Vicious Minds: Part 3 (Children of Vice 6)

“Sedric—I—It wasn’t just me who wanted her dead, Helen—”

“Her mother’s death already fucking protected her! If not that, Helen has Wyatt to protect her. Even if Ethan did not forgive her for all that, she saved their daughter. She can be forgiven. But you? What are we supposed to do?”

She was silent.

What was she expecting?

What were any of us expecting? Dad said those who go against the family ended up paying the worst price. I thought he meant death.

This felt worse. If Nari died, I’d be sad, but I’d understand. She would pay for her own actions. What was I supposed to do? Kill her? Let Ethan kill her? Forgive her?

I didn’t know what to do. My chest felt as if it were about to explode. “Leave,” I managed out, holding my mother as she sobbed loudly into me.

“What?”

“Get out of this house, Nari.”

“Sedric—”

“Don’t ever come back. If Mother wants to see you one day, she will come to you. But don’t come to Chicago. Don’t ever show us your face again!”

“Sedric you—”

“You’re dead to me!” I bit my lip, hanging my head. “I will never forgive you. But I can’t let you die, either. Dad loved you. So just leave. Leave before everyone else finds out what you did—before Ethan comes back. I’m embarrassed you are even my sister. I do not know how I will face Nana. Go, before we bury you, too. I said, go!”

Quickly she got off the floor, leaving only my mother and me.

That was all that was left.

She had broken us.

My own sister broke us.

CALLIOPE

“Two shots to the head for each of them,” the coroner said as she showed me all of their bodies, laid out on cold slabs. “Then he turned the gun on himself.”

I walked up to my mother’s body. She was still in her nightgown, her face was shattered. The coroner's office had done their best to make her look somewhat presentable, but there was only so much that could be done.

“Would you like a moment alone?” she asked me gently.

Sniffling a bit, I did.

The lady passed me a tissue box before she quietly walked through the double doors. I waited until the doors closed back on themselves before looking at my family.

“Mom, you always thought it was going to be me who did you in,” I replied, leaning beside her. “You were almost right. But I guess I wasn’t the biggest monster in the family, now was I? All that prayer, and it was your husband who snapped?”

There was no answer.

I would never hear her beg or cry.

My sisters and I would never be close.

There would never be forgiveness.

There wouldn’t even be closure.

No one would ever truly and meaningfully apologize.