Chapter 24 Shards of Ice

Songs for this chapter are:

Your body - Mi Casa

Nice Things - Wande, Taylor Hill

Love - Kendrick Lamar, Zacari

Family Photo - Andy Mineo, Weathrman

Cassandra

"Why the hell did you come back to my life if you never loved me?"

I am ravaged beyond what I can assert. His confessions slashed through the veins of my heart and soul like shards of ice and I can swear it froze me completely from within, each sharp end of the glacier, threatening to stab through my throat next, depriving me of the last emblem of life remaining—my breath.

Can I establish the sensations I feel as anger? Or pain? Or even morbidity? Even the question I have managed to ask him took me roughly twenty minutes to garner only for my voice to come forth seemingly as hollow as a drain pipe through which all of my hopes and even my life was flooding away, every form of color draining completely away from my face.

"Because I realized along the way that I actually loved you. So very much in fact. I just could not move on even after I'd managed to survive in the ghetto. You were always on my mind but I denied it for so long."

"Are you joking right now, Dan?" My fists are taut and clenched and tears imperil to leak down my cheeks but something in me was not willing to give Dan the satisfaction of watching me shed tears, because right now, I know not of what Dan sees me as but I fight back those silly tears for precautionary measures.

"I—"

"I was really on my own, Dan. I did nothing to you and your father all I did was stay pretty as a child and you used that against me. How was that even my fault? You had the tenacity to ask your Dad to kidnap me for your own purpose. You had the thick nerve to watch me go through all of that pain I went through, watch my friend die on my birthday, watch me get whooped in the ass with deadly objects, watch me starve for days!!

Yet you even had a thicker nerve to come to keep me company, to disguise yourself as a slave, to act as my savior, you even went to the lengths of saving me, holding me by the hand and running dangerously through the tunnel, ALL FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR LIBERTY! You deprived me of my freedom, you ruined my childhood, made me have terrible nightmares, and those bloody olfactory hallucinations I often get yet to still came back like you're the only bulwark that I have. Are you actually saying you did those things to me?!"

"Yes, Cassie. I did. I was in greater pain, Cassie. I witnessed my mother's death. I had no relatives talk more of friends to rely on. I was drowning in pain but no single soul believed me when I told it to them because they felt there was no way the son of a wealthy loan shark would ever be in pain. I suffered a great deal, Cassie and you were the only I felt could help me break free from bondage. I got selfish but I truly wanted to live, Cassie and now I'm back because I realized you're what I need to make my life complete."

"Did you just use the word, "help"? You used me, Dan! I never consented to helping you!" I fired.

"After killing my dad as I did just to get a life of my own, I deemed it necessary to only live a good life, far different from my dad's life. Killing him without living an accountable life would only undermine the reason for his death and that's why I want you, Cassie."

"But you are just like your father, Dan. Even worse. You assaulted women like that in the ghetto. You stole your way through to get a place of shelter for yourself and I'm sure you stole your way through to start that dairy milk truck business you were doing. You made me look like the bad person for kissing Mustafa that day when you yourself were already doing worse things even before we got to see each other again. You're a disgusting, pathetic mess and you don't even know it. You killed your dad for nothing and you could not even for the sake of your deceased, innocent mother make a decision to live an amazing life. You are a failure."

"And so are you. Since we are both failures. Isn't that the more reason why we should be together? I mean, you have been manipulating that poor guy too. He's supposed to be your best friend. You took advantage of the feelings he had for you and you got married to him and even bore kids for him just so you could gather all of his wealth to yourself, thinking that bulky wealth and power would help eradicate the pain and loneliness you feel on the inside. Material things don't hear your pain. Also, let's not forget that you were cheating on him too."

With an evil smirk on his face and a slight tilting of his left eyebrow, he proceeds to ask; "Do you even have an idea of what a relationship is or how it works?"

"And who should I blame that on? You freaking RUINED ME, DAN!"

"No, your mother did and it's even worse that you resolved into following her footsteps. She saw you as nothing but a commodity and made a deal with someone she didn't even know properly. She was you as an instrument of potential business transaction, and you couldn't for the sake of your own future, be determined to be the exact opposite of your mother.

Instead, you went ahead to conceive children you do not even love for a man you don't love. You only deemed it necessary to bear children because you figured that they would be of great financial advantage to you. Now, how the hell are you any different from your mother?"

I open my mouth to say something but I don't know If it's the traitorous tears streaming down my face that stops me from talking or the fact that Dan just happened to be faster than I was. Either way, I couldn't say anything.

"I didn't ruin you, Cassie. Your mother did. All I did was use the situation to my own favor."

