SWNOVELS Chapter 22: Zia
Samuel was always different in her family. His compassion was incomparable to anyone. Zia remembered that one particular afternoon when Samuel lost himself completely. She had just returned from the library at that time. They were both in high school and had only three months before they graduated. Unlike Samuel, she didn’t have a plan to go to college because she wanted to be a part of their father’s hunting business. Her twin brother wanted to go to college to pursue a career as a veterinarian. His passion to save animals was endless. She’d hear about it all the times. He spent his spare time watching videos and learning on how to save animals with basic skills. That was where his heart belonged. He never belonged into the family’s business. Granted, they were twins but their interest was polar-opposite. Samuel had never been a big fan of what she did because he didn’t want her to be another version of Joshua. Enough with Clay who was a spitting image of their father and excelled in everything related to hunting.
Zia walked down the hallway of the first floor when she heard an argument came from the basement floor. Tiptoeing her way down the cracking wooden stairs of the basement, Zia hid at the nearby closet where she could hear the argument loud and clear. Like many times, Samuel argued with Joshua about something.
“Pull the goddamned trigger and prove where you belong, you insolent child!” Joshua wasn’t a man of thick patience.
Zia heard the click of a gun. Her entire body froze when she finally realized that Joshua and Samuel weren’t alone in the basement. There was someone else there. Someone who would be Samuel’s first victim if he pulled the trigger.
She ran to the door and peeked through the keyhole. Joshua forced Samuel to hold a gun at point blank on a woman’s head. She was crying on the floor with her wrists and ankles chained while her mouth was duct taped. When Samuel lowered down the gun because he couldn’t pull the trigger, Joshua beat him up repeatedly. Zia ran upstairs, unable to witness that pain that her twin brother was going through. She curled on her bed with her hands covered her ears until her body startled by the sound of a gunshot. It was quite a long time before she heard the sound of Samuel’s door closed. She ran to his room and locked the door. He was on the floor by the corner, curling into a ball with his bared and injured back was facing her. There were many red lines on his back and Zia was sure those weren’t the only ones.
As she made her way to him, Samuel’s body shook and his sob was muffled against the pillow he was holding. Zia put her hand on his arm causing him to flinch at her touch. The moment their eyes met, that was when she finally saw it. There was no longer happiness and compassion lingered in those beautiful black orbs of his. There were only sorrow, emptiness and pain. That one kill had made Samuel lost himself completely.
Zia went to search around his room for a first aid kit and body ointment. If she didn’t take care of him now, he’d look more miserable in the morning. Her hands trembled as she wiped the blood away from his face and mouth. There were no more tears fell from his eyes and he just sat at the corner like a statue while she took care of his wounds.
“How did you do it?” His voice was as lifeless as his body. “How did you pull the trigger?”
“I didn’t think about the target,” Zia replied as her fingers tapped the cotton ball against his wound on the corner of his mouth. “Someone got to pull the trigger before an innocent life was taken.”
“How did you know they were guilty?”
She stopped what she was doing. She never questioned herself that. How did she know that those wolves she had killed were guilty of the charges mentioned in the papers? How did she know that information was valid? She never made the contact with the person who gathered the information. That was Joshua’s job. He’d go to collect the information from a third party and that information was the only thing that would determine whether the target was guilty or innocent.
“Instincts,” Zia replied instead.
His eyes met hers once again. “Tell me, Zia, what would you do when one day you fall in love with one of the people you are tasked to kill?”
“All I have to do is pulling the trigger,”
Samuel gave her a weak smile as if he knew something that she didn’t.
His smile appeared before her vision as she aimed her sniper on Jaxon’s wolf. This was where Samuel’s question would be answered. It was no longer about vengeance or proving her loyalty to her father. Now, it was about answering the question that Samuel asked her two years before his tragic death.
Zia had never thought that one day she’d have to make the hardest decision in her life. Everything she knew about hunting had gone out of her life as soon as she laid her eyes on the most beautiful man walked in the supermarket. His touch and kiss made her wanted to be his prisoner for life just so that she could experience those all over again.
Her hands shook as she held onto her sniper. She wanted to pull the trigger, but her finger refused to obey her instruction. Samuel’s question kept on replying in her ears as if he was there repeating the question to her while she was aiming for the big black wolf.
It didn’t have to end this way. No, Samuel rather died in vain than was avenged by killing another thing that he adored.
Zia lowered her sniper down as now she knew the answer to his question. She couldn’t pull the trigger no matter how much she wanted to. Jaxon was never the only monster here. He was just like her. They were protecting their own family in any means necessary. They were monstrous to each other. Anyone could have become the monster when their family was at stake. And, Jaxon wasn’t the only one.
She was as monstrous as he was.
Until she was pulled into a painful reality when a gunshot echoed and a werewolf whimpered in pain.