Becoming Macy

Two

TW: VIOLENCE/MURDER

Macy:

This last week of high school dragged by. Gabriella and I were getting ready for graduation when Sonny pulled both of us to the side to talk with us.

“I know you girls have created your own college plans. But it has been brought to my attention that one of you isn’t sticking to the plan your mother and I have made for you. So, Macy, I have taken the liberty of rejecting your other applications and accepting the invitation to attend Seven Hills University. That way, our girls will get a quality private education, and you will still be close to home for holidays and breaks.” Even with this bastard dragging the rug from underneath me, ruining anything I had envisioned for myself, I couldn’t feel anything.

“No, Daddy. She was supposed to be out of my hair. I am tired of babysitting her for you.” Gabriella snapped, but I just sat quietly, watching their madness unfold.

As their argument furthered, I left the room knowing that Seven Hills University was my next four years, and I would do well to get through it quietly. I left the room, finished dressing, and left without them. I knew I wasn’t welcome to be with them anyway.

We had all taken our seats, and as the ceremony commenced, I was the first to cross the stage to receive my diploma so I could control the equipment from the audio room. I had to make this special for everyone, and I did, even without their knowing it.

As the ceremony closed, I became scarce, choosing to stay in the shadows of my peers. I stood in the audio room, watching from above the crowd of loved ones and students. My mother and Sonny rushed to Gabriella with a bouquet of flowers, hugging and congratulating her and Wyatt. But I stood back, waiting for something to make me feel something. Jealousy, rage, anything, and again… nothing came. So I left. Night had fallen, and summer had arrived. The warm air blew against my skin, making me wonder how such sensations could be felt on the surface when there was nothing to be felt inside me.

The first trash can I came across, I chucked my cap and gown into it. I don’t need it... I don’t want it. A ding from my cell got my attention, and I pulled it out to read a text from a stranger deeply in love with someone who clearly doesn’t know they exist.

“You looked beautiful tonight,” I read it carefully, almost enjoying how the buzz on my skin sank into my chest for only a split second of fleeting emotion.

“You have the wrong number. Sorry.”

I shoved my phone back into the pocket of my dress and kept stomping my way through a city I had no care for, and now I will barely be out of the city limits for college.

I had completed some very illegal hacking jobs for a company that found me online. I had basically helped them smuggle thousands of weapons into the city undetected, and while I was paid well for it, that money was meant to go for my college tuition, a vehicle, and the apartment that I had thought so much about, and my freedom was gone. It had been taken… again.

“Hey baby, let me see what’s under that little dress.” A scraggly man from the alley stepped out of the shadows, and I don’t know if his words or the look in his eye told me what he would do to me if I stepped into that alley. But something lit a raging fire in my chest. Anger… this must be anger.

I stepped into the dimly lit alleyway as the rotten smirk of this bastard revealed his secrets. I pretended to stumble, only to subtly catch myself on the metal bar of an old dumpster that gave way to my weight. I gripped the bar as his hands slid across my hips, cupping my ass. The rage that had swelled to a head had burst, and this man… this sick pervert, was on the receiving end of that anger.

“Come here. I’m going to make you feel so good,” he murmured in my ear, blasting me with his putrid breath. My head swam with the decision I had made. But I no longer have the time to think about those consequences. I swung the bar, striking the man between the eyes. When he fell to the ground with blood spurting from his forehead, a rush of feeling hit me like a freight train, causing me to stumble. And as the thrill of emotion faded, I started hammering his head in with the pipe again, and as that numbness faded away, a monster was born from the feelings that I couldn’t feel any other way.

I woke up too sore to move the following day. I don’t even remember leaving that alley. But even so, I could not feel guilt over what I had done last night. I checked the cameras in the city to ensure I hadn’t missed something that would tie me to that area. When, for the third time, I was sure nothing was there, I showered again and then went downstairs to find a bite before getting to work checking emails for new jobs, only I didn’t make it downstairs before my mother caught me at the steps shoving a cup of coffee into my hands and sending me back upstairs. Wyatt is here, and I can’t show my face when he is in the house. No one knows that when my mother weaseled into the Barlow fortune, she brought a child into the relationship with her, and honestly, I prefer it that way. I locked my bedroom door, put on headphones, and got to work looking through the email ads on the dark web. A red chat box popped up. The company that had used me three times before this one was looking for my assistance again.

Gatekeeper: This time, the pay will be raised with the condition that you can shut the cameras off over the boat docks.

Deadly Nightshade: I can shut the entire city down for the right price. Let me know the details and the route, and once my payment has been received, I will have it ready for you at the time provided.

With that reply, I started scouring for other jobs that may need my hacking abilities. Only… I found something far more disgusting. There were videos all over of the things that men would do to women and children. I just never paid attention to them before. Flashes of the monster inside swept through my brain, cleansing it of any other thought than killing again. But I quickly shook those thoughts and began looking for jobs like I had initially intended. Last night was a one-time thing that can’t happen again. I can’t let it happen again.