There were a thousand ways in which my plan could go wrong. I could have gotten the layout of their house wrong since I had formulated it in my head through memory alone. There was the fact that my whole plan depended on the fact that a secret entrance to their house still existed from back when an old friend named Tom had lived in the house. It also depended on the hope that Ivan's mother was trapped within the house and I could find her before it was too late.

There was also my own emotional instability. I didn't think I had the strength to pull this off. Could I really do the deed? Did I have the willpower to stomach the deaths of numerous people if something went drastically wrong? And even if no one died, could I still be a part of the society around me after doing something illegal? If someone found out, I'd be in jail in seconds. I was jeopardizing my whole future for this.

I only intended for it to be a distraction and as revenge for the event that took place all those years ago. Some part of my decision had been emotional. I'd chosen my distraction carefully. Ivan's father and the rest of his gang would think twice before they came after us again. They would think twice before they went after anyone.

I'd burn his house to the ground. It would burn and Ivan's father would remember that terrible deed he'd done all those years ago. He'd regret every laying a hand on an innocent boy. He'd remember and he'd realize that karma had come for him just as it came for everyone. Perhaps then he would regret everything he'd done that had ruined lives around him. Perhaps he'd feel guilt and Alexei's family would finally be at rest wherever they were.

Ivan's father deserved this and all the men beside him who'd supported him when he'd burned an entire family to the ground deserved this as well. They were dreadful people but did that give me the right to threaten their lives? Did this make me any better? I could picture Alexei beside me then. He'd tell me to forgive and to forget. Alexei. He'd taken him away from me and he'd pay. He'd taken that beautiful, amazing boy away from me. 

What Ivan's father had done was unforgivable and it was only right that he would pay. Even so, my hands still shook as I took out the lighter from my pocket and lugged a container of fuel down the stairs. The boys had stashed away numerous things in the room I'd given them. It took everything in me to hold their tools in my hand without chucking them away. I wasn't a criminal. I wasn't made for this. But desperation called for me to rise to the occasion and the anger I kept locked away for Ivan's father wrapped around my body and steadied my hands and heart. I had to do this. I carefully crept out of my own house through the back door with a hood over my head. Ivan had driven off in my car and so to anyone that was watching the house, he'd made it seem like I'd left with him. Even so, I quickly took the shortest route to the back gate of their house and scanned the area in front of me. This felt too surreal, like I was in a movie of sorts. It wasn't a good feeling.

Where was it? Where was the hole I used to crawl through to play on his trampoline when we were six year olds? I desperately scanned the entire area before my eyes fell on the secret entrance. It was a patch of the brick wall that was built with slightly different colored bricks. I pushed it through and stepped through the hole, praying no one had heard or seen the falling bricks. A foolish hope but then again this whole plan had been a fool's plan to begin with.

Just like that, I was in their house's backyard. From the outside the house looked completely normal. After all this was still a community with houses next door to it. Ivan's father would have to keep up appearances if he wanted to avoid the police. This was the terrible explanation and hope I clung to as I approached the lowest window of the house. Surprisingly, it was unlocked. I didn't let myself dwell on it too much. Another mistake.

I should have been suspicious of the window then but I was too consumed by relief. My plan hadn't failed just yet. I could save his mother. I didn't even think to watch my back until I opened the container of fuel and leaned over the window to dump it into the house.

And just as I was about to drop the lighter on the spilt fuel, I felt the tip of a gun touch the back of my head.

My heart, my brain and my body simply stopped working. I was completely frozen and felt nothing but the cold, metal tip of the gun against my head. A thousand thoughts flashed through my head. Thoughts of Ivan, Mikhail, Alexei, my mother, Troy, Violet, Nonno and even Robert suddenly came to me in a flash. The person who held the gun to my head said nothing. The threat was clear enough. One wrong move and he'd blow my head off. My stomach locked up as I felt the gun press more firmly to the back of my head and a hand reach forward to pluck the lighter out of my hand. 

I couldn't lose just yet. As his hand neared me, I steeled my nerves and unwound my reluctant fingers that held the lighter. The man behind me realized exactly what I was doing just a second too late. The hand nearing me stilled.

"No!" But the lighter had already touched the fuel on the ground and fire rapidly engulfed the entirety of the kitchen. What I hadn't noticed was the huge gas stove in the corner of the kitchen. Oh god. A loud explosion sounded that had birds taking to the skies. A faint whirring registered in my ears and I vaguely felt an arm seize my waist as the explosion blew me backward. The glass of the window shattered and my mind was too jumbled to even move but the man behind me had acted.

He twisted in mid air so I landed on the ground with a thud and his body landed over mine. Fire had already engulfed the lower parts of the house and there was debris, smoke, and glass everywhere. The man above me howled in pain and I could do nothing but stay pinned down by him as he took the brunt of the glass and debris on his back that was meant for both of us. I was too shocked to even contemplate why. I looked past his shoulder at the destruction I'd unleashed. Oh god what had I done?

The man's brown eyes were filled with raw pain and agony as he gritted his teeth and leaned down to place his lips against my ear. I stiffened in surprise and his next words had a sob working its way out of my mouth as I realized how grave of a mistake I'd just committed. I'd burn in hell for this.

"Some of us are on Ivan's side. Save him." I screamed as the man above me turned limp and heavy and his brown eyes turned to glass. I would have continued to scream as the guilt tore at my soul and shock radiated through my core. This was my fault. It was all my fault. What had I done! God no what had I done!

