We barely speak. Not even a hushed whisper escapes from us. The room is a mess with clothes scattered hither and thither and a large bulky body sleeping on a mattress of hay. The leader of the boys sleeps unaware of anything without a care in the world. Nothing about him looks so terrifying in the moment, as his body rests in innocence.
Still, the thought of his booming laughter, crooked teeth, and taunts about me and the way I look are enough to shake me to the core. I nearly turn to return back to my house but Adriana stares at me with a warning look that says Not now you fool. My foolishness hits me hard but Adriana takes the knife from my shaking hand. My throat runs dry and my lips become cracked.
I say nothing, as I watch her wrap my hand around the hilt of the knife and together we tear the sleeping man’s skin from his shoulder to ribs, as with her other hand, Adriana presses a poisoned clothing on the guy’s mouth. I was afraid that the screams would make an issue but Adriana had a plan for those too.
In the dark of the night, we flee like fugitives and part ways as I start to near my house. The rest of the night, I keep playing what happened in my mind. I realize that it should not have happened because the blood oozing out of his chest was too much to bear. He only ever hurt me with verbal assaults but my mind fires back a reply with how I was beaten to a pulp a number of times.
As the first rays of the sun appear, I sit straight and hold a broken mirror to my face. I wanted to see myself as an offender for once in my life. Instead, what I see completely surprises me. After the beating, my skin had worn a large scar that ran from the temple to my lip. But it was no longer there. A patch of clear, brown skin shows itself in the mirror. I look a couple of times to be sure but the scar doesn’t appear.
Exhausted I give up and in the wee hours of the dawn, sleep comes to me in short episodes.
Two days pass but nothing happens. My heart eventually learns to give up on the fear that it embraces so badly. But there is no sign of Adriana. I go to the lake every day but she doesn’t come around. I never thought it appropriate to ask her where she lived so I have no idea of where she is now.
A rumor has erupted today though that the village elders are searching everyone’s house for the weapon that slashed the bad boy’s throat. Every one already watches me with suspicion but all I worry about is that Adriana might have been caught already. This sounds like a plausible explanation for her absence.
My thoughts turn into scrambled eggs, fearing that she might have to face the consequences of getting my justice. I almost hold myself accountable for everything that is happening but I hold on to the hope that the rumor holds no ounce of truth but the fierce look that Caleb, the guy we attacked, gave me was enough to alert me that something bad was coming.
