Vicious Minds: Part 3 (Children of Vice 6)

She sighed. “Really?”

Reaching in, I cupped the side of her face. “You annoy the fuck out of me sometimes.”

“Same—”

Bringing her lips to mine, I kissed her, and like always, she kissed me back, her tongue entering my mouth. Her body pressed against mine; I could feel her nipples harden through her dress. Pulling back, I glared down at her.

“Go change.”

“No.”

“Who’s turning down an olive branch now?”

“Punish me for it tonight. We’re late, and the longer you keep me in the cold, the worse it gets.”

“Damn you.”

She smirked. “So, it was you cursing me.”

“I’m sure I’m not the only one,” I muttered, nodding for them to open the door for us.

It was only when we were inside that she placed her hand in my mine and said, “but yours is the only one I care about. Now, come on so I can tell you the game plan.”

The fact that I loved her fucking annoyed me.

2

“I have a meanness inside me,

Real as an organ.”

~Gillian Flynn

CALLIOPE

The last year had been the best year of my life. It was like a dream, like everything I had ever wanted but didn’t know how to make a reality. I finally had everything. I stepped outside in the best clothes, shoes, jewels, with the very best man on my arm. We stood proud and tall in front of cheers, applause and flashing cameras. Our photos would be reprinted on magazine covers and delivered to every home in the city… the country even. Anything I wanted was mine with a mere whisper. When I stepped into a room, everyone turned their heads and gave me their attention, whether they wanted to or not. Even my step-father, mother

, and sisters could no longer ignore me. They had gotten better at hiding their obvious hate and fear and become good little puppets. Ethan’s family, too. Everyone had fallen in line.

And on top of that, the greatest gift of all was my daughter, who was finally happy. She was free to call for her father or me, and free to call herself a Callahan.

Yes, that was perfection…but perfection was an illusion, too. Under this great façade of family and luxury was blood. Some I had spilled. Some that had been spilled long before me. It seeped out and poured from every corner, crack, and opening that I touched or walked upon or entered. How did I not lose my mind? How did I keep smiling? How did I keeping going despite the blood that coated my hands—no, it wasn’t just my hands at this point; I was covered head to toe in blood. But I kept going because so did everyone else. This world was a graveyard, and those who lived did so to dance on the dead.

“Oh, but I didn’t kill anyone,” some of them would say, as if they were less of a monster, as if they didn’t see those who did kill and turn their gazes. As if they didn’t live in a great nation that had become a great nation on the brutalization of the weak and the powerless. As if they did not know they lived in privilege brought to them by someone with bloody hands.

Was I a monster?

Because I killed and lied to get here.

Was I a monster?

No. I was not.

I was like them. Weak until I decided not to be weak. Powerless until I decided not to be powerless. Covered in blood as they were or their grandparents or their great grandparents.

I was not a monster.

I was something far worse.