1/3 of a whole
The mansion gleamed in the afternoon sun like a pearl perched on a hill, every surface polished until it reflected the crystal chandeliers hanging from vaulted ceilings. Ten bedrooms, eleven and a half bathrooms, marble floors that were too cold to touch without a shiver, and mirrors that reflected back more than appearances—they reflected expectation. Gardens spilled out behind the house, fountains tinkling with a serene rhythm, flowers perfectly trimmed, roses in full bloom, and forget-me-nots scattered in tiny patches, blue as fragile and serene as still water.
It was a house that promised safety, wealth, perfection. And yet, every polished corner, every silent hallway, every glimmering fixture was a lie. It has been a lie for the past year since our mother died.
I crouched near the bottom of my bed, the cool marble pressing into my knees, as I clutch the pot of forget-me-nots I carried in from the garden. The flowers shook in my hands, trembling as I held them like talismans. I could hear my own breath, uneven, panicked, catching like it was trying to escape my throat. He wasn't supposed to be here yet its to early.
A footstep on the marble, a staggered shuffle, the slur of a drunken curse—he was here. Our stepfather. The man who had made our lives a cage, our home a prison.
Standing up I made my way to behind the door, my fingers tightening around the pot. The tiny blooms, so delicate, seemed like they could shatter in my hands, like everything in the world could shatter in the next moment.
He stumbled down the hallway, his shadow stretching long across the marble. I froze. My heart thudded. I wanted to run, to scream, to do something—but fear held me still, locked me in place like iron chains.
I felt like the air had been sucked from the room. I could hear the faint creak of the floorboards beneath his boots, the grunt as he adjusted his balance.
“You think you can hide from me" He chuckled lowly "oh i know, lets play Marco Polo?” His voice was rough, heavy with liquor, low and dangerous. “Marcoooo.”
I could hear his steps quicken. My hands trembled. The forget-me-nots rattled in the pot. I swallowed, but my throat was dry. My mind screamed, Do something. Protect them.
The door burst open. Ryan tried to block him, arms flailing. Light scrambled back, her scream swallowed in a wet, sickening thud. My knees buckled. I wanted to move. I wanted to fight. But I was too small. Too weak. Too late.
The next moments fractured into a series of horrifying images and sounds. Fists collided with flesh. Bones cracked. The metallic tang of blood filled the air, strong and unrelenting. Ryan cried out, falling to the floor with a painful thump. Light’s hair was matted, her small body curling as she shrank into herself, trying to make herself invisible.
I wanted to rush in, to scream, to claw at him, to throw myself between him and them, but I was frozen. The world narrowed to the sounds of his boots on the marble, the wet smack of fists against flesh, the low grunts of exertion, the high-pitched whimpers of my siblings, and the metallic scent of blood filling my lungs.
The room had already become a nightmare. Ryan’s body lay crumpled near the bed, his chest rising in uneven jerks. His eye was already swelling shut, blood streaming from his lip where a tooth had been knocked loose. Light had tried to crawl away, her fingers scraping against the polished wood floor, but he caught her ankle and yanked her back like she was nothing more than a doll.
“Think you can run?” he snarled, spittle flying, his words slurred with drink. “Think you’re better than me? You’re nothing—just like your mother was nothing.” I watched horrified as he unbuckled his pants. He had to let go of lights leg to remove her underwear, when he did light kicked him right in the dick. He crumpled over with a high pitch screech coming out of his mouth. Light raced to get up, to run towards me and the only escape from the room. He was faster it must of been the numbness of the alcohol or the adrenaline but he was able to grab lights hair as she ran past him he yanked. I remember seeing lights eyes go round and tears fall down almost as if it was slow motion her head hit the ground so hard. It was as if every thing else got quiet and all that was heard was the thump of her skull. blood bloomed almost like a rose opening its peddles for the first time so morbidly beautiful. the scene was broken as he stood up towering over her body pants still unzipped
He drove his boot into her side. The sound was sickening—a crunch, sharp and final. Light’s cry was thin, almost birdlike, before it cracked into silence.
“STOP!” My voice tore from my throat before I realized I was screaming. “STOP, you’ll kill them!”
His head snapped toward me. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, gleaming with a kind of cruel pleasure that made bile rise in my throat. He smiled. A crooked, jagged smile.
“You want me to stop, Mary?” He stomped down on Light’s ribs again. She coughed, red spraying from her lips. “Then make me.”
Ryan groaned, pushing himself up onto shaking elbows. “Leave her alone… leave her alone,” he whispered, voice ragged.
The stepfather turned, fist swinging. It connected with Ryan’s temple, the sound like wood cracking under pressure. Ryan dropped, boneless, his head striking the corner of the dresser with a dull thunk. His body twitched once, then went still.
And then… a moment of clarity. A glint of possibility.
In the corner of the room, almost out of sight, sat a marble cherub, part of the décor of this absurdly lavish house. Heavy. Solid. Impossibly perfect for what I needed.
