No Love For The Villain - Chapter 14
The house filled with the child’s laughter was peaceful. Whenever the child spoke to her, Sierra listened quietly. She simply enjoyed the act of listening to someone else’s story.
When standing on the edge of a cliff, she could only endure, but in moments of peace, thoughts of death surfaced. The wish for time to stop and the desire to die in that very moment were one and the same.
This death-like peace was shattered by the arrival of a stranger.
Sierra, sitting by the gate with the child, saw a car speeding toward the fence. The black car raced forward without slowing, as if it would smash through the fence at any moment.
As the spinning tires kicked up coarse dust, the child looked on with startled eyes. Instinctively, Sierra pulled the child into her embrace.
The black car swerved to a stop.
The car door opened, and a man got out. The man in a suit, without his coat, pushed the fence gate open.
Sierra stared blankly at Eli approaching her.
Even in the shadowed land, a handful of light rays caught his eyes, making them gleam. The vividness of his black pupils held a sharpness, as if burning with the residual heat of a hunt seeking out what was hidden.
“You have a talent for making people run,” his cool voice said, seeming to steal away even the warmth of the child in her arms.
“You’ve finished thinking about running away.”
Eli’s gaze shifted to the child held in Sierra’s arms.
Sierra hugged the child tighter. The child, feeling stifled, began to squirm in her arms.
The child’s arm was snatched away in an instant. Sierra lost her hold on the child. Dragged roughly before a stranger, the child’s eyes widened in fear.
Eli looked down at the frightened child and said, “Little one, go inside. The uncle needs to talk with your angel.”
When he released the child’s arm, the child ran to their mother. The crayon the child had been holding lay discarded on the ground in front of Sierra.
Sierra stared with unfocused eyes at the empty space the child had left, at the unfinished drawing.
In the drawing meant to depict the child, the mother, and Sierra, only Sierra, drawn first, remained alone. Sierra couldn’t look at the drawing any longer because Eli grabbed her chin and forced her head up.
The man who had left her alone in what was supposed to be a happily completed picture now filled her pupils with only himself.
“Did you run away just to see how well I’d come find you?”
Her blurry focus gradually sharpened, clearly capturing Eli’s face.
The face of the man with emotionless eyes instilled fear. It was like a religious painting, meticulously rendered yet designed only to be looked upon with awe.
“…How did you find me?” Sierra asked.
In response, Eli pulled something from his inner jacket pocket.
“Easily.”
He held out what was in his hand.
It was a small, folded piece of paper—the drawing that had been taped to the wall by her desk.
Sierra could imagine Eli entering her room without permission, peeling the drawing off the wall.
The drawing, made by the child, depicted three people. Each with their name written beside them.
‘The Angel of the Red House, Our Mom Miriam, Isaac.’
As Sierra looked at the clumsily, crookedly written letters, a low voice came from above her head.
“An angel, are you?”
He seemed to be searching for anything angelic about the woman before him. But Sierra thought he would find no such thing in her.
“No.”
Sierra spat it out like a fraud’s confession. A snack the child had left behind was placed on Sierra’s thigh.
She picked up the individually wrapped cookie. The wrapper was densely printed with the cookie company’s name.
“The Pastor gives these out, one each, to the children who come to church.”
But a child not permitted to set foot in the church would have no chance to get their hands on such a cookie.
“They’re always on the kitchen shelf. So I steal them, one by one. Just one at a time. If I steal too many, I’ll get caught.”
Sierra looked at the man listening to her confession. His face showed no interest in minor sins, like a priest hearing confessions without a partition, listening to the confessions of the wicked.
Yet, his gaze remained quietly fixed on her, as if urging her to continue. So Sierra kept speaking.
“When the drawer gets full from collecting them like that, I bring them here.”
When she placed the stolen goods into the child’s hands, the child would call Sierra an angel and smile brightly. But angels don’t steal.
She was just blinded by the embrace that welcomed and held her. If someone is willing to do anything, even bad deeds, for what they desire, how can that person be good?
Whether evil or good didn’t matter. As long as she could belong somewhere.
Sierra drew her knees up and curled into herself. Sometimes, loneliness washed over her like a chill, making her whole body shrink small.
“I’m using that child. To soothe my own loneliness.”
Eli stood looking down at her, like the keeper of the gates of hell, who only admits sinners. Having seen so much sin, someone like her might seem trivial to him.
Just as that thought crossed her mind, Sierra fled from his gaze, burying her face in her knees.
“Then use me.”
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