Sin blankly eyed the pathetic cowering man on the floor as he begged for his life. Her voice sliced through his pitiful pleading, echoing in recurring ripples around them.
‘Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.’
Her tone was biting, like the touch of winter’s breath on his skin. Even as she watched, the drop in temperature tinged the man’s lips a mottled indigo as his breathing slowed to a staccato she savoured in. She looked like the ice queen she was nicknamed, but there was no denying that what she lacked in emotion, was more than made up for in the chilling manifestation of her pure, pulsating rage that at this moment, teased his very survival. Impatient with his silence, she waved a hand that once again triggered his shrill tortured screams. As the hammer came down on his hand with a wet thud, crushing every bone to a pulp, she winced as he reached a new height in soprano, and with another flick of her hand, he fell silent. Her eyes washed over him indifferently as he choked on an invisible force that threatened to suffocate him, yet before he succumbed to darkness, she released him, letting him grab a short gasp before starting again.
‘Please… Sin, st-stop.’
Instantly, she stopped, leaning down towards him. He created a pitiful picture, curled up in a ball as though the foetal position would protect him from her fury. Her voice was just above a whisper, deceptively soft as she repeated herself.
‘Why? Tell me why.’
Gently, she brushed back his hair, almost affectionately like a loving mother and her child, yet instead of providing comfort, he flinched at her touch, the frostbite left in her wake, betraying her dark intentions.
He whimpered, knowing that he deserved what was coming. Closing his eyes, he recalled the carnage from seven years ago, remembering how he had enjoyed the thrill at the time, revelling in the agonised screams of her family as he hacked and mauled and tore them apart. And now, before him stood the child they were supposed to destroy, the child whose power was a force to be reckoned with. The child that was too powerful to live. And now, she who lived, was here for him.
For revenge.
And there was nothing he could do to stop her.
Hafsa Khalil 