I had my reasons.
Sorry.
Other: remember that this is yet to be betaed. It may be even deleted later or replaced. Anyway, enjoy.
/This chapter is slightly... weird. But tell your opinion 'bout it./
Chapter 13 – Freedom
A monastery somewhere in southwest China
A month ago
She had been born here.
She had lived here.
As well as her sister, her brothers, her masters. As well as about fifty other people she had considered her family.
They had all lived together and – when the time had come, so suddenly, their time had come – they had all gone together.
»Her cheeks are adorable rosy pink: she has run all the way. As she gets to her, the girl looks up from her book – she is reading in English, she's the cleverest and knows everything about the world – and smiles down at her. She always smiles at her and listens to her, no matter what she has been doing. She tells her fairy tales, and-
"What's up, Lily?" Rose reaches out to put her into her lap, but she sneaks away from her soft white hand and chuckles.
"You promised you dance with me under the tree when it's blossoming and it's blossoming and the wind is blowing and the petals are falling and you promised…" Her voice is high as she already catches her hand to pull her sister towards the cherry-tree that's blossoming. Rose lets herself be pulled up and the little girl leads her to the hidden part of the garden, where a cherry tree is growing, its petals falling down in the soft wind.
Sweet scent is in the air, the flagrance fragile and she feels a pang of beauty in her heart – this is perfect.«
She was shivering with cold. It was late in the afternoon, the sky beginning to turn grey. It was bright though, the colour a vivid, clear blue only autumn days could have. Everything was still as though even the birds had finished chirping.
The woman stepped closer to the natural lake around which the monks had built their monastery once upon a time. She saw shadows playing on the surface, juniper dancing with the cold wind hushing in the air. She didn't want to see it; she didn't want to watch it again, not when she was already vulnerable, but she couldn't stop the flood of memories invading her mind.
»The brook is turquoise; one can see the little rocks on the bend through the clear water. Lily takes off her clothes not waiting for her sister to arrange them in an organized pile; she jumps into the water. Brilliant drops fly in the air, the sunlight shining through them with a greenish light as it goes round the thick tent of emerald leaves above the natural pool.
She chuckles as she surfaces, her soft childish laughter in perfect synchrony with the chirping birds around in the forest. "Come in, Rose, come in at last!" she ducks again and the other girl with rosy red hair obeys with an adoring smile on her full lips. She drops her clothes and cautiously dives into the water.
She swims down until the river-bend, her long hair whirling around her as she lies down onto the ground. No sound can be heard underwater, the silence comforting her as her favourite element caresses her young body. The touch is soft and she imagines only a lover can be that gentle besides the waves. She opens her eyes. Soft waves are running upon the surface, the world above her emerald with the greenness of the living forest.
Light beams dive after her, playfully trembling as the branches above dance with the wind, painting shadows chasing the sunshine on the surface. The brook sings gently, cuddling her with tenderness. The water comes down from the mountains, bringing the fresh breeze of the melting ice to the brook, but she ignores the coldness disturbing her play. She could lie like this forever, but her lungs need air by now.«
She was shivering with her whole body, coldness biting into her vulnerable skin, painting it red. There was no wind moving the air that was heavy with the promise of coming rain. The sunshine's desperate attempts to steal some warmth under her skin failed. The woman just stood there, the killing cold spreading from her heart, slowly covering the peaceful, magical place of the monks with a thick quilt woven of guilt, desperation, pain and hate, the most poisonous of all.
She didn't know why she had come here in the first place. To grieve? To torture herself even more? When she had left, she had sworn to take revenge for the slaughter. She had followed the trail, each of her actions pointing towards the task she had set ahead of herself. And all she had achieved was her husband almost dying in her arms amongst agonizing pains, as he had tried to save her. Her. As if she would have been worth for that.
»The night when they come is silent; their footsteps get lost on the wet soil. It has rained this afternoon. They are killers hired for this job; they don't care who their victims are – they will soon be dead anyway. It doesn't really count. They split up, each of them taking place at one of the possible exits.
The monastery is far away from any habited place; nobody will hear the screams and when the bodies will be found, the killers will have gotten off of this cursed valley polluted with bodies all their way.
The building itself is simple, without much decorating, the rich living flora the only luxury the monks have permitted themselves. There is a yard in the centre, with a turquoise watery pond in which fish are swimming; they will be the last to die, if not from the poisonous blood flowing into the water, then the long time spent without human being to feed them.
The leader nods, the killers break the doors and windows. The silence is cut half abruptly, the first death cries can already be heard as the rage spreads.«
Her eyes were blind to the present; the blood of her family still dried on her hands. She could feel it, strong like those very first days she had had to realize they had gone. All gone and she had been all on her own. She fought the terrible urge, knowing that giving in wouldn't help anything – she had learnt that by experience.
The first time, she had rubbed her skin, rubbed and rubbed until once she had looked down at her hand, she had been able to see the yellowish bone of her finger amongst the flesh ruby-red from the blood dripping from the tips of her damaged fingers.
Blood had been covering her hands, but that had been her own. She closed her eyes, the blood of those beloved irritating, burning on her hands, making its way through her skin, an invisible, torturing reminder of what she had survived.
»Lily's tiny fingers are painfully grabbing her forearm as she's cuddling her in her lap. She's so young! She has an entire life ahead of her; she cannot die like this. The noises from under them come closer, and the girl flinches in her lap. She's silently humming a sing into her ears, hoping it would calm her down, just a little bit: the men below can't hear them otherwise they will be killed, just like the screaming others everywhere in the monastery.