I'd killed him. I'd killed an innocent man while he'd done everything in his power to save me. He was dead. He was dead and I killed him. There was such a ringing in my ears past over which I could hear nothing. The same thoughts went through my head. All I could see was the now dead body that lay over me and I couldn't stop the screams that continued to rip out of my throat. His eyes were so empty. He'd been alive and standing just minutes ago. I'd done this. Oh god I'd done this to him.

Ivan had known that there would be people in the house on his side. It was why he'd been so much calmer than I'd thought he'd be when he'd left the house. He'd known and he hadn't told me. Why hadn't he told me?

Perhaps he thought I wasn't capable of something like this but I was. The darkest parts of me that wanted revenge were.

An innocent. An innocent. I'd killed an innocent in the name of revenge. The blood from a piece of glass that had impaled his back dripped onto me. I jerked as it hit my skin and began to scream in earnest. I was a murderer, a filthy murderer. I would have lain under him still screaming until I lost my voice if not for a person that suddenly appeared to my right.

On instinct, I tightened my grip around the gun that this man had pressed into my hand seconds before he died. But I knew deep down that I'd never be able to do it. I couldn't even bare the thought of lifting the gun.

One death was enough to make me realize the havoc it wreaked on my soul. The guilt could drown me whole and devour my heart. This gun. I had to get the gun away from me. I had to get away from the body above mine that still pinned me down with dead weight. A dead body was above mine. This was too unreal and yet so sickeningly real at the same time.

The image of that lifeless face, the feeling of the blood dripping onto my leg would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. The feeling of being trapped under him as the world seemed to explode around us would torment me for all eternity. I didn't even know his name. A sob choked out of me at the thought. Suddenly, he was rolled off me and I blindly raised my gun in one last futile gesture to save my worthless life. It was plucked out of my hand before I could do anything.

I opened my eyes which I'd squeezed shut at some point and came face to face with Ivan's mother.

Her face remained stony and unfeeling as she extended a hand to me. I just stared at it and suddenly I just wanted to lay here. I wanted to lay here and die amongst the destruction I'd unleashed. Perhaps that would give me redemption.

But Ivan's mother still didn't move. She just continued to extend her hand as the fire slowly began to die out on the bottom floor of the house. People were running out of the house now trying to find the culprit. They would kill Ivan's mother if she continued to stay here.

"Leave. Leave me here and just go." She didn't budge. Her face remained completely impassive and that hand was still extended towards my face. The people from inside the house were getting closer. I'd made a promise to Ivan. I had to get his mother out of here.

And that meant I needed to get out of here with her because evidently she was just as stubborn as her son. I reached up and grasped her hand. She quickly pulled me up to my feet and we were racing back the way we came out of the house. That's when I realized we had nowhere to go. Ivan had taken the car from my house and it was too dangerous to go back anyway. I couldn't go anywhere without a car and we couldn't blindly stumble around a community with nothing but a gun between us and looking the way we did. 

Not to mention the fact that the police would probably arrive soon and we couldn't be here when that happened.

"What are we going to do," I asked the woman beside me. Her eyes were narrowed with intense focus and I could detect the unmistakable worry on her face for her son. I realized how painful it must be for her to see her son pitted against a man she once loved.

"Ivan's going to be okay," I said and put a hand on her shoulder in an effort to comfort her with what little I could offer her. The only thing keeping me going was the promise I'd made to Ivan and the need to see them safe.

If I stopped even once to contemplate what happened back there, I wouldn't be standing.

"We need to get out of here." She began walking and that's when I felt the twinge of pain in the right side of my abdomen. I looked down and realized that the man above me hadn't managed to save me from everything.

A shard of glass had managed to impale my side and it was bleeding profusely. In all the fear and terror before, I hadn't noticed but now my side was beginning to burn. I pressed a hand over the wound and gritted my teeth to keep following Ivan's mother.

I couldn't stop now even when the nauseating feeling of my own blood seeping through my fingers made me want to keel over and pass out.

I made it all of 10 minutes before the burning in my side became unbearable. I let out a harsh cry and collapsed to the ground. My knees finally gave out and I puked the contents of my stomach onto the grass in front of me. A part of it was the unbearable pain in my side and a part was for everything that had happened until now. This was too grotesque, too unreal. I was a murderer.

"Oh god." Ivan's mother was suddenly in front of me. Her hands grazed my bloodied side and I let out another cry of pain. Black dots began to cover my vision and with every ounce of strength I had left, I lifted my face to look at the worried woman in front of me.

"Go." Ivan's mother looked ready to refuse. I didn't have the energy to fight her. I released my bloodied side and submitted to the darkness that was awaiting me even when all I wanted to do was see the boys one more time. It killed me that I didn't get the chance.

"Tell them I love." My words stopped halfway and the spinning world came to a dead stop.  

That went really wrong really fast didn't it? I can't say I didn't see it coming. We have a 17 year old emotionally traumatized teenager against a whole gang. It was bound to go wrong. What do you think is going to happen next? Do you think Ivan's mother will leave? What do you think Ivan is up to? Is Roe going to recover from this? The possibilities are endless. I want to here your thoughts. Go ahead and comment them below and give this chapter a vote if you liked it. 

Until the next chapter...

Love

-ASH