Author's POV
Her lips trembled, hands frozen on the cup that held to her lips. She tried her best not to meet his eyes. His confession and doubts were way deeper than she thought. Her existence affected him. She bit her cheek from the inside to seek control and composure.
The man she thought was easy to forget and throw away had now backfired on her in the gut. Yes, she did think of returning to him but all she believed was that she was a nuisance for him. Her existence in his life had only brought him sorrow and pain.
Every time he took a step forward to help, she pushed him away. In despair that she could never bring him happiness. She was a monster. Her ears drummed with those words. She was a cold-blooded devil who couldn't care less about any living being until it brought her an advantage.
She dared to meet his eyes, only to find his blue orbs already focused on her. Seeking answers. Wanting her to relieve his doubts and insecurities. She knew she was toxic to him. And he was blind enough not to read through her. She was venomous.
She had left her past; she had left him to atone for her sins, wishing her sinful deeds and the blood on her hands to be washed away. She strived hard for peace but she knew she didn't deserve it. Not at all. The number of lives that she ruined is uncountable, be it innocent or wicked; humanity had left its traits in her and all she became was a machine gun to a clan and her main motivation was power and survival.
There was a sudden bang with the doors being pushed and she saw 3 people running in. Her hands instinctively rushed to the back of her waistband, gripping the gun that had been tucked for safety. Her fingers gripped the gun, one hand tugging at the barrel while the other was on the grip panel, her index finger resting on the trigger. Standing up from the couch, she walked towards them, aiming her gun. Her main priority was Jay's safety. Even though it was nearly impossible for someone to locate an island that was not recorded in the government records for access, she had seen the worst of scenarios to not be on alert all the time.
She glanced at Jay, who had been caught off guard by the chaos. Her eyes darted back at the men who had barged in. It all happened in a span of a few seconds, and the next moment, she found them jumping towards her. She felt she had seen them in particular before, but before she could even process it, she was wrapped in a tight hug. A series of happy cries echoed, her gun long forgotten in her palm, which rested by the side of her thigh.
She felt peppering kisses on her temple and head, while another hand ruffled her styled hair, making it tousled. She stood still. 3 grown men had her in their arms, hugging her as if she were a 6-year-old lost in the amusement park and later found by her mother. She found the voices familiar; her eyes twinkled in confusion. Gathering herself back to the present, she shook herself harshly and yanked those 3 clingy men away. Finally, there was some distance to inspect them. She stared at them while they had a wide smile, tears streaming down their cheeks.
It was Eric, Mateo and Carlos.
Her eyes darted at the guards who had surrounded the place, guns aiming in her direction, where 4 of them stood. She gestured for the guards to put down their weapons with one flick of her hand. Her mouth gaped open and closed, speechless. She looked back at Jay, who looked equally shocked.
Eric: You didn't tell us you were alive, you idiot!
Mateo: 2 years, woman!
Carlos: I missed you so bad. And where is Ed?
Eric: Yes, where is that jerk? I am going to kill that dork for hiding from us for so long.
Amy stood silent, her brain erupting with chaos. They were searching for the person who died saving her; the guilt festered her insides, churning in her stomach. Her mind dwelled on the past.
Flashback:
Amy hid behind the pillars, waiting for a perfect moment for the attack. Her eyes focused on Edward, who glanced once in a while. There had been a change of plan, and Edward had willingly called upon the rival clan leaders to seal a deal. Things were going well, according to the plan. She was hiding behind a giant pillar, her rifle nuzzling and targeting the leaders. A perfect moment, and she would blow their heads off.
But unbeknownst, she was about to be backstabbed. Unknown about the situation, her predatory gaze lingered on her targets; just one signal from Edward and the game was easy to finish. The tension was thick in the air, while Edward continued to lure the mob bosses, bluffing high dreams that everyone was greedy for.
Edward: I have invited you guys here for one reason: we all need one thing. Power. How about we eradicate that one obstacle in our way? The heir of the dragons.
Amy's ears perked up at the remark; this was out of context. All of a sudden, she felt a cold metal pressing on her nape, her iris shifting for peripheral vision, spotting her clan member, and she was quick to realise that the cold metal was the muzzle of a gun. She was caught off guard. Her mind flickered with uncertainty, eyes training back towards Edward, who had been smirking at her. Those mob bosses followed his gaze, their eyes settling on Amy with a disgusting smirk.
