Frances is not a Talking Mule

Little Frannie had had enough. She was tired of being controlled by Dom DeMarco. Tonight was the night whether she wanted it to be or not. His reign of terror in the community was over. She went through being forced to run his drugs for him.

Frannie was born Frances Delgado, and she was mute from day one, never uttering a word or even making a sound. By the time she was thirteen, her mother had abandoned her, and she was living on the streets. Old Crazy Nedna had taken her in and fed her when she could, but Nedna had passed on last year when she was sixteen. Thereby effectively leaving Little Frannie alone with no one to turn to. A perfect target for DeMarco.

Since Frannie had been born mute, most people assumed she was deaf also. She chose to allow everyone to believe as they wished. Plus, she was good at blending into the background and being unnoticeable. This had served to assist her in avoiding being picked up by the police and other authority figures in the past, but the same ability was what had brought her under the eyes of DeMarco.

He kept insisting she call him Dom. He kidnapped her and held her hostage. Torturing her but effectively preparing her to move his dope into the inner city. For the last six months, she had run of his headquarters. No one stopped her from entering any room, but Dom’s private quarters.

Of course, no one thought to keep her out of the vents and ductwork. Through there, she had access to all rooms of the Demarco HQ, even the Dom’s own. There she spied and learned things about his organization. When the room was empty, she would raid his desk looking for evidence against him that she could copy and turn in to the police anonymously.

Yesterday was the final straw. She could not work for DeMarco anymore, not that she ever wanted to in the first place. For yesterday, while she had gone through his nightstand and found Nedna’s gold rings with her finger still in the wedding set. That was the moment she found out that Dom had Nedna killed.

So, today Frances would rid the community of an evil man. One who had no problems killing innocent people. A man who gladly sold drugs to his own mom. She was going to avenge her beloved Nedna and never once look back.

She climbed through the vents and ductwork to his rooms. She waited for him to be gone. Then she set to work. Once she had climbed down into his quarters, she looked for every weapon he had stored in his desk and other hiding spots and threw them back into the vent. She kept a Beretta 380 out for herself.

She ransacked his safe; the stupid man had the combination written down in the top drawer of his desk. Then she loaded all the cash into a duffel bag she had found. She took anything worth something, including his diamond-encrusted letter opener.

Once she was done ransacking his room, she loosened a few screws on the window behind the desk. Then she sat down at his desk and waited. She didn’t have long to wait.

As soon as he entered the door, he locked it and turned around. No sooner had he walked halfway across the room than Frannie pulled the gun out and shot him in the shoulder. The bullet hit him hard enough that he stumbled but did not go down, so she shot him again in the stomach.

DeMarco stared in shock at Frances. “Why, Frannie? Haven’t I been good to you? Haven’t I taken care of you?”

Little Frannie just glared at Dom DeMarco. She picked up Nedna’s ring finger and threw it into his face. She opened her mouth and screamed in silence. Aimed the gun again.

“Frances, she couldn’t supply for you the way I can. She was just in the way of you coming here to me. You can’t do this to me!”

Frannie just continued to glare at him as she prepared to shoot. She could hear the guards banging on the door trying to open it. She shot him again, this time in the thigh.

“Frances, I am your father! Don’t you shoot me again!! Please, Frannie, Pleeease!”

She pulled the trigger again, shooting Dom DeMarco in the eye and killing him with one final shot.

She stood above him, wondering if he spoke the truth. Was he her father? Should that have made a difference? Why’d she feel so bad when he had killed the only person to care for her? Why did he not say something sooner? She would never have the answers to these questions.

Frannie was jerked out of her fugue by the sound of the door cracking. She ran and climbed back inside the vent and hauled her butt through the ductwork. She made it outside just as the lockdown happened. She hailed the first cab she had seen. She had already decided she would need a change in scenery for a while. She just needed to decide where she wanted to go.

>>>>>> TO BE CONTINUED <<<<<

Episode 2