Justice

As a warning, things get pretty dark for the next few chapters. Consider this a general content warning.

• Anna

Roslyn peeked through the window, moving this way and that to try and see as much as possible, before she turned towards the small group at the door. “Don’t see anyone outside.”

“This is it, then,” said Kaitlyn. She looked at the rest of the group, Ethan, Anna, Nadia and Zarina, and sighed. “Are you sure? I want to ask one more time, just to be sure.”

Anna nodded firmly. To her there was ****. The call with her mother replayed in her mind constantly. The surprised yell, the silence… Then her mother, her voice eerily calm as she urged Anna to come home. To trap her! The male voice, low…

“Alright then,” said Kaitlyn, unlocking and opening the door before standing aside to let the group through. “Good luck to you guys. And… Hope you get what you’re looking for.”

There was a tense pause, then Zarina spoke. “Inshallah, bitch.” A small smile on her lips.

Kaitlyn chuckled. “Hah. Damn right, Inshallah.”

The four filed out of the house, after which Kaitlyn closed the door and locked it again. Outside things looked quiet, almost peaceful. It was hard to believe what had happened to them less than 24 hours ago.

Anna pointed the way and they began to walk. After a couple of minutes, Anna asked, “Zarina? What is that joke you and Kaitlyn have? The inshalla bitch thing?”

Zarina laughed softly. “Oh, it’s… A running joke between me and Kaitlyn. I… When I first met I sometimes spoke a few stuff my parents also said, like… Inshallah or haram… But I was also kinda self-conscious. Y’know… Using Urdu and stuff.” She frowned, unconsciously adjusting her hijab. “So, when I said stuff like that, I usually added a curse word or something. Trying to sound cool, letting people know I’m not, like… A fundamentalist or something. So, anyways. I’m talking to Kaitlyn and I say something like ‘Here’s hoping tomorrow’s test is easy. Inshallah, bitch!’” And Zarina smiled at the memory as she told her story. “Kaitlyn thought it was the funniest thing ever. We became friends after that.”

“You never said stuff like that to me,” said Anna.

“That was when I had just begun uni!” protested Zarina. “I stopped when I realized sprinkling random cusswords didn’t make me any cooler. It’s… Look, it’s a little embarrassing bit of my past. It was my first time not living with my parents, I was soooo insecure.”

Anna smiled a bit, despite herself. “Well, you totally didn’t show it when I first met you.”

“What one year living in a dorm will do to a - ”begun Zarina before her voice died down. A man had appeared into view, leaving another house some distance away. He had a woman in tow and she was naked, her black hair frizzy and half-covering her face. The group’s reaction was immediate: they all went quiet, their easygoing tone disappeared and they all grouped around Ethan, simpering at him and doing their best impression of claimed women. Nadia, of course, did not need to pretend.

But as they approached the man and woman, who approached them in the opposite direction, things grew tense. First the woman approached the man and said something, to which he turned around and slapped her so hard she fell to the ground. “Stop fucking annoying me with your jabbering. If I fucking need you to do something I’ll be clear about it. Am I clear, whore?”

The woman nodded furiously back, still looking up in admiration even after this. But that did not stop the man’s anger as he grabbed her by her hair and yanked her closer.

“I asked you a question! Am? I? Clear? Whore?” Repeated the man, pulling her head back and forth by her hair. He was bigger than her, roughly the same age but in a rough shape. His red face and bleary eyes gave the impression of an alcoholic. His clothes, once expensive, looked rumpled and disheveled.

The woman cried in pain before saying, “yes! Yes, I understand. I’m sorry!” And when her eyes opened and focused on the man there was no anger at her mistreatment, no sadness, only adoration and chagrined shame, as if she was guilty for upsetting her master. Anna felt her stomach boil with anger. Now they were closer Anna noticed the woman had bruises on her body and face, and red marks on her ass. A shiver ran down her spine and she **** herself to look away. All they had to do was walk past them and -

“Hey! You there!” And the group halted as Ethan realized the man was addressing him. The man shoved the woman roughly to the ground towards Ethan. “You want to try out a new woman? Her holes are kinda worn, but you don’t have to worry about going easy with her. Be as rough as you like.” And he looked at the woman in a way that chilled Anna to her core. He wasn’t doing this out of a need for dominance or to get off… He truly despised the woman. Even now he glared down at her with naked contempt, as if the only joy he got was from making her miserable. What kind of person would claim a woman they despised so much?

But the woman obediently got to her hands and knees and, after glancing back quickly for confirmation, began crawling towards Ethan with a pathetic eager smile on her face. Ethan quickly shook his head. “I’m good, thanks,” he said.

The man glared at him, then at Nadia, Anna and Zarina as they clung to him. “Yeah,” said the angry man. “I bet you already got what you need, huh?” And without even waiting he walked up to the woman and kicked her down. “Stop crawling to him, whore. Can’t you see he doesn’t want your ugly ass? Come on.”