She never once dwelled on the thought of Edward being a traitor. But she had seen the worst of situations in her life as a part of a clan. She could trust no one; she was seeing his true colours today.
She stood still, her grip on the rifle tightened.
"Drop the weapon, bitch."
The one behind her snickered. But she wasn't backing down without a fight. It was pity that she had to fight her own clan members. With a snap, her rifle's butt hit the rib of the man behind her. A harsh grunt erupted, and she had already launched her leg in a swift motion drifting a roundhouse kick on the man square in the jaw as he landed on the wall behind due to impact.
Turning around, her index finger pressed the trigger, the bullet piercing his skull, blood splattering on the wall behind. Her eyes spotted a few more figures popping out from the dark. Her blood boiled; she was ready to die but never thought it would end like this.
She heard laughter.
Laguhter of mockery and victory. But she was going to make sure her death would not be meaningless.
The laughs blurred into blood-curling screams and agony, clenching the rifle in a perfect grip. Her mind was blank; all she wanted was the sight of blood, a pool of it and the best being a blood bath that would drum like victory to her existence.
Her index finger pushed the trigger, shooting a bullet at every human in sight. There were too many and she had only one weapon to aim a perfect shot of death. Her knives were useless; she couldn't achieve proximity at this rate. She knew these men were meant for distraction, for her to slowly burn out, lose energy, and give in to death once she was exhausted. And she walked right into the trap.
She hissed as a bullet pierced past her skin. Her left arm was injured and the bullets had run out. Her breaths had turned heavy. She slumped against one of the pillars, perspiration forming all over her forehead and neck. Her heavy breaths and the blankness of her brain had made her anxious. She was out of backup and surrendering wasn't an option. She felt blood dripping over the floor and the lack of oxygen to the brain had made her vision turn blurry.
She was screwed.
Her neck craned at the side, eyes trailed towards Edward; his smug smirk felt like an overthrown facade, desperately wishing it to be a nightmare; she sought his eyes, and they had a different story to say.
Her eyes followed through the place; there were men surrounding the place hovering above her, making her feel small and vulnerable. But all she did was laugh.
She looked straight at Edward.
Amy: Coward ass. Come on, I didn't know your standards were that low.
Amy smirked, desperately trying to get a reaction out of him. Manipulation was the last option for sorting a way out of this. Edward flicked a faint smirk, his intentions unclear. His steps were predatory; stopping an inch away, he crouched to the floor; the vulnerability before was now hidden away with a maddening purpose.
Edward: Just give up, sweetheart.
His tone was filled with menace, and his eyes were boring like lasers.
In answer, Amy bucked her rifle's butt, banging straight onto his head with a thud; his calm composure had certainly disfigured. His forehead bled in response to the savage assault, and his face twisted in anger.
His fingers curled into a fist around the loose waves of her hair, harshly gripping the locks and tugging her closer.
Edward: I am a goal achiever, and about standards, I can't surpass yours and stoop to the ground; you just need to reach mine.
Amy scoffed with a squeak.
Edward: Let's cut the chase.
His fingers wiped the blood that trickled down his forehead, forcing a slow chuckle to escape his lips.
With that, he tugged Amy upwards, making her stand on her feet. Before she could manage to stand straight, she was pushed forward, making her stumble. Her body landed on the floor while her arms were immediately grabbed by two buff guards, who stripped the weapons of her, making her defenceless, harshly gripping and pushing her onto the chair. She sat back on the chair, almost dead, with small gulps of breath, even though the place had been filled with strong wind that hit from the sea.
The ocean waves hit hard, and dark clouds slowly approached and crowded visibly in the sky. The place was an abandoned factory with unexamined chemicals resting in the basement and a partly demolished site that stood abandoned for a long time. Amy stilled, her eyes closed with diminishing hope. The wind gushed the place, and her loose strands of hair danced with the air.
A dance of death.
Her neck craned, and her head was thrown back with a harsh punch in the face. In a span of a few seconds, the world looked upside down. The place had no barricades, no fences but an incomplete building supported by pillars that could collapse at any moment. But who cared? Amy simply gazed and laid back on the chair, her head thrown back with zero sense of revolt or urge to fight back. She felt that everything was pointless; she gazed at the space that gave a full view of the sky and the sea that met like two souls mixing and submerging into each other's horizon and turning into one. The boundaries were crossed, and even though the sea and sky had never actually met in reality, the human brain was a funny thing. Amy wondered with a faint smile.
