As I stand here dying someone seems to think they have something more important to be doing. My death seems to really be interfering with their fabulous day.
The white light I saw from the woods, the white light that lead me here to my death, it strikes through the room once more. It flickers sporadically, waning into a dim hue of gold.
Three men stand gripping the bars of a jail cell in the corner of the room. The one with golden hair holds his hands together as if he’s harnessing a force between his palms. The light burns with a pulsing hue from the center of his hands.
What is he holding?
“Come on, we’ve been here for over a year, love. Get the key.”
A shaking breath filled with annoyance parts my dry lips.
“Did you see what happened to the last man that called melove?” I narrow my eyes on the prisoner with the pale gray gaze. My lips twist with confidence even though I feel my strength fading.
The other man at his side turns to him with a smirk pulling at his features. There’s a similarity between the two men. One holds taunting humor and the other total anger. It’s then that I realize they’re the same.
They’re twins.
“Please, lo—woman, get the key.” Yes, because women love nothing more than to be called affectionately by their gender.
Asshole.
The scowl never leaves his handsome, dirty face as he points across the room to a single key displayed proudly in a glass case. A dim light illuminates the key, taunting them with the closeness of their freedom.
The scraping sound of my boots moving sluggishly skims through the small room. I lean into the wall as I reach high for the brass key.
The thin display case teeters and the enclosing box falls away from the key. Fine particles of glass shatter across my boots but I don’t notice it as I stand on the tips of my toes to reach the key. It’s cold against my skin. My fingerless leather gloves are all that separates its metal from my numbing flesh.
I turn back to them and the three stand wide-eyed, watching me with expectation as I hold their lives in my hands.
Over the years, I’ve been taught to never give anything away for free. A person's life is worth quite a bit.
I know because mine’s already gone.
Panic wraps itself tightly around my stomach as I realize I can’t manage a real intake of air. I push aside the selfish thought and walk to them with fear gripping my chest. My life is over, but their lives don’t have to be. The key fits perfectly into the lock with a scraping sound of metal on metal. It turns with ease.
One of the twins claps his hands as they all race from the cell.
My eyes close heavily and I sink to the floor in a warm puddle of my own blood. Slick fingers fall from the fatal puncture wound, my hands no longer able to hold the life within me.
The man with dark hair, one of the twins, lowers himself down to his knees. Crimson blood stains his dirty jeans.
He clings tightly to a mysterious light in his hands.
“Thank you,” he says. My eyes flutter, wanting to see him—the last person who will ever see me before I die.
I guess I won’t die alone after all.
The effort of opening my eyes is too much.
He presses a warm kiss to my temple. It’s an affectionate gesture that I would have hated if I weren’t teetering on the hazy line between life and death. It feels nice, though. To feel loved. To feel treasured. To feel … like my life mattered.
Even if it is just pretend.
A painful, empty breath shakes from my lungs, the last one I have the strength to take.
Heat radiates through my side as he presses his hand to my flesh, just over the knife wound. A light shines brightly against my closed lids. Nerves tingle all through my body.
A strong sound pounds loudly through my ears, filling my hazy consciousness.
