A wailing deafened the small house.
It brought the unwelcome intruders to a halt, two of them—each exchanged a look with each other, silence filling the moments that the child's noise didn't fill. There was heavy tension, and the men that could murder felt guilt over this, of all things.
Their worn leather boots left half-prints of blood. It hardly made a difference to the creaking floorboards. They would be forever stained with crimson, seeping into the tendrils of the untreated material. The same blood painted the wall in a spray, as if a child had carelessly flung a brush covered in red paint. It glistened, in the dimmed light of the lantern; only moonlight shone through the windows, half-covered by ragged drapes.
The stench was the worst of the entire mess, aside from the bodies that lay splayed in the main room. The man suffered an uncounted array of wounds, untalented fights having struggled to bring him down. He was a large man, blond-haired, loose clothes strung over his form for the evening. Gashes incapacitated his arms, and shimmering blood stuck the once white-gray-brown cloth to his skin, and caving partly inside the ruined flesh and muscle of his body. He had died appearing devastated to have lost; but of course he had.
He had died failing his family.
His wife had attempted to, in wrenching action brought by fearful and anger-fueled delusion, left the crib-room to charge the thieves and murderers. Her death is what finally stirred the bundle of bad luck wrapped in a blanket. She had gone at the two men with a precious glass ornament; one of the few treasures that belonged to the family, kept in the child's room as if a guardian: a rearing white stallion, gallant and beautiful. She never had the chance to strike the men with it, staggering in second-thought—grabbed by the hair, she would screech, dropping the object. Shattering glass created a chorus, alongside the choking noise of the woman.
The chorus ended with a spray of blood, and a life taking moments longer to suffocate and seep away.
The stench of blood was next to unbearable. It overwhelmed like bad perfume, clogging up any other sense of smell. It created for the overwhelming dread, overlapped with the noise.
One of the men finally moved, staggering forward. He'd clutch the knob, swinging the wooden door outward, revealing the closet of a room that the child stayed in. Another lantern burned in here, casting dramatic shadows over the wall, blending partly with the corners that no light reached.
His name was Gap, on account for a comically large gap between his two front teeth. At least, everyone just called him that. He had never offered up a real name, and no one could seem to recall anyone who had ever heard him called differently. His hair was past his ears, brown and greasy, covering pale skin tinted darkly by the brush of sun and dirt alike. He stood in the doorway, cursing at the sight of the child.
His partner, a small-framed man just out of his teenage years, lingered behind him. His head perked up, trying to peer past Gap into the room, his brows knitted in confused intolerance. He was just called Shaun. He wasn't new to the life of crime and acting out, but he was just months new to the life of the homeless. No fool in the town would hire him, accounts already well-known to each business that the boy was nothing but trouble. He held a bright glint in his deep green eyes, one of such childness that few of patience would bother with him.
Luckily for him, Gap had much patience, and a swell heart. After all—He would have avoided harming the two occupants of the house if he could have. That was Shaun's fault.
“What are ye' doin'?” The young man questioned, sounding anxious and irritated. Of course he would—if anyone heard this noise, the Watch would be here soon enough.
“You told me the house was empty, boy.” Gap scolded him, his voice unnervingly calm.
“I thought it were! But we fine, ain't we?”
“Grab what ye' want. We need to leave.”
Shaun grunted, deciding to waste no more time. Nothing would be found on the bodies, trussed up to sleep. He disappeared into their room, unslinging a bag from his shoulder.
Gap didn't like to think himself a bad person. There were those with worse morals, and those who would feel no guilt whatsoever for the death of a family. There were those who would cut the neck of the child without a second thought.
He didn't like to dwell on such matters, though. Nothing would be solved by fretting about in moments of dwindling self-doubt. He decided, in short moments, that he was not enough bad of a man to leave the child there. There was no saying if she had family inside of Bree; and if she did, if they would care for her enough. Either way, he'd reason, she would end up on the streets.
Her small head held tufts of red hair, curling this way and that. She couldn't have even been two years old, amazingly tiny. Her eyes were the kind of blue nearly all babes had, but something about it had taken a feeling of permanent setting. It was a cold night, thus, she had already been wrapped warmly, head left in a smug position.
His hands, gloved to keep away the bite of the chill, gently reached down to take the screaming child in his arms. It wasn't five seconds later until she'd suddenly quiet down, her beet-red face quivering between calming and falling to another fit. Gap cradled the girl to his chest, realizing now that she looked like the woman left dead.
“Oi! Old man! Let's scram—Why do you have tha' babe?” Shaun's exasperated voice appeared in the doorframe, and Gap would turn to face him in full. His stern gaze caused Shaun's mouth to clench shut, the man momentarily averting his gaze.
“I can care for her. Let's go.”
They would disappear out into the night, the child stirring unhappily in the waft of the wind. She'd soon be hidden from it, taken to a secluded corner that escaped the worst of chills. That evening, Gap asked for no share of the looting. Shaun offered none of it.
The young girl fell to a quiet slumber, finally taking on a peaceful grace; her new guardian, though, had not a blink of sleep. For the first time in a long time, he recognized the knotting guilt beginning to take hold of himself. He didn't dare toss and turn in fear of waking the girl, letting his limbs grow stiff, his joints freezing tight.
What...
He began to form his worries into an answerless question, the only explanations far too broad to begin to sink in place, or for him to realize at the time.
Have I done to this child's life?
