messed up! How could a father do this to his own child? How could her own parents do this to her?!
“You kidnapped her from me! I did not lose her! You stole her away from me!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “Does it make you happy seeing me this miserable so you could throw at my face that it was a mistake to disobey you?! Does it really give you satisfaction to see me like this? Without life and barely eating with no sleep?! Do you like what you’re seeing? Do you like to see your children killing each other?”
She shot him again but again, her bullets deflected and her father still stood by the window, eyes on her without any change on his cold face.
Devon wanted to put an emotion to that face. She wanted to see remorse in his eyes but so far, there’s nothing in them.
“Tell me where is Emily?! Tell me where are you hiding my daughter?!”
“You have to kill me and your mother first before you could have your daughter back,” he said in a monotone voice, never affected by her display of her own pain.
“Why would I kill mom? I will only kill you.”
He hears him scoff. “It’s her idea in the first place.”
It took her a moment to process what she heard and the effect it had on her was immense. Just like the ticking time bomb on her chest, it felt like her life also began ticking away.
“What are you talking about?” she whispered. “What the fuck are you talking about?! She would never do that!”
He sighed like he’s bored with their conversation. “Devon, you are really weak. The first thing you have to learn in this world is to know that the first one to stab on your back is your own blood. Go ask your mother.”
“No…” she stepped back when her eyes became blurred. Cold sweat poured down on her back. He is just joking. He is just manipulating her because he’s too afraid to die! “No, you’re just bluffing me. I know she does things because of her fear and love for you but I know you just forced her to agree. I know mom. She’s not as evil as you. Yes, she has her favorite just like you but she can’t do that for me. I know that because she’s a mother too.”
“This is exactly the reason why you can’t have your child back. You’re weak. Beg me again if you are strong enough.”
He turned his back on her as if she’s just another desperate peasant before her very eyes. How could he do that? How could he turn his back on her after dropping that bomb?
Should she believe him? Should she ask her?
“Devon! What are you doing?!”
Melena rushed out of the gate into her but stepped back immediately when she saw the bombs on her chest and the clock wasting away the indicated time on it.
Devon held her mother’s eyes captive trying to read into the sincerity she’s showing her. Her father is just lying to buy him time to subdue her. There’s no way this woman right in front of her can do that.
“Mom, I want my child back! Please! Give Emily back to me! Please!”
“What are you talking about?” she asked and swallowed the lump on her throat. Her eyes widened in shock when she realized that Devon knew it all along.
Devon’s shoulders hang lower than ever before. “Really? Until now, you still chose to lie in my face? I know dad, you, and Maddy planned all of this. Please, let it end already. I’m already suffering from it all. I want to end it all so please let me have Emily back. I missed her so much and I’m sure she misses me too so much.”
“Oh Devon… my poor child if only I can,” Melena muttered and looked back at the house.
“Why can’t you?” Devon asked, exhausted by the loop of words she’s been sucked into.
It’s always been like this. She is being passed on to another to answer her questions. No one really gave her an answer.
“Because…”
“Perhaps…” she paused and laughed with tears clogging her throat trying to shove the ugly truth that is slowly showing its head. “Perhaps he is telling the truth?”
“What truth?” Melena asked even though she knows where this is heading. She can’t believe Gestoni already admitted it to Devon.
“That it’s your idea all along.”
Together with that statement is a pool of tears streaming silently down her face.
She can’t accept it. She won’t accept it but the truth is colder than it seemed. Melena’s silence proved it.
“So it’s true? What dad said is true? Is it your plan to steal my child away from me? It’s not his plan? It’s yours, mom!?”
“Devon please listen to me!” She tried to approach her but she cocked her gun on her.
“How could you?! How could you do this to me?!”
“I only did it so one of you could survive! I thought you’re really dead. I save Emily, okay? I never harmed her!”
“So you just stood there looking at me bathing with blood?! You did not save me! You saw me dying over there? How could you just stand while your daughter is dying? Did you even hold my hand or were you too greedy to take my child? What? So you could have her as my replacement to be married off to any old rich man you and dad chose for her?! Are you really my mother, mom? Do you really deserve to have children?!”
Melena shook under immense pain in her system at the accusation. Was she really like that? Maybe. She’s as horrible as the devil.
“Devon… I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Devon laughed and cried at the same time. “Is that why no one from my own family searched for me? No one believed that I was alive. If it’s not for Daemon who also hated me, I will never be found. I will not have my memories back and I will never know that I have a child!”
“Devon please understand too that I’m also weak and I cannot go against your father’s wishes.”
“Okay, point taken.”
She looked at the time on the bomb. It’s time.
“Dad said I’m weak so I don’t have the right to have my child back. You don’t want to give Emily back so let’s do it. Let’s die here together, shall we?”
She’s ready to risk it all now. What’s the purpose of living if pain is all she knows? It’s better to be dead than to live in this hell.
She faced Brian at the back of her mother who had his gun on her ready to shoot her.
“No! Devon!” Melena shrieked and tried to stop her son.
“I’m ready to die,” she thought and waited for the bullets to pierce her body.
But none of that happened.
Instead of seeing her own blood on the cement road, she heard a grunt as some great force carried her away from where she’s standing into the inside of a moving vehicle.
“Daemon?!”
Her husband crouched a little and shot Brian from the opened window. Her brother fell to the ground with his legs bleeding.
She looked at the timer on her chest that has stopped counting. Daemon must have found the remote and disabled it quickly.
“Why do you have to stop me?! I want to kill them! They’re all demons! They deserved to be killed.”
Daemon cupped her face tightly inside the speeding car. “Why do you always love to hurt yourself? Devon please, stop wanting to kill yourself.”
She took off the bombs from her body and sobbed in her seat. “Because I am hopeless! I am desperate! All I want is to have my baby back but they won’t give her to me no matter what I did! I needed to die! I deserved to die!”
She tried to open the door to jump out into the road but Daemon’s hands were firm on my arms.
“No! You deserve to live, to have a beautiful life! I am here, Devon. I need you. I fucking need you, my wife. They all deserved to be punished but not you, okay! Listen to me, please!”
He kissed her eyes and nose down to her lips and then touched her forehead with his.
“We will kill them and we will live a long and happy life. Together, we will take our revenge against them and we will be victorious.”
He kissed her lips and literally clamped her body into his.
“You and I. We’ll do it together. If you want to die, then I’ll die too but we can’t do that when Emily is still waiting for us.”
He caught her eyes and sighed when he saw calmness in them once again.
“Come on, let’s go home.”