Fire shoots up my femur and into my hip as I climb.My breath feels like it’s whistling through my head like wind.The plant matter that’s been climbing up this trellis is surprisingly hardy, making it difficult to grasp the metal bars.
But even so.Even fucking so, I make it.Softly, I leap down onto the surface of the balcony.
And, Christ fucking help me, there she is.
She curls in a pool of moonlight, her hair spilling around her like silver.She’s on the floor.The fuckingfloor.At the foot of the bed like a dog.
That alone would be enough to sign his fucking death warrant.
Strange how even down on the tile like that, she’s still so goddamn beautiful.My sleeping angel.
I didn’t realize just how fucking terrified I was of what I’d find here until now.Until I see her, alive, breathing, and, as far as I can see, unharmed.I heard her voice before, but I didn’t even know if she was injured in the accident.It’s only natural that she should have made it out unscathed, and I would be the one taking the brunt of it all.
I’d take that for her a hundred times over.
As I set myself to unlocking the door, I scan the room for Alessandro Messina and find him snoring away in the bed.The bed he didn’t let her fucking sleep in.
Is this the most abhorrent part?Finding her on the cold floor and him in the bed?
Or would seeing her in the bed with him have been worse?
It’s all fucking bad, all fucking wrong, all the possibilities and the realities.By the time I get the door open, stealing through it like some dark spirit, I’m vibrating with the need to kill him.
But I don’t start with him.Forever and always.First and last.It has to be her.
Crouching soundlessly beside her, I brush starlight strands of hair from her face.
“Angel,” I whisper.
Her eyelashes are dove grey as they flutter, her skin pearlescent in the light.When her eyes open, her pupils are huge, swallowing the blue.
“Curse.”She says my name like a prayer.“Am I dreaming?”Her breath catches.“Are you a ghost?”
“I’ve never believed in ghosts.”I brush my knuckles along her browbone, then the tender, hollow place beneath her eye.There’s wetness there.Her chest heaves.
“Don’t cry, angel,” I murmur.“Your monster is here now.”
A look of joy so pure it almost looks like pain passes over her features.
But it doesn’t last long.Fear bolts into her expression, her eyes widening and going behind me.
I twist at the waist and raise my arm just in time to block the swinging arc of a lamp coming down at me.I knock it to the floor, shattering the bulb, before I launch myself at Messina.He flies from the bed, tangling in bedsheets, tripping before fully freeing himself.He’s running for the bedroom door, but I block him, sending him tumbling towards the bathroom instead.It’s there that I catch up with him, there that I can let my violent nature truly unfold.I’ve been so caught up in Aurora that I haven’t killed anyone lately.And it’s finally catching up with me.The ravenous ruin of it.
I grasp the back of Messina’s neck and bring his head down, face-first, on the edge of the stone counter.He gives a shout of pain, then a bloody gargle.
“Did you touch her?”I ask him, wrenching him back up so I can hiss it directly into his ear.He doesn’t answer, so I smash his face down again.Teeth fall like loose pebbles into the sink and onto the floor.
“Did he, Aurora?Did he touch you?”I ask, raising my voice so she can hear.
I can see her from the corner of my eye, watching from the bedroom with her hands plastered over her mouth.Slowly, she lets them drop so she can answer.
“Yes.My throat.”Her fingers brush shadowy marks, the imprint of his fucking fingers, on her neck.“And to get me on the plane…I was drugged.”
My insides unravel.
“You fucking drugged her?”Again, I drive his pathetic fucking face against the stone.His knees buckle, but I don’t let him fall.There will be no respite for him.His body could be completely falling the fuck apart, and still, I will make him stand here and take this.
“What else?”I demand.I’m asking Messina, though I highly doubt he’s capable of speech right now.