Funny. How humans were so delusional to desire something they could never get. But yet, like a poet in his world, they created a stream of desires and wishes that meant nothing in the end because the human world was uncertain. The one Amy lived in. The beings were called humans, but she found that humanity nowhere existed.
A sudden tug on her neck broke her temporary trance. Her head jerked to the front, only to meet her tormenter's cunning eyes. She took in her surroundings and found those gang leaders chuckling at her, some showing amusement that she had been the heir all this time.
A weakling.
Edward: Let me get done with some unfinished business and we can dispose of her!
His tone tasted bitter on her tongue. The other people in the room looked at him suspiciously but smirked at his untold intentions. Her hopeless eyes widened their smirks.
Edward took a step ahead, gesturing those bosses that he was going to solely deal with Amy. Inching closer, his fingers dug around her jaw, nails clawing her skin, evident enough to leave marks, forcing her to meet his eyes.
Edward: What will you do without me, sweetheart?
His words escaped in a low whisper, an unclear emotion hidden behind the facade of mockery. But all Amy kept was silence. She couldn't put up her blank face like before. She felt betrayed and all she wanted was for Earth to swallow her and never let her come back as a human. Trust was a joke.
She tried to use her hand to break away from his grip but heard a sudden clink of metal, only to find her hands cuffed to the chair. Her legs were tied with rope. How long had she been zoned out and not noticed such movements around her?
Her years of training and torture felt like a failure. All her knowledge and conciseness had turned into nothingness. She begged her brain to work and gauge an escape; her survival instinct didn’t seem to work.
She smiled in despair, looking up at Edward with an emotion. And it had affected Edward, making him gulp a lump in the throat. His eyes never parted away from hers. His grip on her jaw turned gentle, thumb-rubbing her bloodied lower lip that oozed with blood every time he touched but Amy didn't hiss. She just stared at him. Her brain was malfunctioning.
Amy: Guess what, Ed, I can't. I can’t do anything without you.
Though she replied after a long moment of silence. But her words hit him in the gut. His expression faltered. The sentiments hidden beneath his iris flooded to the seams but Edward didn't let his feelings overwhelm him.
Edward: I am doing it for your good, sweetheart. A proper farewell is the least I can do. Before going to hell-
His syllables occurred incomplete, marked with playfulness as he leaned in, crashing his lips onto hers, making Amy go still. Her conciseness turned into chaos. His lips lingered on hers for a while, like a feathery, soft touch. Her heartbeats raced and her breathing stopped.
A sudden sting of pain gushed to her waist. Her insides felt cut open, and a squishy sound of the flesh drummed in her ears as she felt the metal twisting her insides. Her expression twisted into horror yet Edward didn't pull away from the kiss. His hand held the knife, firmly twisting it in her flesh. The blood flooded from the wound. Her throat gushed with bile as she coughed blood that trickled to her chin, a sick realization that the blade had pierced one of her organs. Her lips quivered to form a scream but all she could muster was a low gasp.
She felt him smile before he finally pulled away, his lips smeared in her blood while a sick smile etched across his face. He twisted the knife even more while licking his lips, devouring the taste of Amy's blood.
Amy groaned while coughing. It wasn't the first time she had been wounded or stabbed to death. But such betrayal felt like acid burning her wounds. Her eyes welled up with tears. Memories from the past replayed like a broken video.
They had been a team for years, had one mission to accomplish and yet when they were so close to winning, close to freedom, Edward had given a harsh blow. And everything fell apart. She knew Edward's obsession with victory and success. He knew no limits. If he wanted something, he would go to lengths and claim it, no matter what the consequences. And his blind obsession had led to her fall.
Edward rose from his leaned posture from before, standing straight to his feet. His hand left the blade stabbed to her stomach. Amy's red-teary eyes had twitched his insides. He looked at her miserable self, and he knew what destruction he had made, yet he made himself believe that he was doing it for the better. All these years, Edward had gained Amy’s trust and she trusted him blindly and now he was exploiting it.
But Amy's lack of response and fierceness intrigued him. He had known Amy as someone who wouldn't let her facade falter. She was heartless when she used words, but she could muster up ideas in situations where her survival was at stake. Call it a defence mechanism, but it always worked. Her main mantra for life was 'ways to survive?' no matter what or how daunting the situations were.
