Marked

It felt like a nightmare.

The kind where you run and run but get nowhere.

Rachel swallowed hard, trying to rationalize what they were asking her to do.

Surely, it was a trick.

Surely even poachers couldn’t be that twisted.

“You have to choose one or the other, Rachel. That is the only way you are going to get out of this room.” Abby announced.

“You can’t seriously expect me to choose? I’m not like you.” Rachel countered, her palms sweating and quivering.

“You are so naive, my dear. This world isn’t about good and evil anymore. It’s about surviving.”

With a nod of Abby’s chin, a poacher produced from his pocket a long, metal stick that emitted a blue light similar to the collar choking Hector’s throat.

With a flick of his wrist, the poacher pressed the cylindrical object against Hector’s skin that seared him where it touched him. A look of raw pain washed over his features but his eyes did not leave Rachel’s nor did he scream.

She took a step but he shook his head minutely, his jaw set.

There was a wild desperation in her chest to save him. To make the pain stop.

“Don’t listen to them...” He managed through gritted teeth. “I mean it. Don’t listen.”

Her eyes darted across the faces of the strangers, willing herself to not see them as real people.

But it was impossible.

They were real, living, breathing human beings who had never done anything to her other than be placed in the same hideous predicament as her.

And then there was Hector, on his knees and with the barrel of a gun pressed to his temple, the threat of death dangling over his head.

“Don’t do it. I’m not worth it.” He repeated.

He fixed her with a meaningful look.

Was it good bye?

Was it something else?

All she knew, all she could understand in that moment was that she couldn’t kill innocent people for the sake of saving her friend-- no matter how badly she wanted to choose Hector.

God, did she want to choose him.

Rachel sniffled, swinging around to point her gun at Abby but she was no longer there, having slipped quietly behind the safety of the door.

Her blue-grey eyes studied Rachel through the glass of the small window now, gaze clinical.

Rachel shot once but the glass did not shatter.

“Hector-I-I can’t...I can’t...” She whispered, swinging back to face him.

Her voice was pleading.

Because what she wanted to do was run to him and hug him but not if it meant killing people whose only sin was that they were unmarked.

“You don’t have to.” Hector said in a gentle voice-- a voice that sounded like an adult trying to soothe a small child. “Just let me go.”

“You’re out of time, Rachel.” Abby’s voice rang out. ”Choose.”

“It’s okay,” Hector soothed.

Her eyes begged him to forgive her but she could tell he already had.

The poacher clicked his gun and shoved it closer to Hector’s head. His finger twitched, preparing to pull the trigger so she did the only thing she could think to do.

She pressed the barrel of her gun to her own temple, mimicking the way the poacher held his gun to Hector.

It was the only option. They were captured by poachers and this seemed like the most merciful death they were going to get, so she’d take it.

Dying was better than knowing she hadn’t done everything in her power to save him. And if she was being honest, she knew if she murdered all those people for him she would no longer deserve to live anyway.

Time slowed.

Rachel drew in a deep breath, ready to fire.

Except it wasn’t her gun that released a bullet-- it was the poacher’s. She watched, in slow motion, as a bright light lit up the gun and a bullet exploded from it, embedding itself into Hector’s temple.

Hector’s body crumbled to the ground, his arms still bound behind his back. His cheek landed with a low thud against the cold tile floors, his blood quickly spreading around his head like a halo, a rich shade of crimson.

“No,” She whispered, throat gone dry. “No, no, no.”

Ignoring his killer and the burning sensation of Abby’s eyes on her back, she rushed to Hector’s side.

His once curly hair was now matted black with blood and his eyes were closed but she knew beneath the purple-veined eyelids, all she would find would be a lifeless brown gaze.

Rachel’s hands hovered over his body, trembling.

In fact, her entire body was trembling.

Wake up, she thought. Open your eyes.

I'm so sorry.

Please.

She reached to stroke his forehead when she was suddenly yanked up by the arm.

Through tear-filled eyes, she took in the face of Hector’s killer.

His fingers dug into her forearms, the same fingers he’d used to shoot her friend dead and she wanted nothing more than to rip them off his hand.

He caressed her cheek in a slow, triumphant way before he dragged her away towards an opening in the wall where two doors were drawn open reveling more of the maddening white walls all around her.

The poacher thrust her through the door and she lost her footing and any sense of direction she may have had.

She fell a few feet and landed in a bare room with white walls on all sides, except for the ceiling which was a mirror, brilliantly reflecting back a thousand white lights.

Rachel saw her reflection in it-- paper bag gown wrinkled, her hair cut to her shoulders was messy and wild and her eyes were swollen with tears she hadn’t even noticed were falling.

Lifting herself onto her hands, she swiped at her face.

If seeing her down and broken gave these people any type of satisfaction, she would not give it to them.

Rising, she cradled her gun to her chest while a cruel realization dawned on her.

Perhaps if she hadn’t been so weak, maybe Hector would still be alive right now.

She was stupid to have pressed that gun to her own head in the first place. What she should have done was shoot those filthy poachers and rid the world of two monster once and for all.

But should have or would have did not exist and all that was left now was a hollow feeling in her chest and the image of Hector’s dead body ingrained now into her memory forever.

She jumped when a door slammed to her left.

From within it emerged a poacher, the plain shade of grey of his uniform a stain among the clean, white walls.

Anger bubbled up inside her, strong and furious and she thought, not for the first time, how incredibly terrible the world she lived in was and how incredibly stupid she had been all along thinking that poachers deserved any type of compassion.

They deserved nothing.

She could see only the slim shoulders and back of the grey-clad figure but as he turned, she caught a glimpse of the shape of a boyish jaw in the mirror. It was slim and straight and framed by a familiar crop of messy dark hair.

