Beneath love and lies

The scent of blood clung and hovered around the air,the presence of death crept under her skin and rooted in deep parts of her mind she could feel it,she could see it,the torture the pain the fear it’s all embedded her vision. Little Valeria clutched unto her mothers hand under the kitchen table,her tiny body trembling as heavy boots thundered through the house. Shouts.Crashes.Then-gunshots. One.Two.Three. She squeezed her eyes and bit her lip so hard and deeply that it bled. But hiding couldn’t save them,the men with hollow smiles ,dark eyes and guns dragged her fathers lifeless body as she stared at his empty eyes those eyes that promised to never leave her,his eyes was burnt into her soul as her mothers voice was silenced with a brutal crack. Valeria wanted to move,to run,but she was frozen trapped within the living and the dead. Just when she thought she was going to die…another gunshot rang out but it wasn’t for her. Chaos exploded. Through the smoke a man she barely recognised fought like a demon,dragging her out of the darkness . Her uncle. Her saviour. Covered with blood that wasn’t his whispered harshly,“Close your eyes mi Vida.Never look back. And she didn’t. Not even as the house burned behind them turning her childhood into ash. TEN YEARS LATER At twenty-two Valeria wasn’t the frightened girl who once hid under the table. Now,she wore danger like a skin. Now,she had a mission-FIND THE MEN WHO DESTROYED HER FAMILY AND END THEM.