No Love For The Villain - vanish into fiction

Daniel’s hand touched her shoulder, hot and damp.
“Don’t worry. They can’t harm us in any way. It’s safe here.”

He seized Sierra’s arm and pulled her into his embrace. Her body, stiff with tension, was pressed by his hand at the back of her head. Her face was forced against his shoulder, making it hard to breathe.

Sierra managed to turn her head just enough to look outside again.

The man outside took a cigarette pack from the inner pocket of his coat. The people around him, as if they had merely been waiting for his signal, immediately lifted their lighters.

The way they hurried to ignite them made them look like worshippers offering a sacrifice. Flames rose.
All for one man.

The man with the cigarette leaned toward the nearest flame. Fire caught on the tip. Smoke drifted from his lips like a dull, heavy breath.

“Stay with me, Sierra.”

Daniel whispered into her ear. The arm around her waist tightened. Sierra twisted, but she could not escape.

She wanted to get away. She wanted to leave. Anywhere would be fine as long as it wasn’t here. She wished for it without knowing how.

The pastor said that sinners who followed false prophets were foolish. They failed to recognize the devil who wore the face of an angel. Deceived by the devil, they gave him their hearts and fell into hell.

But it wasn’t a deception. The pastor did not understand the desperate impulse of those who longed to flee somewhere— Anywhere but here.

The urge was so fierce it could drive a person to leap even into a burning hellfire.

Held in Daniel’s arms, Sierra kept her eyes fixed on the man outside. From heaven, she was peeking into hell.

The glass window between Sierra and the man shuddered dangerously in the harsh winter wind.

***

The tension that swept through the village lingered all the way to the funeral. The once-quiet roads were lined with police. They stood like a wall, protecting the mourners from the outlaws who had come from Newland.

The mafia in black suits stood at the back of the funeral grounds. Pastor Miles clicked his tongue, saying the wicked men who had kept the body for so long were now disturbing the peace of the dead even at the end.

“They should do their business and leave. Why stay to watch the funeral…”

Winter was a harsh season to lay a dead man to rest. They had to dig into the frozen ground to bury the coffin, but the soil was so hard that even the shovels could barely pierce it.

Pastor Miles stuffed extra money into the hands of the young men whose fingers were stiff from the cold, forcing them to keep digging until their palms were rubbed raw.

Sierra looked down into the pit where her father would be buried.
The heaven that Pastor Miles had spoken of, the heaven lovingly built by the Father above, was far too distant to see.

The place where the dead would lie was visible at last.
Dark, and narrow.

None of the mourners shed tears. It was a late funeral, and every tear had long since dried. The flash of a reporter’s camera cut sharply across the faces of those gathered. Sierra frowned at the bursts of light.

The noisy speech of the middle-aged man—mayor of Newland—mingled with the sound of snapping shutters.

“We will never forget the hero who gave his life fighting for peace. We will carry on his will and continue to stand against the outlaws of Newland, and we will uphold justice!”

As the mayor proclaimed this with vigor, camera flashes exploded without pause.

The praise for the honorable death of a federal prosecutor sounded distant to Sierra.
The hero the mayor spoke of did not seem like her father.

Sierra’s empty gaze settled on the firmly shut coffin. Her father’s coffin had remained closed throughout the funeral.

The body, left unattended for too long, could not be restored even by an undertaker. In the end, Pastor Miles decided to conduct the funeral with the coffin sealed.

Her father, who had once smiled so warmly, was nowhere to be seen.

The man who pushed her on swings and taught her the names of flowers had left no trace she could find. It felt as though she had come to someone else’s funeral.

When the Newland mayor’s eulogy ended, Pastor Miles began reading verses from the Bible. It was time for the lowering of the coffin into the grave.

“Merciful Savior, do not let us fall into the eternal torment of death…”