A black blouse with lace sleeves, high waist pants with a golden chain belt. Her dark hair is pulled back tightly in a low bun. Her lips red, the golden cross dangling from her neck.
“What are you doing here?” I breathe out.
“I do not know,” she says, in a voice that bears a tormented soul and looks away.
Silence follows. Silence that is only disturbed by the singing of a bird outside. A nightingale.
“You risked a lot coming here,” I say.
“I did,” she says.
“You killed Adria to save me,” I say.
“I did,” she says, and her eyes find mine.
Goosebumps prick my skin the moment our eyes meet.
I wait for her to say something, but she doesn’t.
“Why are you here?” I ask. I already know the answer. But I need to hear it.
“Because of you,” she breathes out.
I want to get lost in those three words, but I can’t. Because I haven’t forgotten. There’s nothing that’ll come off it. The entire universe is against it.
“You shouldn’t have come,” I say.
“I know,” she says, “And yet, I am here.”
“You can’t be here!” I say louder than I want. “There is no point! We can’t! We can’t be—after everything, not in this world. Not in a world where being with a woman is against the rules. Not in a world where you are the one I have to hunt, and I am the one you have to kill.”
“Don’t you think I know all that?” she says. “But I cannot stay away!” she says and closes the distance between us. “I cannot stay away because you haunt my mind, torment my soul and stole my heart.”
Her palms grasp my cheeks.
Just like she did that night.
The night she stopped.
Although she told me she wouldn’t.
She broke her word.
For me.
She killed Adria.
For me.
One infinite moment where we gaze into each other’s eyes.
The world around us disappears.
My hands wander onto her chest.
The chest that heaves up and down underneath my fingers.
My lips find hers.
