It hurts…It hurts no more.
She didn’t dodge. She didn’t know why. All she heard, all she felt, was the feeling of liquid fire in her shoulder. Alice could have dodged – could have saved herself the unimaginable pain that came. But she didn’t, because she felt she deserved it. All the lives taken, butchered in her rage, were taking their penance from her flesh. The finality of that blow, of the scream that did not come, and the pain that was so violent – she almost laughed.
The solid wall was the only thing that caught her, her body slowly sliding down its blood-slick surface. A shuddering hand came up to touch the opening of this fresh wound – of this strange anomaly that she hadn’t felt since the night of her escape. Pain was like a dull throb, a fly at the back of her head not worthy of being swatted at. For nothing could have overshadowed the feeling of being surgically altered – of muscles being ripped and sewn and new muscles somehow being put in their place. Of nine foot feathered limbs being forcefully attached to her body. Of them cutting into her brain, changing it in ways that were probably their biggest mistake.
They underestimated her brains ability to adapt – to draw in the gifts that had been given and changed them, mold them, into something more. The human’s usage of the brain had abandoned her. Thus, pyrokinesis, electrical manipulation, super human speed, strength, and healing.
Yet now, as gravity seemed to become a liable force once more, Alice sank to her knees, gasping in wordless horror as her insides spewed from her body, splattering the already desecrated wall. It was as if she suddenly realized she had a heartbeat, and the blood that flowed from her gapping wound was at last her own.
Alice found herself completely on her back seconds later, hearing the labored, raging breaths of her rival. Those breaths reminded her so much of the heated gasp that he released as he held onto her, not knowing why his hands constricted around her, into the silken depths of her wings crushing her body against his. Could it just simply have been the hormones? She could put it at that, sure. So overcome by adrenaline and testosterone that instinct had taken over. Not love – of course not. This man was obviously not just hunting her for the fun of it. There was revenge glinting in the depths of those lupine eyes. She knew it, because her eyes had the exact same fire. It was almost like looking in a mirror.
And yet, despite all of her thoughts, she felt at peace. Half-slotted eyes watched the ascending fist as it rose into the air, almost capable of seeing the power coursing through those veins, just beneath their fleshy shield. Dante’s furious cries fell on deaf ears, but still evoked the gentlest, most infuriating of smiles. Alice’s honey sweet lips curled upwards, a trickle of blood oozing down to her ear as she waited for the final blow to come upon her. For her brain to finally shut up, and death to come swiftly. Lavender eyes watched, waiting, expecting. But that fist never came. That smile disintegrated. He wasn’t going to do it. He wasn’t going to kill her.
“Hit me, damnit!” Alice roared weakly, her prostrate arms coming up to grasp relentlessly upon his collar, jerking his face towards her own through a sideways cough that sent blood spraying onto the floor. Crimson lips quivered with anger at his hesitation, the most violent urge to kiss him again boiling up like molten lava in her veins. Lilac beauties met golden pillars of hate and rage, frozen in stunned silence as those words hissed out from Dante’s ear. In a moment her peace and tranquility turned to humiliating horror, face twisting in so many ways one couldn’t tell if it were the pain of the fear that had taken her mind. Those hands tightened all the more, and the fiery beast was not fighting, but begging.
“Please. Please. Kill me. Don’t take me back. Please. I don’t want to! Not again…Please. Please…!” Her words broke at the end, a shuddering sob that could have shattered the most steadfast of hearts. Blood thickened strands of cerulean caked themselves to the sides of her pathetic expression. Once tan, her jacket now lay tattered and ruined, a gapping hole blown right into her shoulder. There was no way she could fight. If he didn’t finish her off now, she was doomed. She couldn’t let them take her. Couldn’t let them use her as an experiment again. All this – this senseless slaughter, would be for naught. Everything would be in vain.
She was scared. Flashes of blinding white, of men’s face peering down cynically at their little lab rat. This is not what she wanted. This is not the end she had imagined countless times. This would be an end where she was caged, and her mind was so ravaged that Alice Sinclair, or even Fianna, would be eradicated from existence.
“Please…”
Pleading, glistening globes peered up from the broken, marred face of a fallen angel.