I grabbed it. My knuckles whitened. The weight burned my arms, but it was nothing compared to the rage, grief, and fear coiling inside me. My pulse thundered.
I raised the cherub.
The cherub statue felt impossibly heavy in my hands, the cold marble biting into my palms, but I clung to it like it was the only lifeline left in the world. My breath was ragged, my chest aching from the way I held it, but I didn’t move yet.
“No!” My knees gave out beneath me, and I crumpled, the cherub nearly slipping from my grip. Hot tears burned my eyes, blurring the horrific scene into a watercolor of red and white and shadow. My chest heaved. I couldn’t breathe. Ryan wasn’t moving.
Light’s scream cut through me like glass. She tried to crawl toward him, tried to pull her brother into her arms. He kicked her in the jaw, the force whipping her head back so fast I heard the crack before I saw her collapse. Her small frame shook once, twice, then went limp beside Ryan.
And then—silence.
The kind of silence that isn’t silence at all, but the ringing in your ears after something detonates.
I stared at them. Two small bodies, twisted on the floor. Ryan’s hand stretched out, inches from Light’s. Blue forget-me-not petals, knocked from the pot I had dropped, scattered across their blood. The sight burned itself into me. My siblings. The two thirds of my whole. Gone.
The stepfather stood over them, breathing heavy, chest heaving with the effort of what he had done. He wasn’t remorseful. He wasn’t horrified. He looked… satisfied.
I don’t remember standing. I don’t remember crossing the room. What I remember is rage. Red. Blinding. Consuming. The cherub in my hands was no longer heavy—it was alive, pulsing with the rhythm of my fury.
He turned toward me, sneering. “What are you gonna do, Mary? Huh? You think you can stop me?”
“Yes,” I said, my voice so quiet it was almost a hiss.
And then I swung.
The cherub struck his side with a dull, meaty thud. He staggered forward, before catching himself on the edge of the bed. The sound of his grunt filled me with something hot and burning.
I swung again. Harder.
This time, he stumbled to his knees.
And then he turned, eyes blazing, but too slow, too drunk, too unsteady.
I raised the cherub above my head. My arms screamed from the effort, but I didn’t care. I brought it down.
CRACK.
Blood sprayed across my face, hot and metallic, blinding one eye.
I screamed—a sound that didn’t sound human—and swung again.
CRACK.
Bone gave way. His skull split under the marble’s relentless weight.
I swung again. And again. And again. The room was filled with the rhythm of it, the splatter, the crunch, the wet tearing as flesh gave way to bone, bone gave way to brain. I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.
My siblings’ blood still stained the floor. Their bodies lay twisted, lifeless. My rage had no bottom, no end. Each swing was for them. Each swing was for me. Each swing was for every night I had prayed for safety that never came.
By the time my arms trembled too much to lift the cherub, what was left of him was no longer recognizable as human. His skull was shattered, fragments of bone and grey matter smeared across the marble floor, dripping down the dresser, mingling with the flowers.
And still I screamed.
I didn’t notice the banging on the door. Didn’t hear the shouts of neighbors or the frantic bark of dogs outside. I didn’t see the police rush in until they were already pulling me back, their voices loud, urgent, panicked.
“Drop it! Drop the weapon!”
Hands gripped my wrists, pried the cherub from my blood-soaked fingers. I fought them. I screamed until my throat ripped raw. Blood poured down my arms, my face, my clothes. His blood. Their blood.
“Stop! Stop!”
But I couldn’t. Not until my body collapsed under me, trembling so violently I couldn’t feel my hands.
Not until the world went black.
I woke to the sterile brightness of a hospital room. The light stabbed at my eyes, and the stench of antiseptic burned my nose. For one fleeting second, I thought maybe it had been a dream—that Ryan and Light were safe, that the night had been just another nightmare I could shove back into the dark corner of my mind where I kept the others.
But then I moved my hands.
Dried blood cracked against my skin, flaking onto the sheets. My fingernails were jagged, packed with gore. My knuckles were split open, swollen to twice their size. The faintest trace of iron clung to my tongue, metallic and bitter.
And I remembered.
The weight of the cherub.
The spray of blood across my face.
The way Ryan’s body twitched once, then stilled.
The fragile gasp Light made before silence swallowed her whole.
I curled into myself, pressing my forehead to my knees. My chest ached like it had been hollowed out.
That was when I heard it.
“Mary?”
A whisper. Soft. So soft I almost thought it was my own thoughts breaking loose.
I raised my head. No one was there. Just the white walls, the beeping monitor, the drip of IV fluid.
“Mary, don’t cry.”
My blood froze. I knew that voice. I would know it anywhere. Light. Sweet, gentle Light.
But Light was dead. I had seen her body. I had heard her ribs break.
“Light?” My voice cracked on her name.
