Flesh broke open painfully as it hit the rough stone of the cathedral floor. She had been thwarted, and here she sat: a gun pointed at her chest with her enemy’s eyes glowing from the surrounding darkness. A shaft of dim light from one of the many windows was blinding her eyes. Dust filled her lungs. She had always wondered what it would be like when this moment came.
Her hand twitched toward her gun, which lay two inches from her fragile fingertips. At least, they seemed fragile at the moment. His searing stare was wordless. He simply breathed, still seething with triumph, success. She could smell his breath: that breath she had so longed for in her weakest lone moments.
Yes, she realized, it wasn’t love; but it sure wasn’t hate. The tip of her tongue touched her bottom lip in an attempt to seem casual.
“You going to kill me?” she hissed in her most seductive whisper. Despite the mere murmur, the question echoed off of every surrounding stone wall. This brought a smirk to his face, his white teeth shining in the gloom.
“You had to know it would eventually come down to this,” he whispered smoothly, as smooth as the sound of the hammer as it was pulled back. She felt her breath constrict, her chest full and tight, her heart ready to be torn. Her eyes closed, showing smoky eyelids, before opening once more. Her dry throat reluctantly swallowed.
“So?” Her voice hardly escaped her vocal chords.
“You…were a beautiful woman.” The shot of a gun rang, followed shortly by the muffled fall and gasp of a dying woman.
The shot had passed through her collar bone, cracking every bone in between before spitting out of her shoulder. As she lay, she could feel the blood soak her back. She breathed, but it ached. Her heart hammered in her ears and her eyes stared up into the depths of the cathedral ceiling. She sputtered, coughing blood before spitting it out onto the floor next to her.
She rolled, her half-dimmed eyes only seeing a husky outline, now. Good arm underneath her, she pulled herself into a sitting position only to find a boot on her cheek, pressing her life-fleeing body back to the ground. She coughed once more.
“This is it? You’re just going to watch me die? Watch me bleed?” she gurgled at the ceiling. She could hear the smirk return to his face.
“Should have known this was your idea of fun,” she tried to laugh, but it only came as another blood-freeing cough. Her body squirmed, then recoiled. She felt her life leaving her, her last breaths becoming ragged and hollow.
He seemed to realize this, too. His tall form slouched cat-like next to her puddle of blood. Ice blue eyes met her black, dead stare.
“Sweet dreams,” he muttered. Her breathing halted, then returned. Her sight darkened and blurred before she finally closed her eyes and lost consciousness to a sweeping feeling she believed was death.
Dark, pretty eyes opened to a silent, dark room. The scent of fermenting stone, she realized, surrounded her as she gasped for breath. Her lungs felt sluggish, retarded. Her shoulder ached, and for a moment, she didn’t understand why.
Why, she noticed in the moment, was her naked body lying in a stone tub of seething hot water? Why was she alive? Is this death, she wondered? How had she gotten here? Who had brought her? Was the devil himself to walk around the corner—the corner from which she could see a slit of light running into the room?
Her eyes swept her strange surroundings and she contemplated her escape. Eyes beheld a stack of clothes next to a low-burning candle. So, the devil wasn’t so thoughtless as the leave her naked in a strange place. Her arms felt like lead as she pushed herself up, out of the water. Her tingling fingers danced around the clothing pile. They were her own clothing, maybe from home. Unfortunately, her fingertips found no metal of a gun. The devil wasn’t that kind.
Sound of movement from the other room brought her mind up to speed. She had to be living. Death was too strange, too much like life. She still felt heat and cool and pain as she touched the healing bullet hole in her left shoulder. Healing. Why wasn’t she dead?
Her clothes were donned in an instant, and she pulled the candle up into her grasp. Bare, stumbling feet padded on night-cooled stone. One step, two step…until 20 steps had been taken, and she felt her pupils dilate painfully as light swept over her face. She was afraid that her gasp was heard because a sudden stillness encompassed the next room.
Still, her pale feet stumbled on, further into the light. Until she got a full view of the next room. It was cluttered with papers on desks, in drawers, on bookshelves used as catch-alls: books, pens, ink bottles, old food, looking glasses, magnifiers, models of houses and buildings of all shapes and sizes. And amongst all the rubble, sitting in a musty antique chair, was the enemy. His eyes glittered, caught in the moonlight from the window.
“You…you son of a-“
“Tut tut tut, you would think that one would have better manners towards someone who had just saved their life!” he interrupted.
“You tried to take it, first.” Her voice was hoarse and rasped in her throat. She glared at him from across the room. He remained unperturbed. Frustration boiled within.
“Why didn’t you just let me die?!” her screech was so loud it echoed from room to room. Still, he remained unperturbed. Her stumbling feet shuffled forward 3 meters until her hand felt the touch of his linen shirt.
“Why didn’t you just let me die?” she whispered.
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