Where the lingering numbness of death once pierced flesh now housed an unfamiliar warmth the likes of which this angel of death had long since forgotten. Roman sun refused to touch porcelain skin. No incarnation of the blonde bringer of death could withstand the terrors of existence after one fateful night. The decrepit star could no longer reach her.
The putrid glow of street lamps brought a vision of the night more clear than it had been in years.
One message.
Stay safe.
Final reply.
love you.
That night a slug tore through her torso, the pain of it as clear as day: pressure lifting the lioness into a violent contortion as searing heat tore through flesh. Even the scar lingered, but nothing compared to the moment silence reached through bone, tearing a once-beating heart from her chest, several hours later in the mansion–the place they had once called home.
Waves of auburn had long since disappeared below the horizon as the foyer was flooded with bloodied, broken bodies of a gang once known as the Revelations. Astrid hardly recognized them that night. The deft hands of her comrades were nowhere to be found. Her defiance of direct orders to remain in medical driven by one thing and one thing, alone. The single word her broken body could muster.
Wounds healed, puckered flesh and scar tissue dissipating over time, but the lioness never recovered. Her quest to meet her own demise only expedited by the need to be with him again.
As fate would have it, life endured. Lives endured. No incarnation of the demon veiled by a golden halo truly existed without him, after all. Life was a hollow ritual. Ripping breath from Damien’s sanguine grin felt bereft of catharsis. The lioness had already died. Only now, with trembling fingers winding themselves in chestnut tendrils, did she feel anything. Her hold on him tightened. A disembodied soul transplanted into its host once more. He’d had it with him–with his return, so too did it.
Silent assurances confirmed his presence made everything alright. A single inquiry turned statement. Confirmation.
The long night would eventually fall, surrender to their feet once the fuliginous gloom lifted and Berlin’s dishonest facade was revealed, stranded into the shallow waters of deception. It was a masquerade, not much unlike various mundane things in a world at the pinnacle of its very own viciousness. Dishonest it lulled concerned specimen, devoured by their sickening worry of all things he desperately wished to neglect, into faux security, a sense of harmlessness making them blind to predatory intention until the lethal bite.
As lethal as the bullets should have been. As lethal as the thoughts he’d left Rome with, to a time he never desired to return to. She was the only reason for certain flashes of fondness, threaded into the systematically manufactured memories. Forged by justified bitterness, hurt he oftentimes believed to be irrational. It had once been on him.
It would not be much longer, would not withstand the fight of light on its accelerating quest towards victory -- the darkness pulled above the sky and he thought a foolish thought. Was lost for a single moment, wondering who was watching the scene of an unlikely reunion unfurl. How many times this instant might have occurred, in all the different worlds some believed to coexist peacefully, to hope for sought comfort, ease the pain of the brutal cross commanding them to their knees. Some would never reach the end of their long journey, their mission remained unfulfilled.
But not them, even with all odds turned against them.
How could it be their chests were giving beating hearts a home, when the end of their stories had seemed to be etched on yellowed parchment with crimson ink. The contract they’d signed with their blood, a deal with the devil to return home once their use to this reality ceased to hold its withering importance.
Why were they still here?
It was a deep breath he took and his lungs strained under the pull of oxygen. The night’s cold slid into the far distance, out of reach where sensory canals blocked the perception of harsh temperatures. Or perhaps it was subtle flashes of euphoria, disbelief not quite conquered by trust in a reality, for once not mantled in a nightmarish cloak.
“I’m here, Astrid.” They were here.
Words like assurance for his own faith in this moment’s certain authenticity. It wavered, stood on shaky foundation and he feared the next shallow breeze could tip it over and the ghost in his arms would vanish, fade into the nightly air and be carried away with icy winds.
Arms tightened around her frame momentarily. The lightest of squeezes, like the planted fear manifested and threatened to thrive, bear the blossoms of anxiety he wanted to struggle against. Another deep breath.
Lips parted, words longed to be uttered against loose strands of blonde, though sirens began to wail, cut him off before the first sound could come tumbling from the barrier of tongue and lips. It was what initially made him tear his arms from around her, loosen the embrace with heavy shoulders, weighed down by sorrow’s kin. His hands rested on her shoulders, closeness not yet gone. The risks of treacherous night-time, luring in tenebrous shadows behind each turn on the city’s map, heightened, sense kicked in. “We need to get you out of here.”
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