I squeeze her tighter, enough that I hear her gasp for air and feel her muscles stiffen beneath the power of my arms. A reddish-black fog covers my eyes, swirls around behind my closed eyelids, and suddenly everything goes silent: Artemis’s taunting; Apollo’s deafening smiles of satisfaction; the guard’s hands gripping tightly to their weapons; my raging, spinning thoughts; Izabel’s sweet voice.
I feel the warm blood oozing from my hand, dripping down my wrist. And then suddenly I can hear a faraway sound amidst the monumental silence, but I cannot make it out. For a moment, I listen more closely, trying to understand the sound, to understand what I have done, but I am denied the answers. I wrench the knife tighter, press down harder, and another gush of blood seeps through my fingers. Blinded by my own rage and insanity, I scream out into the ether, trying to drown it all out. “NOOO!” My own voice frightens me—or is it the desperation bleeding from it?
I hear the knife clink against the stones, thunderous in my ears, and I open my eyes; the gash across the palm of my hand is deep.
Izabel is sitting on the floor feet from me, her back pressed against the cage bars, her hands still bound behind her, a look of astonishment consuming her beautiful features.
I look down at my bleeding hand again. Back up at Izabel again.
“VICTOR!” Artemis shouts.
Izabel and I remain locked in this moment of eternity.
“Goddamn you! Kill her!”
“They’re coming, Artemis,” Apollo says. “We have to leave! NOW!”
“No! I’m not leaving until he slits that whore’s throat! KILL HER! KILL HER NOW!”
I do not move from my knees on the floor; I do not look at anyone but the woman I love and would rather die for, than kill.
“Why won’t you kill her?” Artemis screeches; desperation and pain in her eyes. “Victor…why can’t you kill her…like you killed me?” She is crying.
Finally, I look away from Izabel and see only Artemis. “Because I love her too much,” I say, and feel a heavy weight leave my body.
Artemis stiffens, her features stunned.
Then suddenly I glimpse movement behind Izabel—fast, but painfully slow at the same time—and the flash of another blade. I freeze; I cannot move anything, not even my eyes; I scream out, but I cannot hear my own voice.
“I love you, Victor,” Izabel mouths, and then blood pours from her throat.
“No—NOOO!”
From the bars, Artemis’s left hand is wound in the top of Izabel’s hair, the right, slowly, horrifically, moves away from Izabel’s throat, a knife, stained with Izabel’s blood, clutched beneath her fingers. Izabel’s eyes roll back, and the whites come into view; her body slumps sideways. I still cannot move. It seems as if some invisible force stronger than my own will forbids it.
Dead. I am dead inside. This is how it feels to be dead.
After seconds that stretch like hours, in a rush of emotions, I feel my knees trudging across the floor, carrying my trembling body toward her. It feels like an eternity, but in seconds I am struggling to get her into my arms, my hands covering the gash on her throat, trying to stop the blood flow. “Izabel!” I cry out, my voice straining through the tears. “I am so sorry, Izabel! I am so sorry! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP HER! FUCKING HELP HER NOW!”
My pleas go unheard.
Everything becomes a blur, every sound and movement is chaotic, whirling around me and inside my head like debris tossed by a tornado. People running, guns firing, boots pounding against the stones, screams, more gunfire. “Forgive me,” I whisper to Izabel, ignoring it all, as if I were in the eye of that storm where everything is calm, rocking her limp body in my arms. “Forgive me…”
Niklas
Two weeks later…
My brother’s seat at the head of the table has been empty since he came back from Venezuela. He and I still aren’t on the best of terms, but I can’t leave our organization without some kind of structure in his absence—it falls, I fall too, that sort of thing. So here I am. Standing where my brother usually sits, looking out at a few familiar faces, and a couple new ones, too, all sitting around the meeting table. Nora, on my right, taps her nails against the tabletop, from pinky to index, again, and again, and again. Fredrik sits to my left, across the table from Nora; he’s as quiet as ever, staring off at the wall; probably got that serial killer he’s been hunting with the government, on his mind—hell, he hardly talks about anything else. James Woodard sits to Fredrik’s left, looking healthier these days; got himself on a Vegan diet, or some such shit; lost a few pounds, and is feeling like a new man.
Izzy’s seat is empty.
Tap-tap-tap-tap. Pinky to index. Tap-tap-tap-tap.
The contents of the table shake when I slam the side of my fisted hand down on it. “Do you mind?”
Nora snarls at me in response, but her fingers go still; she leans back against her chair, crosses her legs, and leaves her arm stretched out on the table.