esmeralda salazar {district seven} fin

She can feel their judgement in their stares. Esmeralda knows she is doubted by most members of Las Serpientes; they think that she's too young, that she's too unstable to handle this after what happened last year.

Esmeralda, her two living brothers, Luciano and Valentino, are walking up a long, winding stone path to a house nestled in forest of District Seven. The three Salazars are flanked by two hitmen on each side. They are silent as they make their way to the secluded home, covered by the darkness of night and the shadows of the rustling trees.

She's staring straight ahead at the faint blur of lights coming from the house in the distance. A flame ignites in her chest, a burning desire for vengeance. She has tasted the blood of her enemies only once, but it has already made her ravenous. Her need for revenge is the only thing that has kept her going, the glue that has held her together. Her anger is her strength.

The Salazars have been on the hunt for the past year to eliminate everyone who was involved in the abduction of Leo (as well as his murder), Valentino, Luciano, and Esmeralda. There is only one man left now: Johan Paxton.

She still thinks Leo is the lucky one. He got to die. Esmeralda has to live with everything she saw, everything Gray did to her.

A gun is strapped to her thigh, underneath her dress and the heavy material of her black velvet cloak. In Esmeralda's opinion, it is Luciano that the others should doubt. He has struggled to kill and grapples with morals too often. He barely even passed initiation. But Esmeralda, she gouged out the eyes of the man who assaulted her, skinned him alive, and set him on fire. She is capable of anything now.

Esmeralda is stronger than both her brothers combined. She just has to prove it.

"Are you sure you're okay to do this, Esmeralda?" Luciano asks her in a hushed voice.

She has a feeling that Luce is doubting himself, and wants reassurance that he is not alone. But he is alone in this — he is the only Salazar with a gentle heart, the only one who still hesitates when he raises his gun. He is a serpent without fangs.

"I'll be fine, Luce," she tells him bluntly. "Maybe you should worry about yourself."

Esmeralda used to not be so harsh with her older brother, but she is a full member of Las Serpientes now. She has shed her old skin and grown into a new one.

The old Esmeralda died on that cold basement floor. She was abused in that place for days, watched them dismember and murder Leo and torture Valentino and Luciano. Her scars are not physical, not like Val and Luce's, but they run deeper than flesh wounds ever could, right into her soul.

She is not a religious woman, but she is certain that basement is a version of hell on earth. There is some part of her that is still trapped in that moment, lying on the basement floor, trying to stare up at the ceiling and forget where she is, forget what's happening to her.

Even now, as she approaches Johan's secluded home, she remembers those moments. She remembers how he was there, how he let it all happen and then helped cut her brother into pieces.

Her heart begins to race as a crashing wave of rage rolls through her. She is going to kill Johan for the role he played in her destruction, and in her brother's death. This debt can only be repaid in blood, an eye for an eye.

The seven of them break in through the window, climbing one by one into Johan's office as quietly as they can. All of them take out their guns, and raise them as they open the door into the next room, the entry hall of the house.

They find Johan and his family in the living room, just through the hall. It's impossible to sneak up on them, so they come into the room with their guns raised, poised to kill.

Johan leaps to his feet as soon as he sees one of the hitmen in the entryway and grabs his pistol from the coffee table, but before he can shoot, Valentino fires a bullet right into his shoulder. He screams in pain, his arms shaking with the magnitude of the sheer agony in his shoulder, but keeps his gun raised and pointed at Valentino's chest.

There are five Paxtons — Johan, his wife, and three children. They are mere teenagers, somewhere between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. It's a shame they all have to die, Esmeralda thinks, but she does not pity them. It is just business; there can be no witnesses. If they let them go, they could just tattle to the Peacekeepers, and the Salazars cannot possibly pay off all of them.

"Put the gun down, Johan," Valentino commands, "and we will spare your family. We will show them the mercy that you did not give to my brother."

Johan is silent, breathing heavily. He glances at his family, whose faces have gone pale with horror. The youngest child is latched to its mother, while the other two are frozen in terror.

Esmeralda wants to just shoot them already, but she waits for Valentino. Since Leo's death, he is the heir now. He calls the shots, and despite her jealousy of his status, she respects his authority.

"Now, Johan, or they all die," her brother prods. "We've got you surrounded. Don't be a fool."

Reluctantly, Johan puts the pistol back down on the table and raises his hands in surrender. Esmeralda smirks. Idiot, she thinks. You're dead no matter what. If it were her, she would at least go down fighting. She would never allow herself to be slaughtered like a helpless animal.

Valentino fires again, shooting Johan in the leg this time. He goes down hard, crying out again, desperately clutching the bullet buried in his flesh. Now that he is rendered defenseless, Valentino shoots Johan's wife in the head, and the child clinging to her screams bloody murder. The Paxton children try to run, but they are each grabbed by three of the hitmen.

"No!" Johan shouts, struggling to get up from the floor. "You said you wouldn't hurt them!"

Valentino shrugs. "I lied," he says, and fires a bullet into Johan's heart.

Esmeralda looks at the children, squirming in their captors' grip. For a moment, she almost feels bad for them, but it is only the shadow of guilt, and it quickly wanes as she reminds herself that the three boys will one day become just like their father.

"We can do the honors, boys," she tells the four hitmen. Three Salazars, three Paxton children. It is a perfect match. "But you can hold them still — can't have them running out into the woods."

Esmeralda and Valentino both shoot a child without hesitation, but Luce's gunshot never comes. He is standing still, gun raised at the last boy's head.

"Please don't kill me," the boy pleads. "I — I won't tell anyone! I swear!"

She watches her brother intently, her brows furrowing when he hesitates. He's got that look in his eye. It's the same way he looks at his own child, with sympathy and compassion. Esmeralda is not as soft as Luce, and she is not a mother yet. This boy is likely seventeen, her age. He is not an innocent child in her eyes.

Luciano has too much heart. One day, it's going to get him killed.

"What the fuck are you waiting for?" growls Esmeralda. "Kill him! He has to die! If you don't do it, I will!"

"No, I won't tell anyone! I won't!" the boy cries again.

Luce blinks at her, but lowers his gun slightly. It is then when she realizes that he won't do it, that he can't. He is too weak.

"You're a pussy, Luce," she snarls. Esmeralda points her gun at the boy, who flinches and shuts his eyes.

BANG —

She puts a bullet in the Paxton kid's head and he drops to the floor, blood pooling out onto the polished hardwood.