A Lesson In Self-Defence

It happened at the same time every Wednesday night, like clockwork. Like some sick ritual Mr Cura always had to stick to.

It had been this way ever since he'd been moved here. Ever since the courts had ruled Mr and Mrs Bergameschi incapable of caring for their own children, because that was why he was here. A vulnerable and neglected child, with only his big sister to rely on.

Big sister wasn't with him here. It was just the boy, and a few other children from bad homes moved to here for their own 'safety'. Supposedly Mr and Mrs Cura would take good care of them, keep them safe and ensure no further harm could come to them. They'd gotten Bergameschi a tutor who wouldn't ask too many questions, changed his entire wardrobe to clean and crisp outfits of their own choosing (and certainly not something he would have chosen for himself), and picked and chose who he could spend time with. At first, he questioned none of it. It didn't seem bad, or sinister, not then. They seemed like ordinary people, and the government trusted them to care for children already in a vulnerable place, so surely they had to be good people, right?

But if that were the case, then Bergameschi wouldn't need to stay awake all night, watching the clock like a hawk, waiting for Cura to make his way to his room. Sometimes he would just sit on the bed and talk. Never nice things, though. Always things that made his skin crawl. Other times, Cura would get physical. It was something he never wanted to relive.

He was sure the other children stuck here were suffering abuse as well. He could hear screams and cries. He was suffering more than he ever had been before, and nothing he could say to any authorities seemed to help. Every case meeting, he would say the same thing. "The Cura's are abusing me and the other kids. I want to live with my big sister instead."
And every time, he would hear back "We'll look into it" or "Your foster carers are here to help" or "You must have been really traumatised by what happened before, but it will be okay now" and they would never do anything to help. There had been so many custody hearings as well, where his sister had tried to get her brother transferred to her house, but the boy remained firmly at the Cura household.

He'd tried to run before, as well. The police had found him pretty quickly. He'd ended up right back where he started, and the officer he'd spoken to had even laughed at him when he'd tried to explain why he ran.

Exhausting all his other options, Bergameschi lay awake, staring at his clock, hand curled under his pillow and around the handle of the kitchen knife he'd managed to sneak upstairs when no-one was looking. He wasn't crazy and he wasn't lying, and if he had to use violence to protect himself then he would. He refused to be a victim any longer.

The clock ticked over. 2:34. 2:45. 2:46.
Creeaak
He hated the door. It gave the slightest creak when it opened, and he winced, tightening his hold on the knife. Cura stepped in, humming something ever so softly. Some Duran Duran song from however long ago. The bed dipped beneath his weight as he sat beside the boy, and Bergameschi felt him hesitate.

It had to be obvious that he had no intention of going to sleep that night. He lay there fully dressed with his glasses still on, body tense and eyes wide. He heard Cura tut.
"Now why are you still awake?" He leaned over, close to him. A hand was near his head, unpleasant-smelling breath tickling his skin. "It's two in the morning, you know. You'll be exhausted if you don't get your sleep." This was followed by a slight chuckle, as if he didn't wake Bergameschi up every Week at half two anyway. Cura braced his hand against the boy's pillow, moving so he was practically straddling him. His hands were positioned to support him and touch the boy's head. Nothing free to protect him from a single strike. With his head that close, it wouldn't be that hard.

Without a moment's hesitation, he'd pulled the knife from its hiding place and plunged it upward, into Cura's throat.

What happened next was by no means quick, nor was it pretty. There was a lot of blood. He recalled Cura thrashing as he plunged the knife in a few more times for good measure, never quite sure where he was hitting, not able to clearly see his target in the darkness. He kept stabbing upward against the struggling and gurgling, kept going until Cura fell still and silent and slumped down against the boy. After a moment, making sure his ex carer was no longer breathing, Bergameschi pushed the body off to the floor and inflicted a few more stabs. Just to be sure. He had to be sure.

It took a couple of minutes to calm down. He felt across the wall for the light switch, wincing when the light burned his eyes and grimacing further when he removed his glasses and saw the blurred remains of the man he'd just killed. He pulled a shirt from his wardrobe to wipe his glasses clean, the wipe that came with them having gone missing a while back, and slotted them back into place.

Odd. Murder was easier than he'd expected. He didn't feel any guilt, or like he'd done anything wrong. This was to protect himself and the other kids, after all. Mr Cura was a dangerous predator, and he was sure the bastard had abused all the children in the house in this manner. As one of the eldest in the house, at 14, Bergameschi felt he ought to protect the others from such monsters. And Mr Cura wasn't the only one to subject the already vulnerable youth to such cruelty. Sure, Mrs Cura's violence and deprivation never went to sexual levels, thank god, but it wasn't by any means any less serious. She would wake up in a few hours, find her husband dead and never pay for her crimes herself.

Well, he couldn't have that.

He wasn't sure if the struggle against his foster father would have woken the others up or not. Even so, he was quiet as he could be as he slipped through the door and tiptoed down the hall, to the door at the end where the Cura's normally slept. Mr Cura had left the door slightly open when he'd left his wife to sleep. This meant minimal noise involved in slipping through to her bedside.

Bergameschi stood stock still by Mrs Cura's bedside for several minutes, paranoid she would waken and he would be caught. Or that she was pretending to sleep, only to catch his arm when he tried to stab her. The time stretched on, crawling at an impossibly slow pace before Bergameschi steeled his resolve and struck.

Afraid she might wake later if he didn't kill her quick, he kept his blade flat and stabbed at the chest. Repeatedly. And when he was done, he backed off and sat against the dressing table, breathing hard and watching her for any sign of movement. He stayed there, watching, feeling the blood coating him dry and cool. When the sun came up, and he heard the shuffle of the other children in the house waking up, he stood again. Mrs Cura hadn't moved an inch, and when he went over to check the body, he was relieved that he could find no sign of life.

He closed the bedroom door behind him and returned to his own room, ensuring the man was dead as well before shutting his door. The least he could do was keep the others in the house from seeing the bodies. They'd been told it was an absolute rule that no-one was allowed in any bedroom but their own, after all, and Bergameschi's door had even had the doorknob removed a while back, so that he wouldn't be able to completely close it. It was just another way they wanted to take away his privacy and sense of self.

He did his very best to be quiet as he descended the stairs, creeping toward the front door, not wanting the kids to see him as he slipped out into the mild morning. Still blood-drenched, he made his way down to the local police station, followed by stares and whispers. Running. Running faster and faster, not wanting anyone to stop him and ask him any questions. Not wanting to explain what happened, not wanting to deal with their looks of disgust.

Murder was wrong, but he didn't feel wrong for what he did. He felt justified. He felt, if there was no other way to protect himself and the others, it had to happen. Even so, as he got to the station and walked up to the front desk, he was fully prepared for the consequences as he told the man sitting there "I've just committed a murder".