He turned and walked away from the group without another word, not even sparing them a glance, while the woman got up and quickly followed behind him, like a kicked puppy following its owner. The sight of it turned Anna’s stomach, and they were all quiet for a moment as they watched the other two walk away.

“If that asshole died…” Muttered Anna under her breath.

She didn’t finish her sentence, or have to. The others seemed to be thinking of the same thing, with the exception of Nadia. Anna glanced at the claimed woman among them and was disturbed by how calm the woman looked. Instead she had a thoughtful look before she turned to Ethan. “Do you want to try?” She asked. “It’s four against two, and we’re armed.”

Ethan seemed to consider, and he clenched and unclenched his hands before glancing towards Anna. So the decision fell to her. Could she do it? Could she slit that man’s throat? See the blood pouring from his wound as he fell to the ground? Could she take another man’s life?

“It’s too dangerous,” she said at last. And even as the injustice of what they had witnessed pained her to her core, there was more at stake. Her mother’s rescue, her friend’s safety, Anna couldn’t bear to jeopardize them. She was already putting them at risk by making them follow her outside again. She couldn’t put that on them as well.

The group began walking again, away from the unpleasant duo, as Anna decided something. “So you guys know…” She said, keeping her voice low so only they could hear. “If my mom is claimed, and we find the guy who did it? I… I want to do it. I’ll be the one to kill him.”

Nobody answered her, but their eyes met with Anna’s, and they nodded. This was for the best, she decided. It was her idea, her decision to save her mother. So this muder, this blood, it should be on her hands. That felt fair, to Anna. Or at least the closest that they could get to justice in this awful situation.

Grimly, the group pressed on.

Anna began to recognize her surroundings, the familiar streets and houses of her neighborhood. And her heart pounded harder and harder the closer she got, reaching a crescendo when she spotted her home. There were people moving in the distance, but nobody nearby. She broke from the group, running towards her home, knife in hand. Was she still here? Was anyone here? Could she -

That was when she spotted it. A white sheet wrapped around a body, stained with blood, near her front porch. No. It couldn’t be. Maybe it was something else. Maybe someone else? Maybe a trick, to keep people away? That had to be it, she convinced herself, even as she ran even faster, Ethan and the others trailing behind her as she rushed to the figure covered in the sheet. She had to know. She had to be sure. She pulled the sheet down.

It was her father.

The moustache was his, same face, same body… And yet how different he seemed, lying on the ground with the back of his balding head stained with blood. His hair was cut short, leaving clear the grisly back wound that had killed him. But worst of all were his eyes. They were half-lidded and sunken, staring at nothing. These were not the eyes Anna remembered, as he smiled at her, looked around, blinked and how he acted the last time he had seen her. They were still and lifeless. She could not bear to look at his eyes.

Ethan and the others quickly came to her side as her vision blurred with tears. Anna could not think, her breathing hitching and growing more panicked as she realized she would never see her father alive again. She would never hear him speak, never get a hug from him, never get annoyed by his lecturing never -

The others gently brought her inside her house. The door was open. They carried the body inside, lay it on the carpet as she tried to come to grips with it. She kept telling herself it’s over. He’s dead. He’s gone. You’ll never see him again. But somehow her mind still did not fully believe her, as if her father, her living father, was about to jump out of the closet and yell it was a joke. That he could still be alive somehow. She desperately checked for his pulse, but it was pointless. His body was cold, any warmth it once had long gone.

There were signs of struggle in her house, once so familiar. A toppled table, broken. Bloodstains on the living room, and tossed to one side a statue, its upper half splattered with blood. Once her mother had bought it from a friend who did sculptures as a part time gig, as a show of support, she said. Now, that statue had been used to **** her father. It was too much.

She began to cry. And cry. And again she tried to **** her mind to stop, to get herself together and to find the one who did it. Again her mind disobeyed her. Zarina placed an arm around her, Ethan walked around nervously while Nadia kept watch at the door. All of them witnesses to her grief.

She cried until her tears ran out and her throat hurt. Eventually, everything ends. Even tears. And so she got gingerly up to her feet and bared her teeth. “I’ll find who did this… I swear to god. I’ll fucking find them and I’ll fucking kill them!” She said.

“Umm… How are we going to find who did this?” Asked Zarina, wincing as if she did not want to ask this question. “We… Checked the house. It’s empty. Some signs of struggle, and I think someone took the food. But it’s empty.”

“I have an idea,” said Anna, getting up from the floor and glaring at the front door.

Zarina and Anna were now crowding around a small, beat-up laptop as they watched a video file slowly download from the wi-fi.

“We put the doorbell camera last month, pretty sure it worked through the whole thing,” muttered Anna, not taking her eyes off the screen, “It must have caught something…”

“Yeah, that’s smart,” said Zarina, glancing at her friend with concern. The video had just finished downloading.

