Heptadecagon

The New Year card they sent spoke of nothing but merriment and bright tidings. I looked at the rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes of the children in the picture: identical twins holding onto the leashes of identical puppies. I wondered how she could send this card to me. Didn't she know that I knew? That I'd heard about everything that had happened in the past year? That I was privy to information that only a select few were? What was she trying to pull? *** He leaned back in his chair and gazed at the woman in front of him. Lines traversed her face and hollows gathered in her cheeks. Fine wisps of gray-brown hair pulled away from the messy ponytail she kept at the back of her head. Her hands worked to scrub the coffee stain out of the floor and an image of his mother floated into his mind. His mother on her hands and knees as she mercilessly attacked the round, red blood that had seeped into the tile. The whispers. The shouts. The shackles that gripped his wrists. *** It a...