A laugh followed. A boy’s laugh, weak but warm. Ryan.
“You did it, Mary. You saved us.”
Tears blurred my vision. “No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I didn’t save you. I failed. I should’ve stopped him sooner. You’re gone—you’re both gone—”
“We’re not gone.” Ryan’s tone was firmer this time, insistent. “We’re here. We’ll always be here.”
The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to shift, to grow thicker. For a moment, I swore I saw them—Ryan sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, his bruises gone, smiling like he used to; Light curled beside me, her hair brushing my shoulder, her small hand threading through mine.
The air felt too thin. My chest rose and fell too quickly. Was I losing my mind?
“You’re not real,” I whispered.
“If were not real,” Light said, her voice like bells in the distance. “Then how can you feel this?” She touched my arm, her hand was warm, alive.
Ryan’s smile sharpened. “He can’t hurt us anymore, Mary. You made sure of that. You saved us.”
Their words coiled around me, a lifeline and a chain all at once. A sob ripped free of me, jagged and raw.
I clutched the sheets, burying my face in them. "Please stay with me, Always."
Silence. Then Light’s whisper, steady and soothing: “And forever.”
Ryan leaned closer, his voice in my ear, firm and unyielding: “We’ll protect you like you protected us.”
The monitor beeped steadily beside me, grounding me in reality—but their voices rang louder, drowning it out, echoing in every corner of my skull.
And I let them.
Because if they were gone, then all I had left was the blood. The gore. The scream still lodged in my throat.
But if they were here—if they lived—then maybe I hadn’t lost everything.
Maybe I could survive.
The room was small, cold, and windowless. A single buzzing light swayed faintly overhead, casting a sickly yellow glow across the metal table where I sat. My wrists itched where the handcuffs had been, even though they’d already taken them off.
Two detectives sat across from me. One was older, his graying hair slicked back, his eyes sharp as glass. The other was younger, barely older than me, his tie too tight, his expression nervous—as if he was afraid of me.
A recorder sat in the middle of the table. Its red light blinked steadily. Waiting.
“Hi I'm officer Duke and this is officer Bray are you Mary Shinovich,” I nodded my head "I'm sorry Mary you have to speak for the recording."Officer Duke said, his voice measured, deliberate. "Yes I'm Mary." “We just want to understand what happened. Can you start from the beginning.”
I stared at the blinking light. Each pulse felt like a heartbeat, too slow, too steady.
“You can tell them,” Light whispered in my mind. “We’ll help you.”
Ryan’s tone was harsher, clipped. “But not everything. They would try to take us away.”
I swallowed, my throat raw. “He—” My voice cracked. I tried again. “He came home drunk.”
The detectives exchanged a glance but said nothing.
“He was always angry when he drank,” I whispered, twisting my hands in my lap. “But that night… it was worse. Ryan and Light... He… he started hitting them.”
The words tasted like acid. My stomach churned.
Officer Bray leaned forward. “Mary, what did he hit them with?”
My chest tightened. Images surged—the sound of knuckles cracking against bone, the dull thud of boots slamming into fragile ribs.
“With his fists,” I said hoarsely. “And his feet. He wouldn’t stop. No matter how much they screamed, no matter how much I begged—he wouldn’t stop.”
My nails dug into my palms until I felt the sting of blood.
The older detective’s voice was low. “And then?”
The light above us flickered. For a second, I saw it again—the blood smeared across marble floors, the scattered trail of forget-me-not petals, the cherub statue slick in my grip.
“I killed him.” The words were flat. Final.
The younger detective flinched. The older one’s gaze didn’t waver.
“How?” he asked.
My mouth opened, but no sound came. My breath hitched. My chest rose and fell too fast.
“We’ll say it together,” Light whispered gently.
“Don’t hold back,” Ryan urged. “They need to know what he did.”
The words tore out of me. " I hit him until i was sure he couldn't his us again, and then I hit him more because it didn't feel like I hit him enough."
The recorder’s red light blinked. The room fell silent except for my ragged sobs.
Blood. Bone. The way the cherub statue grew heavier with each swing, like it was absorbing all of me. The wet crack when his skull finally gave way.
“I don’t know how many times,” I whispered, trembling. “I just kept hitting him. Even when he stopped moving. Even when the police came, I couldn’t stop.”
My hands shook violently. The memory of warm spray against my face clung to me like a second skin.
The younger detective looked pale. He glanced at his partner, as though silently asking if they should stop.
The older detective leaned back in his chair, studying me with something unreadable in his expression.
Inside my head, Ryan’s voice murmured, firm and unyielding: “You did the right thing.”
Light’s was softer, wrapping around me like a blanket: “We’re still here, Mary. We’re with you. Always.”
I clutched onto their words like lifelines, even as the detectives scribbled notes and the recorder blinked on.
I told them them the truth about everything, except about my siblings being with me. I wouldn't risk someone else taking them from me never again.