The voices draw away and she relaxes a bit, the first time for this evil half an hour. Then the smell hits her nose. Her brain doesn't want to react, to realize what this means, but she forces herself to think. There must be a way out of this. The girl, her adopted sister hicks one, hiding in the crook of her neck and she feels her blood freeze in her veins.
Smoke. They have lit the building in an attempt to hide the evidence. The thick stone walls won't burn down enough, but they are not going to realize this; and the grey smoke already appearing between the roof-beams means their deaths. They are going to die, anyway. If not from the men's hands, then because of the smoke.
They need to get out of here instantly.«
The walls were still staying there, where the fire had left them. They had been standing there for centuries, around the sacred lake, filled with praying monks searching for the point of their lives. They had had traditions. They had come here as a child and lived there until they had passed the knowledge they had learnt to the next generation and had gone in peace. But all this had been cut off quickly that night by violent hands slaughtering them, them, who had never ever touched weapon in their lives.
»She recognises him instantly, without hesitation although she has seen him only once in her short life. But that occasion was vivid enough to be her reason for doing all this.
She opens the door after a soft knock not wanting the man to shoot her. She has heard his name, but made her mind forget it. He isn't a man, he is a monster. A monster she's going to kill. She smiles at him sweetly.
"Hi." Her voice is thick with shyness and he chuckles a way he has meant to be irresistible, though, the only thing he achieves with it is icy sweat droplets running down her spine feverishly under the tiny, tight piece of cloth said to be a dress. She takes a step closer. He might be grinning but he will be oh-so-dead in the run of an hour. And, this man just doesn't have the pleasantry of a comfortable death.
He is going to be dying for long, amongst agonizing pains, the most torturous way possible. He is going to – because she wants so.«
The thought she was a killer, - and even contract killer – was not pleasant, neither something she was able to accept easily. But she had learnt how to handle it as time passed and she was now in harmony with herself. She must have been.
She had killed a man in cold blood – her first -, the same who had raped her, ending her childhood violently and painfully forever. But this was not the reason for his death, no. That reason was the sight she had suffered so many times in her sleep she wasn't able to even count it; Lily, the sweet Lily tortured ruthfully in front of her very eyes, just so that they could watch as the older girl broke.
Because then, on that moonless, dark night, she had broken. She had thought, for eternity, but now she knew it was over.
Grieve and pain filled her, and she was tortured by the memories, yes. But that precious something, that had broken that day, had become a whole again. She had to thank to him, to the boy who understood her, no matter what. The boy who was her husband, lying in a hospital somewhere hidden in the Middle East, deep in coma since he had been shot.
Alex had taken the bullet for her, and this act meant more than anything else on earth could have. The walls in her soul and heart broke down and she could feel the venomous revenge she had enclosed in herself for so long lost its edge and no longer poisoned her. She was on her way to be free from shadows and find her place in life again, for the first time for more than two years.
She was free.
»His eyes are cold. Not the way the ones she have been looking at for almost three months; these are cold from self-defence. There's warmth deep in them. Maybe it seems so only because of the colour and the intensity of his gaze. Every female would fall for such a pair of eyes. Chocolate. Sweet and comforting. With a sense of security not matching the air of danger surrounding him.
She decides she likes his eyes.
A smile appears on the lips and her heart even gives a pang. How can one be that handsome while speaking about executing an organization and murdering people? The smile is warm as well. Shy and reassuring. With the strand of fair hair always falling into his face, he slightly looks like an angel. A distorted, fallen angel. The hair could be longer. It would suit the features much more. He must have been told to have his hair cut short for action.
He speaks, the words are registered in her head, but she doesn't really care. Words no more hold their meaning for her. Acts do.
He's young. The voice still must have some breaking to reach the real pitch, it swings here and there on the scale every now and then. He may have never seen razor from close. The skin is tanned from the sun, still holding the colour of summer despite the months passed since then. It might have seen the sun on another part of the world. It is littered by scars and cuts, decorated with fading bruises as well. This is not a pleasant job. She doesn't like the idea of dragging him in this.
The body is well-built, muscular, but not overly so. Much more than a boy at his age should have so. The motions are graceful, light. They are perfect for her liking. The boy is stubborn. He looks right into her eyes and she knows her gaze is way too sharp to stand it for too long. But he has endurance and his face shows nothing at the cold edge that must be ruling her irises. He seems deliberated, though it is only a willing show.
He wants to work with her.
And after half an hour, this is fine with her.«
The sky changed from blue to orange, from orange to grey, from grey to black and the woman was still standing there, motionlessly. Her mind was wandering in the past, sour and pleasant memories in her vision, and her shivering stopped. The cold had disappeared and her stiffness had melted. Some warmth was filling her body, hope and love towards a man.
The shadow of a smile appeared on her lips. It was time to let the souls of those beloved go.
To be continued...
Please. Do not ask why the italic parts are written in present tense while they are pictures of the past. It's my freedom as a writer to do it so. Besides, my conception is that she lives/lived more in the past than in the present. Flame me if not acceptable for you.
My challenges aren't really popular. *frowns* Kali Libitina gets cookies & her wish that gave me plot bunnies for QB. And a big sorry for me not answering . :(((