Anna began to scrub through it. At first everything was quiet. The camera captured her father, William, leaving for work in his car, someone walking their dog, ordinary things. Then, things changed. The camera never quite caught anything too gruesome. A woman in running clothes fleeing home. A car speeding through the road and scraping against another parked car, leaving a broken side mirror behind. A young man with landscaping equipment and clothes walking by nervously, with an older woman in a bath robe in tow. The camera, passive and unthinking, caught only the edges of the chaos that was unfolding around town with its limited viewpoint.

But then a man approached the door and Anna’s eyes widened as she scrubbed back a few frames until his face was clearly visible. Old wrinkled face, twisted in an angry frown. A baseball cap from which tufts of white hair poked from the sides. A worn wifebeater stretching to accommodate his gut.

“Anderson!” Growled Anna. “He’s… He’s out fucking neighbour! Always giving us shit about… Oh no!” She watched in horror as he fished a key from behind a flowerpot and opened the door. “I told them not to do that… Told them it was dangerous. So stupid! Stupid! But… He shouldn’t have known…”

But arguing against the video was no use. It showed clearly as he opened the door with the spare key and walked in. The video had no sound, but Anna could almost hear it. The call, the struggle, her mother screaming. And then… That calm. That eerie, unnatural calm that came over the women. The smile.

Her other question, what happened to her father, was answered soon after. She saw his car arrive at their house, parked askew as the man quickly jumped out and ran to the front door. He fumbled with the keys, then looked visibly upset when he noticed the door was already opened. Then he barged in quickly… After which the video showed nothing for a moment, maybe half a minute or so. Then, blurry but visible, she saw her father stumble out the door, bleeding from his head, and collapse down the front porch. She choked down a sob, blinking furiously. She had to keep her eyes open, she had to see this.

Anderson, her neighbour, quickly left through the front door, holding the hand of her mother, Carmen, and dragging her behind him. Anna’s stomach turned as she saw her mother’s hair was disheveled, one strap of her dress hanging off her shoulders, her imagination going to terrible places. But worse still was watching both of them walk around her father, as he lay bleeding on the ground, and flee. Neither turned back to glance at him, not even once.

“No… Please…” Anna pleaded out loud, despite herself. Willing that somehow the camera would show something different. But the lens, indifferent to all suffering, captured the pair running out of shot as a pool of blood slowly spread from under her father’s head. Then all was still once again.

She scrubbed the video further, passing by others running or minor incidents, until late at night the camera caught an old man carrying a sheet as she shuffled towards her father. “Oh… Emilio. He was always a cool guy…” She muttered. And again a choked sob escaped her lips as she saw the tiny old man, skin tanned and weathered by the sun, with his short legs and skinny arms, crouch down and slowly wrap her father’s body in the white sheet before carrying it as best he could to the side of the house. He then took a step back and did the sign of the cross on his head and chest. A small act of kindness from a neighbour, only hours after another neighbour had violated their home.

The next morning the video caught yet again Anderson walking up to the house, followed by her mother. She seemed to still be wearing the same dress, but no bra. After disappearing inside the house for a while they reappeared carrying bags full of food and supplies. Looting her home, after disgracing it the previous day. And he didn’t even do the dignity of carrying the body somewhere else or even touching it. Only looking nervously at the body before leaving and walking away, her mother in tow.

“Do you know that guy?” Asked Zarina, looking at her with concern.

“Yeah.” Anna clenched her hands together, snarling. “Fucking Anderson, our neighbour. He always was an asshole, but… Fuck. That… That bastard!” She looked at Zarina and gripped her knife harder.

“I know where he lives,” she said. “Bastard probably is still there. Or if he’s not, he can’t have gone too far. So… Let’s go. When we find him, I want to be the one to do it. I’ll be the one to fucking kill the piece of shit!”

Zarina could do nothing but not in response, even as she looked more concerned than before.

Anderson’s house was, in fact, only two houses away from hers. Another similar, squat home. A single floor, a garage. The front yard was more unkept, the fence was different, chainlink rather than wooden. Anna eyed it with quiet intensity as they approached. Anna had her steak knife, Zarina held the stun gun with two hands, as if afraid it might slip, and Ethan had the baseball bat, which he refused to hand over to Nadia. But the blonde did not ask again or seemed bothered to be the only one without a weapon, and Anna was quietly glad she was with them. Nadia was taller and more athletic than any of them, and even without any weapons Anna was sure she would be able to help them when push came to shove.

“We need someone to watch the back door, in case they try to run,” muttered Anna, trying to peek into the house. The curtains were drawn shut.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Whispered Ethan, looking with concern around them. There was nobody in sight nearby, only distant figures that were no threat to them, but he still looked nervous.