Why was she not making a move?
It was a question that bugged him.
He didn't expect Amy to give up this early; her given-up attitude had alarmed him. He felt as if he was not looking at his gang member but at the 13-year-old kid whom he had found in the alley, all battered up years ago. He remembered her being scared when Mr. Brown had manipulated her into being a part of the gang and her eyes were stuck on him as if asking for safety and assurance. And all he gave was a slight nod. And now they were here, at an abandoned, partly demolished factory, and he was going to be the one to push her to the brink of death.
He smirked, keeping up his unbothered facade. There was a moment of silence with Amy's low coughs and grunts interrupting as she struggled to breathe. The gang leaders behind them were audible with low murmurs as they anticipated Edward's next move. Amy's eyes stared at nothing. This time she had thrown everything upon her fate. If it was in her destiny to die, who was she to delay it?
She never believed in fate or destiny; her brain was too clouded to think of survival. She had imagined her dream of freedom but never without Edward in it. If she had to survive after fighting over a person she had trusted the most, it felt worthless. Nor did she want to burden Jay with her half-headed problems. She had caused him enough damage, almost throwing him to the brink of death before bringing a final escape.
Edward: Well, let's set you to see the Grim Reaper!
With that, Edward's hand grabbed the headrest of the chair with Amy tied to it. With the lingering menace and the small flick of Amy's lifeless eyes towards him, he dragged the chair to the very edge of the open end of the premises. The sea waves crashing through the building came clear to view, and the blue tides jumped to the heights like a giant creature ready to swallow its prey.
With a harsh push, he made Amy lean against the edge; a small flick and she would vanish in the blues like she never existed. She could think of various possibilities; a shark’s teeth, a jellyfish’s sting, or a whale's mouth was enough to finish her and wipe down her existence. Oh, she forgot; she was tied to the chair and the weight of this metallic chair was enough to make her sink to the very bottom and die out of breath.
Her blank brain with such random thoughts made her chuckle, grasping Edward's attention. He snickered at her dishevelled form. His tall figure hovering above her, one hand holding the back of the chair, avoiding the fall while his gaze bored into hers.
Edward: You seem to enjoy this, huh! Snapback, Ash.
His knuckles caressed her cheeks, which were smudged in the red liquid, whispering in a low voice; his tone was different from before. His voice filled with concern and frustration.
Bringing his hand back, he thumped his side in frustration. There was a sudden sound of a metal clink that took Amy's attention.
Her eyes landed on his waist and the strong breeze from the open sea had made his leather jacket fly, revealing his black shirt beneath and a camouflaged bomb detonator on the side of his waist.
Her eyes widened, her brain processing his words and the intent behind it. They had simple plans of escaping before and then bombing the entire factory with these gang members; there were hidden grenades and bombs that would get triggered. The very loophole was that they needed someone to divert attention and Amy had decided to do that. It was a game of do or die. And Edward had switched their roles. He was planning for mass suicide. And he was going to kill himself along with everyone.
Even though Amy had been profusely bleeding and coughing, she tried hard to speak. Her face flashed terror. She wanted to stop it. She wanted freedom but at what cost? She shook her head desperately, trying to stop Edward.
And before she could even proceed to speak further, Edward had already pushed her off the edge, mouthing goodbye. The last thing she saw was a burst of flames that spread across the premises until she hit the water, rapidly sinking to the bottom. Her mind was in chaos. But Edward’s last words had hit her. There was a rush of sudden adrenaline hitting her veins.
She struggled to breathe, squirming harshly. She freed one of her hands, her eyes darting towards the knife stuck in her wound. Without a second thought, she pulled out the blade in a swift motion. Using the knife, she rubbed the blade against the ropes, cutting them off that bound her to the chair.
The metal chair was sinking faster then she had imagined. If she wasted any more seconds, it would be difficult to swim back to the surface with the limited energy that had drained from her body.She was out of breath and struggled between life and death; her wounded body didn’t help her to swim without any harsh motion. Her eyes closed, and consciousness was slowly leaving her body. She couldn’t move; her body floated still between the blues and the deep, dark bottom of the ocean. She could see a white light beaming before her eyes. Until it was dark.
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Hey Guys, it's been a long time, since I updated a new chapter to the story. But do stay tuned for next chapters as it gets interesting!
Thank you 💜
Peace ✌️
