POV Lucian

After a shower and proper meal, Akhyra and I are back on the bed. I'm holding her close to my chest in the hope that having her near will give me the courage to go over the events that I've never told anyone else before.

I really could've kept this secret if I wanted to, but the truth is I was getting tired of carrying this burden by myself. Confiding in Akhyra might not make the skeleton in my closet disappear entirely, but at least I'll be able to find comfort in the understanding of the woman I love.

Now, in the silence of the bedroom, as her hand soothingly taps against my stomach, she waits patiently for me to tell her about what has been plaguing me all these years. There's no easy way to begin this story so I choose to start where it matters, around the time that I decided that the monster who had abused my little sister didn't deserve to walk this earth. 

"When a month had passed since my sister's attempt," I say in a low voice. "She kept insisting that I needed to go back to the capital to not fall behind on my semester, but frankly, at that point, I didn't give a damn about university."

It becomes easier for me to recount the events that preceded my coming back to Port-au-Prince. Back then, I could see that Maëlla was mostly trying to keep a brave facade for the sake of my mother and I. One day, we had an argument about it, and for the first time, I realized that treating her like she was a fragile broken thing was the worst decision I could've taken. 

Looking back at it, I handled this situation like a mindless prick. I firmly believed that I needed to make up for not looking after Maëlla and preventing this tragedy from happening. I was constantly looking for signs that she might attempt again. I was suffocating her, making this entire thing about me being a bad brother when I should've just chill the fuck out and let her tell me how she needed me to help.

Maëlla didn't want to go through the process of going to the police and file a report against her abuser. For a while my mother and I debated whether we should respect her wishes.

My mother didn't want to push the issue because she was aware of how often victims of sexual assault got disregarded by authorities. The fact that the abuser didn't live in our town posed another issue. Maëlla didn't want word to get around town about the assault and we both knew that going to the police about this would be the fastest way to make the news spread.

What my sister feared the most was to get ostracized by the community once they discovered what happened to her and unfortunately this was often the case for victims of sexual abuse. Her life at school would've become a silent hell of judgment from others and neither of us could bear for that to happen. So eventually my mother and I decided to drop it.

This decision incidentally began to create a constant war in my mind about how unfair it was that nothing would happen to him when my sister had been drastically changed forever. Maëlla might have survived her suicide attempt, but this monster had killed her in more ways than once.

What made me sick more than anything was the fact that I was the bridge that connected him to her. This wasn't a random stranger lurking in a dark alley. It was someone that I went out for drinks with. The guy with whom I often stayed up late to figure out a coding assignment until we finally gave up and went on YouTube to find a video that explained the solution.

When I started to feel homesick during my first semester of freshman year, he'd be the only friend I had made back then who decided to take me around the capital to discover the vibrant nightlife of Port-au-Prince 

It would be an euphemism to say that I had a hard time digesting that I was responsible for inviting him to my home during spring break of my junior year. The fact that whenever I closed my eyes, it brought me back to that bathtub and Maëlla's unconscious body... It didn't help at all.

So, one day, I just decided to go back to the capital. I told Maëlla I was going to close my cursus because I didn't feel like continuing for that year, which was partly true, but I had an ulterior motive.

After a month of radio silence my friends had been excited to see me again and when I told them I was planning on dropping out they decided that we should go out one last time as a group before my departure. This really made it easier for me. He'd be there. 

I remained sober while the rest of them drank their mind off. Then, when it was time to call it a night, I designated myself as his chauffeur to be able to drive him home. From that moment, my humanity had completely shut off. Only the word retribution played in a constant loop in my mind. I came prepared to deliver the only fitting punishment for the crime he had committed. 

When we arrived at his house, he could barely stand up. I had to drag his ass inside.  

Then, my brain took over the rest of the operation. I had done my research before coming here. I wanted him to suffer, but anything involving blood would create an extra mess and risked leaving evidence behind. 

I tied up his legs and his arms with the rope I'd brought in my backpack, then put some socks in his mouth before securing it with duct tape in case he woke up before time. Then I turned on some music. Not too loud to avoid disturbing the neighbors, but enough to keep any muffled scream from getting out.

My next mission was the bathroom. I was lucky that this was a one-story house, so there would be no stairs to climb with him. Bonus part: his mother lived abroad, and his father worked for an NGO that served many provinces which meant that he was rarely in the capital.

Once the water had reached the desired level, I turned off the faucet. I tried to carefully get him inside, but my foot slipped, and his head hit against the bathtub. 

I will never forget the way I felt when his eyes opened, his face clouded in confusion at first before becoming fully alert when he realized that he was incapacitated. I gave myself a few seconds to see him trashed in fear before looking at me with pleading eyes, his desperate muffled scream strangled around his gag.

I had dedicated an unhealthy amount of time to thinking about what I'd say to him in his final moments, whether I would tell him that this was retribution for what he did to my sister. But now that we were here, I didn't want to talk about her to him. So the only thing I told this scumbag was that I'd see him in hell, then forced his head down under the water. 

He put up a good fight. That's all I'll say about it. The details aren't important. 

When it was over, I wrapped his body in a blanket that I took from a room and secured it with ropes. I thought it'd be challenging to get him to the trunk of his car without raising suspicions but his house was an enclosed property with high walls and when I checked outside there was no light from the windows nearby. 

I drove his body to a deserted area and spent almost four hours digging a hole deep enough with a shovel I'd found at his place. By the time I finished the whole process of dumping him where he belonged then refilling the hole, the muscles of my arms and my spine were on fire. My knees felt that they were ready to give in if the wind blew a little too hard. 

I had buried him with the license plate of his car and abandoned the vehicle a few miles away with the keys inside. It would undoubtedly get stolen long before sunrise, not my problem anymore. 

As I sat in public transport on my way out of the capital, my mind was awfully quiet. For the past month I'd been plagued with all these thoughts of revenge and now that I'd finally executed the plan, it looked like my brain had nothing else to say to me. At least not for the moment. I wasn't naive enough to believe that my actions wouldn't haunt me in my sleep.

I made it to Arcahaie around six in the morning. I should've been relieved to come back home and yet, my feet refused to carry me to our house.

When I walked by the sea I noticed that some fishermen were preparing to take their boats out. I approached the oldest one of them and asked if it was okay to join and he happily agreed. I helped him fish and listened to the many stories that he had to share.

For the first time since leaving Port-au-Prince, I could breathe a bit better. My body felt depleted of all energy and it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't slept all night. The old man suggested that I lie down and take a quick nap. He could tell that I was exhausted. 

As I looked up at the pale blue of the morning sky, my body gently being swayed by the boat, it dawned upon me that I took a human life. This was something that I would have to live with until I took my last breath. A small price to pay in comparison to the torture my little sister had to endure. 

A life for a life.