Getting stuck in a room with only one entrance and exit ended up being an advantage to me, as one by one the guards fell to the tune of my bullets as I emptied my magazines until they stopped trying to come in. At least one of them had the bright idea of throwing a smoke bomb in. Of course, they did not know I had a mask and glasses that had been designed for that very purpose. I proceeded with caution, just because they had stopped coming did not mean there were no more guards.
The hallway was surprisingly empty, which at the very least told me that men were in charge of operations in this safe house. It could have also been the advantage we had since they had not anticipated us coming, but the lack of continuous resistance disappointed me a little bit. I made my way to the main office, which, according to the blueprints my baby had handed me, also doubled as a panic room. The room was sealed as expected. The reinforced door would have only been a deterrent if I intended to gain access to the room. Fortunately for us, my baby believed in working smart, not hard.
"It's all clear, baby, you can come up."
I scouted the remaining rooms while waiting for her to get to me, and I couldn't help the twinge of disappointment when I found the rooms empty. I had been anticipating a lot more resistance, which led me to believe that maybe half of their force had remained with the big man. I made my way back to the door just as my babe came up the stairs, eyes sharp, her entire body tense and alert. She set her high-tech toy down so that it leaned on the door. I let her do her thing while I surveyed around us, in case the occupants of this compound had a few tricks up their sleeves. After a few minutes, my baby cheered, seemingly having accomplished whatever she had been doing. I glanced back and was met with an intact door. I looked at her, puzzled, almost missing the thin needle-like pipe that she was feeding into a minute hole that had to have been made by her toy.
The one flaw with safe rooms was how hard it was to break in, which was just as challenging as it was to get out. You couldn't knock it down if you tried, which was beneficial if the enemy was on the other side of the door. The nerve gas that my baby was currently directing into the closed room could incapacitate in seconds, rendering its recipient dead in no less than five minutes. During those five minutes, whoever was exposed experienced unimaginable pain, usually hallmarked by anguished screams and violent thrashing. Whoever was in that room probably wished death would come a lot faster. My baby didn't let up until the five minutes were up, an unnecessary precaution that was a testament to her nature.
We made our way down just as the cleaning crew burst through the doors led by Brian. My baby finally let out a sigh of relief, which was my way of knowing that our job here was done. Another day of dropping bodies was completed. Just like every other time I took on a job, I felt a trickle of guilt, drowning in the abstract idea of mortality, flood my mind. Her hands enclosed mine in a warm meeting that dried the flood and grounded me. My baby knew exactly what I needed and gave it to me each time without hesitation.
The weather was still great when we finally stepped out of the house. Within a short period, close to thirty people had died, but the sun still shone brightly and the world still moved oblivious to the pain and suffering of its occupants. I had learned long ago that it was a dog-eat-dog world and you could either kill or be killed. I had had enough of being helpless, I swore that for as long as I was alive, I would fight to establish my place in this world. If there was an afterlife, then all the suffering I had caused would finally catch up to me, but until then, I would enjoy everything life had to offer. Her airy laughter was accompanied by the screech as we peeled out of the compound, leaving a disgruntled Robin behind.
I slowly became aware of a steady stream of tears that had long since saturated my pillow. Even as my mind tried its best to escape reality, it was yanked back once there was a natural pause in my fantasy. Alone with my thoughts that were too heavy to whisk away with my fantasies, my very soul buckled with the intensity of sorrow that coursed through my veins. I tried my very best to escape back into my fantasies, but no comforting images presented themselves; only the memory of the last day I held her in my arms remained. If I had trusted her less and told her nothing, she would have been here with me.
Our lives are determined by a series of rooms and those who are in those rooms with us. I had been in plenty of beautiful rooms filled with shitty people who had done nothing but cause me pain. My father whipped me until I bled in my bedroom because I spilled tea on his guest, never mind that I was only six. My mother stuffed my underwear with drugs in a changing room because the police were following up on a complaint made by a disgruntled employee. My brother faced outside while three of his friends sexually assaulted me because I was a bitch that needed to learn my place. All luxurious rooms that held nothing but painful memories for me.
I had been abused so frequently in my life that I had become numb to it all. My body, my mind, and my spirit had been battered one too many times for me to be truly affected. My body adapted to pain, I lost my spirit, and my mind lay scattered, escaping reality at any chance it got. I was broken in more ways than I was willing to admit, yet when she came into my life, everything instantly became better. Rarely were we ever in beautiful rooms that had decent people. Claire was like a ray of sunshine in an ice wasteland. With her, I laughed and I dreamed. With her by my side, I found myself hoping for a better world, and true to my life, I had to watch her die while she tried to protect me.
