I know I should hurry because the water won’t stay hot for long. The water pours over my scalp and drips down my face. The only true sense of belonging I’ve ever felt has been in my relationship with Dylan. Antius was little more than a prison to me for ten years, but it’s the only home I remember. Mercy has been good to us, but I still feel like a displaced orphan. Now here we all are in Mercy no longer anyone’s captive, but still struggling to feel free. I wonder-shouldn’t I be happy, at least to some small degree? After all, we won the fight. I’m grateful for the heat because it soothes my sore muscles.

I shed my clothes the way I wish to shed these memories, but they’re still with me when I step into the shower and allow the hot water to sear my skin. When the steam takes over the glass, he and I both fade from view. Staring into a dingy old mirror, I realize I’m still searching for her face, but it’s my father’s face I see. I searched every face for hers but never saw it. I thought rescuing so many people would make the sacrifices worth the loss. Steam fills the room while I’m hit by a barrage of faces flashing in my mind like a volley of arrows, soaring high only to come down on me, piercing my heart. I thought fighting for honorable reasons would make my sorrow cease to exist, or at least make it bearable, but sorrow is all I know now.

Before the flow evens out the water sputters and renders a loud thump that startles me. Waiting for the water to turn warm, I listen to it drawing from somewhere deep within the earth. The pipes squeal as I twist the shower knob. The adrenaline tricked me into thinking I had won. Until I walked away from battle with blood on my hands feeling more tormented than when I’d arrived. Right up until I dug my knife into human flesh. And I thought I could, right up until the night I pulled the trigger over and over. But I hoped somewhere in the process I would find peace. We fight for things like justice, equality, and freedom. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

The Offering by E.R. Arroyo