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| - The fire raced up the sides of the house, licking greedily at the walls and roof as it steadily consumed everything within. The woods surrounding the modest dwelling were lit brightly by the conflagration, as the deathly light from the fire punched through the night's darkness like an infant sun. Silhouetted by the flames, a lone man stood before his burning home, throwing his hands up and pacing as if his mind couldn't fathom what was going on. His pace was staggered and jerky; he was drunk enough to have impaired movement, though not nearly enough to send him toppling into the fire. He was dressed only in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, which had been singed by the flames before he could get out. And huddled against a tree nearly fifty yards away, the man's son peered down the scope of a hunting rifle as the crosshairs danced around his father's darkened crown. If he missed, it was over. His father would run and be gone and soon he would realize just who had started the fire. And then he would kill the boy, just like he had killed Mother. But that wasn't going to happen. The boy was certain of that, because he was going to make this shot. It wasn't a possibility. It wasn't a necessity. It was an absolute. Just him and his father, alone outside the burning corpse of a home that, as far as the boy was concerned, had died a year ago when the man who had made his life a living hell had murdered the only thing in the world he had ever loved. Even at thirteen, the boy named Hector Thornhill's eyes had been narrowed by years of intense, focused hatred for the man he was about to kill. One of them was newly blackened--the last of many gifts his father had imparted during his drunken rages. Even now, his arms ached from holding the rifle, and not because of its weight; they, too, were covered in scrapes and bruises. But he knew his father couldn't hear him, and he liked it that way. This was how it should be. All that built up pain and grief and rage would be released with this one shot. That was the plan, the one that Hector had built up in the weeks and months after his father's military friends had gotten him off at the trial. War hero. That's what his father was. A hero. That's what heroes did. They killed their wives for getting between them and their sons. So now his father would die like a hero--heroically shot through the head before his burning house. Hector's heart was racing, but his mind was completely at ease. There was no hesitation as he sighted his father's head within the scope. This was how things were meant to be. Just him, a rifle and his father. There was no point waiting around any more, and Hector knew that he had to prove to himself that he meant how he thought and felt. So he sighted one last time, took a breath, and pulled the trigger. Teaching him how to handle the rifle had been the only thing his father had ever done for him. And it turned out to be his worst mistake. The bullet soared true, and Hector's father just collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. No cry of pain, no squirting blood. Just a silent fall to the smoldering ground in front of the bonfire that had once been a house. Hector walked towards the flames and the body, and he found that he'd been right. He felt nothing now, not pain or fear or regret. The sorrow and hate was gone as well, transported by the bullet into the man who'd caused it all. There was only the future, and what he'd make of himself now that he was free. He reached the body, feeling the heat of the fire on his cheeks as he stared down at the corpse of the man who had spent the past eight years terrorizing him. He raised the rifle again, but found he didn't really want to pull the trigger. There was no longer any reason to. For all his medals and friends and reputation, his father was now just a corpse in the dirt. In a year, no one would care that he'd ever even existed. And Hector knew that he would never let that happen to him. He tossed the rifle into the burning house and turned away. He had a long walk ahead of him before he reached the settlement. He was quite the brave boy, getting out of there alive after bandits had murdered his father.
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