If there was one person you could shield from the harshness of reality, who would it be? Your partner? Friend? Relative? Or perhaps your child?

Human beings were like any other creature alive, fighting to survive.

Charles Darwin said it best, only the fittest who adapted to their environment survived.

Animals relied on their instincts to survive, it was either kill or be killed. Humans, however, survived in a horde of ways. By any means necessary. The crucial difference between animal and human survival is malice, animals killed not out of malice but the same could not be said for humans. They could take anything from another of their kind and use it for monetary gain before disposing of it when it was no longer useful.

Janine McCarthy was a perfect example of the shallowness and greed of humans. She survived by any means necessary, even if that meant sacrificing others, especially her own children. As Janine walked down the hall of her one-story house, she peeked into one of the rooms. Her eyes focused on the occupants, her steel gaze hard and unfeeling as she looked on.

"I may need another hour" the gruff voice grunted as he continued his activity without regard for the person under him.

"That will cost you" Janine retorted.

"Doesn't matter" the man replied.

"Then take all the time you need" Janine smiled sweetly before moving onward.

As Janine came upon the last room, the door burst open, "I want my money back" growled the fuming six-foot-one man. Janine's eyes widened as she looked from the man and into the room at the boy inside. His eyes held an inferno, rousing the flame of anger in Janine.

"Let me speak with him" Janine tried to bargain; the angry man was hearing none of it. He demanded his money from Janine which she had reluctantly given before he stormed from the house. The slam of the door was timed well with the drop in Janine's outer persona, the polite smile on her face completely vanished, the look of contempt she now held usually chilled the boy it was directed at but his expression mirrored hers.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded, Janine kept her voice leveled, not wanting to disturb her other "guests".

"I told you, I won't be a part of your disgusting "business" anymore" the boy snapped.

"Then leave" Janine hissed.

"Oh, I will. And I will be taking my sisters with me."

"And where will you go hmm? Will you live on the street or some abandoned building with a twelve and fourteen-year-old, eating what comes out of the trash day by day? People will notice, Kyle! You won't make it a week without child services capturing and separating you and even if you managed to run away, you'd have to find a way to make money to survive and protect those two. Let me tell you honey you can't do both." Janine walked up to her son and grabbed his chin, "you'll just wind up doing the same thing you are now or worse, stop being so ungrateful! Here you have a roof over your head and food to fill your stomachs."

Tears burned in Kyle's eyes, at sixteen he was old enough to know that the "business" his mother ran was far from legal, let alone moral. Everything Janine had just said was true, the harshness of reality burned his chest because he knew Janine was right.

But even then, the boy rejected his reality. Kyle glared at Janine before doing what he had done to the "guest" that had stormed out. Janine squeezed her eyes shut and shoved her son away from her to wipe his saliva from her eye.

Kyle took the opportunity to snatch her by the hair and drag her onto the bed, he quickly climbed onto her and held a pillow over her face. Janine thrashed wildly as she tried to throw her teenage son off of her.

"We may have to run from the government, and we may go hungry a few nights or steal to survive, but out there we have a choice!" his tears disappeared in the pillowcase as they fell, his arms trembled as he continued to strangle the woman who gave birth to him, he was past the point of no return and he knew it.

Janine had underestimated the boy's strength and now she was paying for it. Sweat dripped from Kyle's brow as he held tight to the pillow that muffled Janine's screams. Within minutes the woman was completely still on the bed with Kyle out of breath on top of her. 

Kyle leaped from his mother's body and ran from the room; he didn't stop running until he reached one of the bedroom's down the hall. Pushing open the door, he readied himself for a fight, however, what he found was his youngest sister Hayden, standing next to the nightstand with a pill bottle in one hand and staring at the naked "guest" in her room as he clutched his chest and reached for her.

Kyle's feet moved quickly, in four strides he reached Hayden snatching the bottle of pills from her hand and chucking them out the window. "Drop dead you fucking pervert" Kyle growled. 

The "guests'" eyes widened as he began to panic, thereby decreasing his chances at life. The adult man collapsed on the bed struggling to breathe as the heart attack he was having quickly killed him.

Taking his sister's hand Kyle pulled her to the wardrobe, each of them quickly changed into a set of clothes before the boy armed himself and his sister with a weapon before exiting the room.

Yet again Kyle readied himself before rushing into the room his other sister Sage, was in. With the element of surprise as his advantage, the last "guest" barely had time to acknowledge Kyle before the boy swung the bat into his skull.

The man fell dead on the ground, cause of death, blunt force trauma. Kyle took his little sister off the bed and hugged her closely while apologizing for being late. "where's Janine?" Sage asked as she looked from her brother to her sister. Hayden's eyes also turned to her older brother for answers, the tension was high and they didn't know what to feel, think or do.

"She's dead" Kyle stated, his tone held no remorse or even a touch of emotion as he said those two words. He was numb, as were his two sisters. They felt nothing, no happiness at the thought of "freedom" and no sadness at the loss of their pain.

"Good" Sage noted with a nod, but was it really?

"What now?" Hayden questioned, after having only been a moneymaker for their depraved mother, they all wondered what life had in store for them.

***

Janine stood watching her children and shaking her head, "to think he had the audacity. After all I did for them" she whispered. Her shallowness has led her to believe that she was entitled to everything, that the world and the people in it somehow owed her things.

"You destroyed them" I whispered in her ear causing her to scream in fright, "you reap what you sow."

"Who the hell are you? What right do you have to say that to me? I made them! They survived because of me!"

"And they'll die because of you" I retorted, her "business" had a lot of wealthy clients who liked to blur the lines of morality and indulge in the deepest taboos. Janine knew if she ever crossed any of them that they'd be more than willing to make her disappear.

"You're bitter, aren't you?" I taunted "bitter that the men you all loved left you, that's why you gave those children their names as a reminder."

"You know nothing!" she seethed as she tried to swing at me.

"I know everything" I laughed, "your children are much smarter than you are my dear, they know how to survive even though you've placed a target on their backs."

Janine scoffed, I hadn't expected her to believe me but I knew what those children would do, the hidden cameras in every corner of the house recorded every activity with high definition. They'd probably blackmail those "guests" that frequented the hell they lived in before outing them to the world and disappearing with the reparations.

All those big shot politicians, judges, lawyers, and even the mundane customers will die social deaths. Their families and friends will see them for who they truly were when their eyes were elsewhere. I smiled, thinking about the outcome, I'll definitely come back to watch the storm those three children will bring.

"Well, then Janine. Your personal hell awaits."