eclecticlolita

Leon stood in the doorway of the confessional, out of breath and out of his mind. Color drained from his face when his wife gasped and turned to stare up at him with those wide, doe-eyes of hers. She parted her lips to stammer an explanation, but he beat her to the punch.

"No," he rasped with finality, gripping the door frame so hard that the wood splintered beneath his fingers and cut into him. Blood trickled down his arm. "I caught you red-handed this time."

His wife pushed her disheveled hair back and pleaded with him, "Leon, you don't understand, I – "

"What's not to understand?!" he roared over her, his voice filling the tiny confessional booth. "You haven't changed a bit; you're the same whore I married four years ago!" His bloody fingers pointed down at her. "You and your fucking kind…"

"What are you going to – "

"Do?" he interrupted her again. His eyebrows rose in surprise at her inquiry. "What do you think I should do?"

The woman backed into the wall and turned her head, watching her lover scramble out of the booth past Leon; much to her shock and dismay, her husband let the cowardly priest go without a word. Her eyes flicked up again. She bit her lip so hard that it bled.

"Please, please," she begged and crawled off the velvet seat, clamoring at her husband's feet. "Just give me another chance."

Leon wasn't about to fall for that. "It's over, Irene."

"Y-You wouldn't deprive Reina of a mother, would you?!" She pulled on his trousers and rose to her knees. "You always said we were a family, Leon! That's why I fell in love with you! That's why I married you!"

"Families stay together," Leon murmured, mulling over his words.

Irene nodded her head wildly and took his hand in hers. "Yes, yes! That's what you always said!"

Her husband neither smiled nor frowned; he stared down at her with the most icy expression she'd ever seen on him. He was the very image of his strict father, the late Admiral Garcia de Asturias. He bent over slightly to take her hands from him and fling her to the floor.

"You're no longer part of ours."

His wife's incessant sobbing and wails echoed after him, but he didn't look back; he walked straight out of the confessional and down the red-carpeted aisle way, interrupting Mass. Gasps and whispers followed after his impromptu entrance.

"Is everything all right, General?" asked the young nun who held his baby.

Leon shook his head. "It's nothing." He held out his arms and the girl handed him the baby. "Thanks for watching Reina for me."

The nun nodded. "It's always a pleasure; she's such a sweet thing."

A faint, melancholic smile tugged on the corners of the soldier's mouth as he gazed at his child. She was nestled in a bundle of blankets and a white lace dress, sound asleep with her thumb in her mouth. Running his fingers through her dark hair and skimming her cheek with his thumb transported him to another world; a place free of worry and obligation. It was just the two of them.

BOOM!

Something hot and heavy forced Leon to the ground suddenly. He struggled to keep his daughter close and protected. Reina wailed and thrashed in her father's arms as he regained his footing.

"Oh my God…" he breathed.

The altar was in shambles and flames licked the walls of the Cathedral as people rushed past him. A thousand and one questions ran through Leon's mind. Was this an act of terrorism or a random incident?

"H-Help…!"

He spun on his heels and spotted the nun who babysat his daughter trapped beneath a large wooden beam. Without thinking twice, he thrust Reina into the arms of a fleeing priest and gripped the beam. Grunting, he used every ounce of strength left to him to hoist the beam off the girl and cast it aside. As he knelt to lift her off the floor, he heard someone cry out behind him,

"LEON!"

Irene's slender figure appeared amidst the flames around the altar, surrounded on all sides. Visible injuries riddled her body, and her clothes were sodden with blood. Despite these wounds, she managed to reach over some of the flames towards her husband.

"Help me!" she sobbed. Her tears touched the fire and evaporated into thin air.

Leon rose and glanced back at her with a different expression this time. He watched Irene's hands shrink away from the flames. A knowing horror filled her beautiful, dark eyes.

"Forgive me! Please!"

The Spaniard soldier turned his back on her for the last time and strode down the ruined carpet with the wounded nun still in his arms. Tears streamed down his cheeks and mingled with sweat and blood.

Irene shrieked behind him, "Don't leave me!"

A second explosion rocked behind Leon and sent him flying into the courtyard. Flames and horrific wails climbed into the night sky as a third explosion went off in the building. A few bystanders helped Leon to his feet, and another member of the parish took the unconscious nun from his arms. His back ached from the burns he sustained, but they didn't stop him from searching the crowd for Reina.

"T-Thank you," he whispered to the priest when he found him. The older man just nodded and handed the baby over to her father, staring back at the Cathedral in disbelief after. "Reina…" Leon brought his daughter close to his face and held her tightly.

"Y-Your wife, General…" began the priest.

Leon clenched his teeth and hissed, "She didn't make it."

The amount of disdain in the soldier's words startled the priest. He shuffled into the crowd and vanished from Leon's sight, circulating his odd response to other members of the congregation and parish.

"Don't cry, honey," Leon cooed to the squirming baby in his arms, soothing her some. He kissed her forehead and smiled for her sake. "Daddy will always be here for you."

Leon never kept his promise. Three weeks later, he was incarcerated for the murder of his wife and seventy members of the clergy. A grand jury found him guilty of all seventy-one counts of murder and one count of terrorism, and he was sentenced to three-hundred years imprisonment.