That night, sleep evaded me, and the constant tossing and turning did not make me feel better. I finally gave up at one o'clock, opting for a quiet walk along the beach. I picked up a warm coat, some mismatched warm socks, and made my way downstairs. I caught a movement and almost jumped out of my skin when I saw what it was. Standing against the open kitchen door, hair and gown wildly dancing in tune with the wind, sunshine looked like a ghost. A board creaked beneath me, causing her to whip around towards the sound, letting out a sigh when she spotted me. She gave me a cautious smile, and a hint of something vaguely familiar that had my heart twinging with pity. Sunshine looked so lonely and closed up, yet standing there against the biting cold wind and endless dark, there was a beauty to her. Like a carving at the helm of a boat, a rustic look that did nothing to dull the beauty that shone from underneath all of time's corrosions.
"I am going for a walk, want to join me?" I signed to her and was met with an eager nod.
We both stepped into the night, comfortable with the silence and grateful for the dark. For the next hour, we slowly walked around the beach, each of us lost in our worlds, taking comfort in the knowledge that we were not alone. A shiny shell caught my eye, and I bent down to pick it up, but never made it back up. It was as if the weight of my grief doubled, dragging me to the sand. That seashell was almost identical to the one that had brought Claire to me. Despite the silent screams in my head, my mind dragged me down another memory, and I could do nothing but relive it. The happier memories were somehow harder for me. Claire was my happiness, and I had dragged her into the filth of my life that extinguished her shine. A raw sob was torn from my throat, the strength I had left dissipated under the onslaught of my guilt, leaving me curled up in the sand.
It had been a beautiful day, ten-year-old me was grateful to be out and about, and more importantly, away from my family. My mother let me come to the beach with my nanny, an empty platitude after having my arm broken by my father in one of his fits. My left arm was cast, but that did nothing to diminish the happiness I felt while away from home. As I ran down the beach, a sharp pain had me falling in the sand. Tears instantly filled my eyes as the pain in my broken arm shot through my body, erasing the sting that had brought me down in the first place.
"Are you okay?" A bubbly voice called out, followed by a giggle
I turned around, ready to lash out at the person who was laughing at my pain, but was stopped in my tracks by the liquid gold eyes that were in my face. She was so close that the tips of our noses were touching. She moved back, but a second later shoved a bloody shell in my face. She tilted her head like a puzzled puppy, and despite being in pain, I couldn't help but laugh. She laughed with me even though it was still clear she was still confused, which had me doubling in laughter, my pain long forgotten. She got to her feet and held out her hands towards me, which I gratefully took and got up with her support.
The rest of that day was filled with laughter and an indifference to the world that only children were capable of. For the first time in my life, I ran and played without a care in the world, and that feeling was nothing short of addictive. I wanted to spend more time with her, so on Monday, when she was introduced to us in class as a new student, I knew it could only be fate. She insisted on sitting next to me, forcing the teacher to relocate my desk mate, and although I was too young to realize it, ours was a friendship to the death. It was a pity that her life had been cut short.
Sunshine finally made her way to me and sat down next to my curled body. She slowly brought her hand to my head and began softly running her hands through my kinky hair. That soothing gesture devolved my anguished sobs into a steady stream of tears. I did not deserve to be comforted, but I did not stop her, and it had nothing to do with the fact that I could not get up. It took a while before my tears ran dry, by then Sunshine had opted for a more comfortable position, lying her body next to mine, her arms covering mine. I sank into her warmth, and that's how we drifted off to sleep, waking up to the glaring sun rays.
Over breakfast, I told Sunshine my plans and the parts I wished for her to play, and true to her personality, when I was done, she nonchalantly agreed as if we were discussing going on a vacation. I was asking her for more than people would ask of their family, let alone friends, and yet she gave in to me without wasting a second of thought. In my moment of vulnerability, I glimpsed a sliver of darkness in her that scared me. It was as if in the mirror of my grief her thirst for destruction became clearer, and the silver that I saw was not to be dismissed. I found myself questioning my assumptions about her scars, there was a backbone to her that was camouflaged by her gloomy outlook. She had opened a small gap in her heart only when I let my ugliness out. I squashed my conflicting emotions down; if she was truly worse than she seemed, then it would only be an advantage for me.