SACRED SINNERS ☪

"Go ahead and watch my heart burn
With the fire that you started in me".

Anxiously, I grit my teeth and force myself to glance at the crime scene photos.

"Oh God," I gasp in exasperation as my gaze falls on the pictures.

It looks like someone smashed half her face with a rock or some other hard object. And even though the image is the description of all nightmares and leaves a stinging feeling in my chest, I can't take my eyes off the picture.

Compulsively, I try to fix her smashed face, I try to reconstruct her broken right cheek in my mind and imagine how she would look with a smile.

I try to remember her wild, infectious laugh. Of how she sounded like a little pig who couldn't catch her breath when she told me jokes that weren't funny at all, but still made me laugh.

Most of all, I keep that she loved me and I loved her. So damn greatly. She was the light to my darkness. When I glance at those images, it feels like my heart has been cut out. Hate nests in my bones.

Deep and ugly hatred.

My gaze travels upward and meets directly with pitying brown eyes rimmed with black kohl. Her thinly plucked eyebrows are drawn together sympathetically, and her thin, wrinkled, red-painted lips wear a depressing smile. I guess she likes red.

I swallow so hard it hurts, and do it again, hoping I can breathe again, that this heavy feeling in my chest will eventually go away, but no matter what I do, it doesn't go away.

It stays and it hurts. It hurts so terribly.

My long fingers tremble as I slide the photos back to her, and for a moment, I blink so rough I see black. It doesn't matter what I see, just as long as I get these horrible images out of my head.

I press my quivering lips together and bite my tongue until I taste a familiar metallic flavor. Blood.

Blood. Blood. Blood.

What did she feel? Was she suffering?

God, I hope not.

"My condolences," her old, sensitive voice sounds so fragile itself, like she knows exactly what I'm feeling. I mean, death is probably her daily life. I'm just another relative of another victim. She should be used to sad people by now.

I nod, "Thanks," I croak, scratching my burning throat and wishing I was somewhere else. Maybe even somebody else.

"I think we should continue tomorrow, Commissioner Wilson will take over the case. He's a very friendly man and amazingly good at his job. I'm confident he'll find the culprit," she puts her hand on mine, and my gaze narrows.

"My mother..." she begins, and I lift my eyes.

"My mother was murdered when I was very young, and that's what led me to become a detective," she smiles bitterly, and I'd be lying if I said her dark eyes didn't express any discomfort. It didn't matter though. I don't really care.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I frown, and she nods appreciatively, gathering the photos on the cold table.

"The pain will never go away completely," she sighs, "but it will get better. Everything gets better with time, even if it seems impossible now."

I nod my thanks, but truly, I just want to get away from here. Away from these images.

I rise as if I'm in some kind of trance. My eyes fall on the heavy door Inspector Welley holds open for me.

My steps toward the door feel as if they are not my own, as if my mind is stuck somewhere and my body is taking on a life of its own. Like I'm trapped inside myself. Trapped in this worthless life.

Just before I leave, I sense a protective hand on my forearm. I look down at the red lacquered fingers and then up into Welley's brown eyes, "Take care of yourself," she whispers.

"I will," I assure her.

Welley walks the other way, and I step toward my parents, my terribly devastated parents. The corners of my mouth twist in sorrow. My mother's watery, downcast blue eyes, the same ones Riley had, stare at me inconsolably.

I exhale deeply and gaze at my father, who is holding her in his lanky arms. His face is indefinable, I don't think I will ever see this man smile again, and his eyes suddenly seem so empty. Those green eyes that were once so full of life and love now seem so.

Soulless...

His dull hair is disheveled, while my mother's blonde hair looks like she's plucking it out herself. Like she's torturing herself, but who am I kidding? Nothing is more torturous than what they have to go through. And as much as I'd like to hug and comfort them both, somehow I feel like I'm intruding.

Our relationship with each other is not the same as our relationship with Riley, ours is much more distant and foreign. Unfortunately, also much more loveless.

I try to say something, but gradually I feel the painful tug on my face that won't let me get a single word out. Not a sole one.

I swallow the lump of sorrow and turn away from my parents.

With one last look, I drag myself all the way out of the presidium and stare at the unspectacular, gray, ugly ground below me.

Life is so exhausting.

I grit my teeth and clench my hands into fists with the craving to make someone suffer, as I am doing at this moment.

I want to make the one who took my sister from me suffer so much that death seems precious in comparison.