Anna narrowed her eyes. “Nadia, you do it. Take the baseball bat with you and watch the back.”

Nadia raised her eyebrows, then glanced to Ethan. “I don’t want to leave you alone…” She whispered.

But Ethan shook his head. “I will be with the large group, you’re the one on your own. Please… Can you do this? For me?”

Nadia nodded, a brief smile blooming on her lips before she hugged Ethan and whispered, “please be careful, ok? If I think you’re in trouble I’ll come rescue you. And I won’t take no for an answer!”

And with that Ethan handed Nadia the bat before she snuck around the house while Anna, Ethan and Zarina crept up the front entrance. She tried the front door, only to find it locked, but when she pressed her ear to the door she heard noises within, distinct even if muffled.

Sounds of sex, a creaking bed, distant moans. She tensed, her face growing white as her eyes shone with anger. Then, without any time to think, she went to a nearby window and smashed it with the handle of her knife. The glass shattered, leaving shards clinging to the frame, along with a hole through which she could put her arm though, unlocking the window.

The others looked at her with alarm, tensing themselves… But nothing happened. Nobody came to check on the window, no sounds of alarm from the house, although now the whole group could hear what was distracting those inside. Ethan and Zarina exchanged nervous glances.

Slowly they opened the window and climbed in, Anna and Zarina holding firmly to their weapons while they advanced further into the house. The living room was a mess of old magazines, cigarette ash and old appliances, an old bachelor’s house. Anna made towards the other door, the source of the noise. The door opened into a small, dark hallway that smelled faintly of mildew.

But as Anna stepped into the hallway, dark as it was, her foot bumped against a pile of old cassettes, which clattered noisily to the ground.

The sounds of sex stopped, and the group immediately tensed up. Ethan walked in front of the group while the women readied their weapons. Then a door on the other side of the hallway opened, from which emerged her mother. Anna’s eyes widened as she saw her, fully naked and with messy hair. But her mother saw her too and she was the first one to speak.

“She’s here! My daughter’s here!” She said, her face lighting up before she half turned, addressing the man behind her in reverent glee. “I told you she would try and come back! Ah! But she brought more people - !”

And behind her Anderson walked into the room, shirtless and holding a pistol in his hand. And all hell broke loose.

Anna quickly charged at them, knife ready, only for her mother to jump in front of her. “Don’t you dare even think of hurting him!” She hissed at her daughter, while shoving Anna roughly against the wall. The two locked in a struggle and Anna dropped her knife, but Ethan came quickly to her rescue while Zarina rushed past them. Anderson, pointing his pistol at the struggling mother and daughter, didn’t react in time to the other woman and the stun gun made contact with a crackle. The old man yelped in pain and dropped his gun, while Carmen screamed. But she was held in place by Ethan and Anna.

Zarina kicked the gun down the hallway before quickly rushing to help the other two, holding the older woman’s arms as she cursed and kicked at them. It took Ethan and Zarina combined to pin Carmen down, leaving Anna free to pick up her knife. She shot her mother a look of concern as she pleaded at her daughter. “Please, don’t do it! He’s a wonderful man! If you were claimed you would understand! Please! Listen to your mother…! Listen to me you ungrateful little bitch!”

She shut her eyes and **** herself to look away, advancing at the old man who lay on the ground, grunting with pain. She gripped her knife, trembling with anger. This was it. Time for justice.

“This is for taking my mother from me,” hissed Anna, raising the knife and pointing it downwards as the man gasped, glancing up at her. “And for killing my father. You piece of shit!”

She raised her knife, only for her mother to shout. “No, wait! He didn’t kill William!Honey! He didn’t kill your father. I did!”

A jolt of surprise ran through the group. Noticing the pause, her mother continued. “He was trying to take me away from Andy! So I hit him in the head! If you want justice, you should kill me!”

Anna’s eyes widened and she turned back to her mother, horrified. “Y-you’re lying… No… That has to be a lie…”

Her mother glared at her, no hint of the once kind and gentle woman she had been, and snarled. “I’m the one who did it! Your stupid father was trying to take me away from Andy! So I bashed his head with the statue! And I would fucking do it again too! So don’t go after him! If it’s justice then come and punish me, not him!”

They were all stunned for a moment at these words. And unfortunately for them, that distraction proved disastrous as Anderson, still on the floor, wrapped his hands around Anna’s ankle.

“I claim you,” he grunted before letting out a cough.

With those simple words loyalty and submission exploded inside Anna’s mind, like a kaleidoscope of fireworks, and she couldn’t help but smile. Why had she been so afraid of this? She felt so silly now. And when she looked down at Anderson it was with a sense of deep reverence and love, dampened only by her concern for his well-being. She felt amazing, she had a purpose. She belonged to the greatest man she could ever hope to find.

Finally, Anna was in her rightful place.