Recognition made her heart clench with fear, fear and something else, something similar to excitement, the kind that made you want to vomit.

“Jed...” She whispered.

She had to be dreaming.

She had to be.

Because there was no way that it could be this simple to be reunited with her brother.

What was the catch? Why was he here and why was he dressed like one of them?

Rachel dug her nails deep into her flesh, just to assure herself that she was still alive, that this was real.

Blood erupted over her newly-trimmed nails along with the sting of pain.

The pain, more than the sight of the blood, let her know she wasn’t dreaming.

Which meant that Hector really was gone and that Jed was really, truly, standing before her.

Afraid, and even a bit hesitant, Rachel reached to put a hand on Jed’s shoulder when he suddenly jerked around to face her.

She gasped at the sight of the mark over his forehead. It wasn’t a new tattoo. No, it had healed a long time ago and when his emotionless eyes met hers she knew it was real. He’d been marked and she felt as if she were watching someone die all over again.

Jed spun on his heal, leaving behind a shell-shocked Rachel. He stepped through a doorway that whooshed open to let him pass and Rachel scurried after him, afraid if she let him out of her sight that he would disappear.

After him she went into a room full of mirrors where she found her best friend strapped to a pole, her arms held high over her head and her torso bare, the image reflected a million times on each mirror.

As soon as Rachel caught side of them, Jed struck Simone across the back with a leather whip, the sound like a crack of thunder.

Rachel cringed and yelped as if she’d been the one struck.

“Jed, no!”

Simone’s head lolled to the side, her hair moving out of the way to reveal a bloody and marred face, cheeks stripped by lashes that someone had delivered to her face.

“Help me,” She whimpered.

Jed struck her again and Rachel rushed at him but before she could reach him, he pulled out a knife from his pocket and held it to Simone’s throat.

Rachel came to a skittering halt, panic rising in her chest.

“Now, now, what kind of big sister would you be if you hit your baby brother?”

“How could you do this?” Rachel gasped. “Jed, how could you do this to me and to mom? To Simone, who helped take care of you when you were little! Look at you,” she gestured. “You have been turned into a monster.”

“I have been turned stronger and braver than you will ever be! You were always so pathetic with your belief that all people have some good in them.”

He slashed Simone across her back with his blade and Simone wailed in agony.

“Does it look like there is any good left in me now, big sis? Huh?”

Before she could fashion a reply, a shrill voice came over the entire room, collectively cutting into her eardrum.

She pressed her palm to her ear but through it she heard Abby’s sickening voice.

“I sure hope you will be more intelligent this time, Rachel.” She said in a patronizing tone. “You know what you have to do to save your best friend.”

As if spurred on my her words, Jed resumed his lashing and with each rip of Simone’s flesh, Rachel could feel the threads holding up the parts of her that were human breaking more and more.

Killing Jed would kill every last shred of hope inside her, she knew but what choice did she have? She had already let Hector die...could she sit back and watch Simone suffer the same fate?

She looked at Jed then. Really looked at him.

His slim body still carried a bit of a roundness from his preteen years and his face was just now starting to hint at masculinity, cheekbones finally prominent.

It was easy to pretend that he was the same person she had loved when she closed her eyes.

But when she opened them it was his cruel grin that greeted her only to remind her of the truth.

She took in her reflection, reflected back to her a thousand times in the many mirrors all around her.

She looked like a ghost now, white and pale with a hollowness in her eyes that mirrored Jed’s.

Rachel lifted her gun and trained it on Jed’s forehead and drew in a deep, steadying breath.

She was not killing her brother.

She was killing the monster he had become.

It would be an act of mercy, really-- to release him from this unfeeling state-- to save his soul. At least that’s what she kept repeating over and over to herself in the hopes that she would believe it.

I won’t let you die too, Simone.

Her entire body shook and it was hard to see through the stream of tears. She fought back the knot in her throat and the bile in her mouth at the way Jed prided himself in each cut he inflicted on Simone’s brown skin.

He looked like a young boy, except no young, human boy could enjoy his sadism with so much glee.

She didn’t make a noise when she killed her brother.

In fact, as he fell to the ground, with only a perfect bullet hole over his forehead to prove that he was dead, the only thing she did was lie down.

As the world crumbled around her, she sank onto the floor, letting her cheek press up against the cool surface of a mirror beneath her, watching a single tear stream down the smooth surface like a drop of rain

The doors swung open again and she already knew what she would find there: the poachers, coming to retrieve her.

Maybe there would be pride in their eyes this time.

Maybe not.

Maybe it had all been in vain and they’d still kill her and Simone anyway.

You’re too weak, Rachel. You need to toughen up!

It was the mantra Ruth loved to repeat to Rachel every time she did something compassionate.

Maybe if she had listened to her mother instead of pitying her for the hardness of her heart, Rachel would have been able to come out of this without her own heart ripped to shreds.

With newfound vigor, she scrambled to her feet, lifted her gun and was determined to shoot the poachers dead. After all, how hard could it really be?

She’d just killed her brother, so killing them shouldn’t in order to defend herself and Simone should be easy. This time, she was determined to make her mother proud, wherever she might have been.

Before she could shoot, a hand gripped her wrist and twisted, forcing the gun to fall from her fingers. She thrashed and kicked wildly, a sudden urge to destroy overwhelming her.

“I think she has had enough for today,” Abby said as she entered the room and approached Rachel.

“I will destroy you all,” Rachel’s yelled. “I’m a killer now and I will destroy you all. I swear it!”

Abby laughed. “Oh, Rachel. You still have so much to learn.”