Painful Love

Lightening flashed on a girl's sleeping face and she screamed, jolting upright, grey eyes staying wide into open space. The scene...It felt familiar even though she hadn't looked around yet.

She was in a bedroom, one designed for a little girl, wrapped in a little white sleeping gown. She blinked, and her room seemed to fade away into the background as her legs carried her off the bed.

"No no. Not again. Not again." She muttered in a sweet little voice as she walked out of the room.

The hallway loomed largely and was brightly lit, highlighting her black as night hair that was tied in pigtails. She knew what to do. She always knew what to do. Little pit-pat sounds of her small foot hitting the ground echoed in the large hallway. Her nerves trembled, her lips quivered and with each step, she clutched her dress tighter as her belly rolled in anticipation.

A loud crashing sound stopped her in her tracks and she covered her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Her childlike bright eyes filled with fear. Fear of what was coming.

"Who are you?" Her father's voice boomed from their bedroom. Their door was only a few meters away.

She could hear a foreign voice reply, but her head felt woozy and her senses dulled into a high pitch signal as she moved closer to the door.

"Mama!" she called out and everything else seemed to slow down at that point.

The door burst open and her mother rushed out, barely clad in a sleeping gown and frantic as she gathered up her child into her arms and sprinted back the way she had come from.

"Faster, Katherine! Get her to safety!" Her father yelled behind them and the girl twisted in her mother's arms so she could see him.

She stretched out her hand at him, grey eyes glistening with tears. Somehow, she knew what was wrong. Because she had seen it a thousand times before. "Papa!"

In her mother's arms, the girl saw everything happen. She saw her father suddenly halt, his blue eyes widened then slacked and he fell to the ground, a knife sticking out his back. A man stood behind her father's falling body, grinning manically.

Sobs wrenched out of the little girl as her mother carried her farther away, towards the backdoor of their mansion. She set the little girl down, holding her face in her palms and placing kisses on her forehead.

"It's okay." Her mother panted. "Kimberly, it's going to be okay."

But it would not be okay. The killer was back and closer than they had known. Kimberly watched her mother smile one last time and push her out the back door screaming the last words.

"Run Kimberly!"

In the few seconds, before the door closed, concealing her mother from her, She saw the killer's face, stark and clear as he raised a gun and shot her mother.

The little girl screamed on and on until her voice blended with a shrilling alarm clock and Kimberly gasped awake, sitting upright in her bed, shivering. A shrilling sound from an alarm clock next to her made her head hurt and she experienced vertigo from moving too quickly.

Her eyes closed and she swallowed, taking deep breaths to steady herself. It was just another nightmare.

Reaching out her hand, she slammed the alarm clock, cutting it off, and slid off her bed, ignoring the headache that threatened to pound her brain to mush.

It was another day of pain and hell and she was determined to make it as fiery as possible.

***

"Your first meeting is due in four hours, with the Italian Investors. We also received word from the contractor in San Antonio, he says the building is going on quite well."

"Mhmm." Kimberly droned, polishing off a buttered toast as she listened to her secretary rant on the phone that was placed on her dining table.

The dining room was spotless and brightly lit

With chandeliers and large windows that showed the glistening pool beside the building. She sat facing the windows, sunlight filtering in and encasing the room with warmth. A clock hung on the wall and it read a few minutes past eight.

She was dressed in black suit pants paired with a grey crop top with flannel sleeves. Texas was hot in July and while she enjoyed looking professional, Kim wasn't ready to be baked into a hot potato by the sweltering heat.

"Also..."

She looked up then, cocking her head to the side as she wondered why her secretary had stopped. "Speak."

"Uh..that...Mr Wades has been blowing up the office line ma'am-"

Kimberly parted her lips in hard harsh laughter, flicking her raven black hair out of her face so that it fell in silky waves over her shoulder.

"Is he now?" She murmured dryly. "Let him. He deserves to stew in his misery."

The Secretary at loss for what to say simply muttered a "Yes ma'am."