And that was just about the last straw that broke the camel's back. Four hours earlier, I'd been staying in this strange apartment, till the sun went down, different emotions playing inside my soul as he rambled on and on about all of the things he had done and the true intentions laced behind his actions.

Anger welled up on the inside of me and if let it dwell it in my soul for four, dolorous hours but hearing him spit these vile words at me in the living room, as the light from the ornate chandelier case a warm, dull glow over us, it felt like the hot lava that had been boiling inside of me had already reached the peak of it's boiling point and now all that was left of it was to illuminate the night with a beclouding of it's insane uproar.

I did just what I'd been yearning to do ever since he started confessing to me.

I take a few strides towards where he is seated on the sofa and give him the very hardest slap I could muster with the strongest of my might and it sent the affected cheek turning involuntarily to the side only for him to raise his face at me, very, very, very slowly with a smug, vile grin of his face like a mad man.

As his eyes shone with evil glamor, I can not help but feel like masochism was all that there was to his entire existence. Just like his father. At that moment, I was sure that, that was really all he was, All he had ever been dating back to the day I first met him on the field and little wonder why he wasn't affected by my slap. The bastard must think I'm a sad little puppy playing dangerous, childish games with it's owner.

"YOU VILE BASTARD!" Just as I raise my arm up high again to imprint my fingers on his cheek with another resounding slap, my arm gets stuck in the mid-air and just before I can get a grasp of why I could not move my mind, talk more of making an attempt to yank it away, I feel his strong arms pull me closer to him by the back of my head until his lips envelop mine in a forceful kiss with the Mephistopheles himself.

"You are stuck with me whether you want it or not and Farida is what stands in between us now. SHE'S MY-rather, OUR DAUGHTER! Huh?!" he growls in between his incessant kisses.

Praying to the almighty to add to the last ounce of strength I had left, I dunk my fist forcefully into his rock hard chest like an act of faith and God answers my prayers when I'm successfully able to shove my body away from his and wasting no millisecond in lunging a ghastly, macabre punch; the highest I'd ever lunged at anyone and indeed it was grisly because crimson red blood had started to gush out of his nostrils.

"OWW!" He grunts, holding his nostrils to feel the blood oozing out of it.

I can tell that it hurt him gravely but it is absolutely nothing pertained to the painful emptiness her made me feel so just before he could take advantage of any alight display of slackness from my part to molest me, I grab a hold of his left hand, twisting it hard to the best of my ability as I hear the bone in his wrists crunch and perhaps snap into two in the process. Yes! I hope I broke his arm because I used a great lot of effort for someone with petit fingers like mine.

But just in case it didn't hurt him much either, I use my legs as well, throwing the mightiest kick I could gather from my knowledge of the martial arts and yes, the effectiveness of my kick was drastic enough to make the sofa shift behind his derriere, making him fall face flat onto the ground with a 'thud'

He is nearly motionless now. Hurray!

With heavy breathing emanating from the two of us, I go on my knees, squatting to have a balanced facial contact with him, as blood slushing from his nostrils drip onto the creamy tiled floor, his face a monstrous, terrific mess as his left eye had rapidly gotten sore, the eyelids a seeming mishmash of pink and purple with the veins of his face, spreading through like venom as though they were going to bust out like tentacles at any second.

I grab a fistful of his brown locks roughly, making the bastard look me in the eye despite how visibly close he was to actually loosing his breath.

"I'd say it for the last time. Farida is not your child. The days of captivity are over, okay? And there shall be absolutely nothing that would bind the two of us together ever again. Not even plums and tulips."

"A DNA test would determine that sweetie. Don't be too hasty to concludwn, " He says in a raspy, choked voice as blood had drained all of his white, sparkling dentition, like a bucket full of a red paint splashing over a white city wall, or like a vampire who'd just feasted on meaty flesh. His eyes are slowly drawing to a close now.

Just as I am about to kick him heavily in the stomach in a way that would most likely send his intestine gushing out through his throat, a sharp knock comes at the door which makes my heart knock sharply against my chest in paranoia, several thoughts reeling through my mind like fireflies in the fields at night.

I let go of Dan immediately and get onto my feet.

The knocking persists and it gets sharper by each passing moment. Did I say my heart was racing before? Well, It was definitely skyrocketing now.

"Open this door now before we open it for you and when we do, you will be dead by then because we are going to blow your damn brains out and don't be so dumb as to think you can run because you are surrounded heavily!" The feminine, bass voice comes out from behind the door.

Sweat drips down my palms in trepidation and lividness as cleithrophobia seizes my guts.

What the hell?!

***

Psalms 55:12-14 - "For it is not an enemy who reproaches me; then I could bear it. Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me; Then I could hide from him. But it was you, a man my equal, my companion and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in the throng."