Carmen.
The recollection, a mere name, incited his heart into a riot. A heavy hammering against his ribcage.
Carmen.
His brain had committed her name to memory, its place now permanent as an inscription on stone, chanting it internally in a voice he never heard but imagined was his own.
It was when he released her neck did she turn her head and sputter a cough. Slowly, his hands planted on either side of the face he thought must be Laurie's age. The worst time to think of his sister because he now could only draw parallels between the two...
His sister's cold innocence was mirrored in Carmen's eyes. These vulnerable eyes.
Agitation gripped him. He almost wanted to drive his thumbs into her eye sockets…
Has he thought of that before?
Michael hated weakness in himself, but he also didn't think he'd hate to see it in someone else.
Her lips half formed words spilled out, that really meant nothing to him, but he listened anyway if only to explore the scale of her voice in the absence of his.
"I'm...a murderer…"
Her face flickered with something he discerned as broken.
On a sick fleeting whim, his hand skimmed down her torso, stopping along her ribcage where he caressed the beginning curve of her waist. Her warmth bled into his palm — it reminded him that she was alive.
"Please, kill me."
What has changed?
What had changed?
The action of his touch drew from the girl a hesitant exhale. His blood thickened and his heart thundered treacherously in his chest.
There was an emptiness in him...demanding…
A need to be satisfied.
Michael was startled when he discovered that he was in want.
He wishes...
She'd stop looking at him—
Like that.
"Kill me."
Want…
Yes. He wanted.
As he stared at her parted lips, he wanted.
As her eyes grew weary with exhaustion, he wanted.
Michael smoothed his thumb across her bottom lip before he could register his actions.
You fragile thing.
He wanted to hit her without hitting.
Cut her without cutting.
He wanted to kill her without killing. Because if he kills her in real life, he won't have another chance to kill her again. And yet he's ideated it so many times in his mind. A few minutes before, he would have strangled her, crushed her throat. It would have been violent. It would have been glorious.
He was so close...
And she was so fragile.
He wanted to take advantage of that. Reap her of her warmth. Caress the flesh of her thighs. Dig his fingers into her wounds where it's warm and wet...Like her mouth.
Her lips were parted when his thumb pushed past her teeth. And Carmen who was trapped in a daze, gives into exhaustion and her eyes roll into the back of her head.
And Michael, who is too transfixed prodding her tongue, neglects to see the sergeant approaching him from behind.
AN: Wow, it has been like forever since I updated. And let me tell you, IM SO SORRY. But here it is! Hopefully, by the time I'm done with this I'd have finished Brotherly as well!