Page 1 of Lilies from Hell

Prologue

01

03:02

Moscow

Age 10

I woke up to the sound of a bang coming from downstairs. My vision remained blurred from sleep. I pushed the comforter off the bed and jumped out of it with a little hop. The air from outside hit my legs, making the hair on my arms stand on end, but I didn’t dislike the cold of the harsh winter nights. My father used to say that all living beings could become accustomed to the worst things without realizing it.

I walked through the hallways until I reached a room lit by a dim light and filled with someone’s pleas. My body froze the moment I saw a gun pointed at her chestnut hair. I wanted to disappear and run back to my room, but it was too late. His eyes had locked onto mine.

“Just in time, son.” The way he spoke was something that I didn’t like.

Seeing that I wasn’t moving, he grabbed my arm and pushed me until I was standing in front of that woman. Her teary face showed swelling from the blows. Behind her, a couple of burly men made sure she couldn’t go anywhere, although it would have been difficult given the ropes that bound her hands and legs.

“Mom,” I stammered with teary eyes as I recognized her, receiving only a look of disgust and resentment.

“You’re creating a monster, Kristoff,” she whispered with rage.

My father slapped her and abruptly turned her face right after she finished speaking. Her lower lip was now broken and stained with specks of blood that splattered the floor.

“I won’t allow you to speak that way about my son, Katerina. You lost all rights to him when you abandoned us for your stupid lover. Now he’s mine, and I’ll raise him however the fuck I want.”

I felt sick to my stomach. More than once I wondered why she had left us. I still didn’t understand some things, but I knew well that she never loved us. Not me, at least. She always preferred Viktor, my brother. At some point, I may have learned to love her like a mother, but that love faded away with every rejection and every unpleasant word that came out of her mouth. Everything fell apart when she abandoned us.

“She doesn’t deserve you,” my father said. Gun in hand. His eyes fixed on my mother’s face with furious eyes.

“What are you waiting for? Finish her.” He looked at me, and I reached out my hand, waiting for him to hand me the gun with trembling fingers.

Disobeying any of his orders terrified me, and it wasn’t the first time I had used a gun, although I had never done so to take another human’s life.

“I will not risk you wasting bullets and leaving holes all over the wall.” My father’s mocking voice stopped me.

He then took a silver knife out of his pants pocket and placed it in the palm of my hand. I swallowed hard, shifting my gaze between the knife and my mother. My fingers trembled so much I was afraid I would drop the knife, and my chest heaved with anxiety.

“I… I can’t…” I whispered, breathing heavily.

“It’s you or her. Choose.”

His abrupt threat encouraged me to take a step forward, noticing her bruised torso covered by a T-shirt as dirty as her hair. I didn’t want to receive another of my father’s brutal beatings because of someone who had done nothing but break me.

“You disgust me,” my mother spat from the floor. Her hateful gaze brought new tears to my eyes. What had I done wrong? Why can’t I be more like my brother? Why can’t she love me? “You should never have been born. You’re nothing but a mistake that I’ll regret for the rest of my life. I conceived you with disgust and gave birth to you with hatred.”

I clenched my fingers around the knife when it threatened to slip out of my fingers. Tears rolled down my cheeks as soon as I lifted my head and saw the way she looked at me. So different from how she looked at Viktor, as if I were nothing but trash and not the child who also came from her womb.

“Do it now, damn it!” My father’s roar snapped me out of the stupor my mother’s words had put me in.

I closed the distance and plunged the knife into her chest in an act of desperation. I just wanted everything to end and stop feeling.

A faint moan escaped her lips and hung in the air. Her eyes were still open. Her blood stained the floor. Unable to help myself, I brought a hand to the wound, then held it close to my nose. Despite having heard her cruel confession earlier, I wanted to feel her warmth before her body would become cold. I hated myself for it.

I took out the knife and stabbed her repeatedly, attacking her body with increasing ferocity. I was so absorbed in the moment and the iron smell under my nose that I didn’t hear my father laughing. He picked me up and carried me away from the body.

“That’s enough,” he said, setting me down on the floor, still laughing. Then he crouched down to my level and brushed my hair. “Very good, buddy. I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me.”

My brother, three years younger than me, came shortly after.