She was ready.
Or so they had thought. Perhaps Mother had known. She always did, much to his recent disgust.
It wasn't disgust then, though. They all had loved her, even when it hurt. When it hurt most they clung to her, bordering adoration as they searched for bits of happiness in that broken world they'd all been thrust into.
But that day had been different.
Her expression was different, neither the glazed look about her that she held onto so fiercely--a wall, a barrier that pushed away all that would hurt, and made her numb--nor the tear stained expression of a girl that could not fathom the strength, the cruelty she possessed. She was determined now, more than she had been before.
That day she was to be taken Outside, with him in close company. That day would change her, and Mother must have known. In fact, she'd probably hoped for it.
Outside.
The promise of it, a world beyond the deathly white of those walls, was what held her together. What had made her brush away those tears and keep training. Because it existed. Because there was a world out there, somewhere beyond, where there existed the flowers she so often raved about.
Outside: Where Haine existed.
Of course, he'd administered his own dose of warning on such thought, tried to reason with her, told her, begged even for her to let go of such a world. That it did not exist. That these flowers, the ones that kept her spirit alight . . . that they did not exist. Still, she was not swayed. And in time, with a solemn expression of his own, he had let her believe; he let her dream, and hope that this world was worth it, that what they did would all fall away once they got outside. Together, she had said.
Ah, Outside.
But was it truly that ever? Just a level directly above their current residence in Hell. That's all. Not truly Outside, but still better than down below.
She had done wonderfully, too. None swayed by the machinery and the death that clung to the streets. Then again, they were born into this smell--the scent of dying, the call of the broken.
These things, while in a different atmosphere, had not swayed even him when he'd first been allowed to leave. For her, of course; for a job that she had insisted only he could do. Yes, Mother knew all too well how to make him dance to her liking. Even after he had first returned, face bloody, gashes across her midsection, he had beamed at her approval. That alone was enough back then.
And now it was Lily's turn.
Transfixed, intoxicated was he as he watched her. To only watch, those were his orders. To watch and make sure she succeeded. One by one the bodies had fallen, and each were sliced with a look of triumph upon her face.
They were almost done. A sickening feeling of pride clung to him as he watched her tiny form bounce on over to him, bathed in her own coat of the bloody thing. They were done. She had made it. She succeeded.
And he had believed it, that they had passed the hardest part. That Lily had finally moved forward, could breathe without wailing, without striking out in blind fury.
"--G-Gio . . ."
--NO!
In mere seconds he was sweating, a nervous edge to the sharp breath he inhaled. His skin pricked and his clean dress shirt stuck to portions of his abdomen. There was an all too familiar panic in her voice, the one present seconds before she usually snapped.
He turned to face her, slowly though not in an unguarded manner, prepared for the first blow of her fury. Instead of this her eyes remained wide, fresh tears spilling down her unblinking expression. Horror cleaning written across her face. But she was not looking at him.
"P-Please . . . make it stop. Make it go away! PLEASE!"
Still she would not look at him, fixated instead on something ahead. He tore his eyes from her, however reluctantly, cautious in regard to the danger that would surely rise from this change of events, and he saw it. Granted, not at first. But after some focus and momentary searching, his own expression growing desperate as he searched the rubble, he saw it.
Under the tire of an abandoned machine, hardly the image of something beautiful, lay the shredded remains of a single flower--its petals were few, its stem bent.
"Lily, I--"
It was the last thing he remembered before the pain he'd expected finally surged through him, rippling down from the back of his skull and tearing down his spine in a haphazard path.
It was the last thing he remembered before Lily brought him that much closer to death.
Again.
