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“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”
- Pablo Neruda
The orange glow of the burning cigarette was the only flicker of life in the sheer dark, stormy night.
The man sitting behind the steering wheel looked at the cemetery on his left, his hazel eyes tracking the lovers kissing each other amidst the dead. While he couldn’t see the girl, hidden as she was behind the tall frame of her lover, he knew exactly where she was, just as he’d known all these years.
He watched them from the darkness of his car, his window rolled down just an inch to let the smoke escape before it choked him. Not that he feared death, not at all. He just had a purpose, a goal that had been driving him for a very long time. He had lain in wait, day after day, week after week, year after year, taking one metaphorical step closer to his goal.
Taking a long drag into his lungs, he felt the smoke seep into his cells and mix with the ashes of his old life. He rubbed his knee absently, stroking the ghost of a pain that haunted him.
A flash of lightning illuminated everything for one split second. Had The Predator turned around, he would have seen him easily. But one of the best hunters in the mob was distracted by the woman. He was irrational, sloppy. He was emotionally invested in her.
The man watched them separate, watched the younger man bend down to pick up the fallen gun, watched him hand it to her. He watched, silent as the shadows, as the woman followed him to the waiting vehicle.
Rolling the window down completely, the man threw the half-smoked cigarette outside, droplets spraying in his face with the enthusiasm of a reconciling lover, kissing his skin. His eyes drifted to the silver ring glinting on his right ring finger, the skull chiseled down to its last details. It had been made for him a long time ago as a gift. The skull had been his crowning jewel once. Now, it was his ghost.
He’d wondered over the years about the thin line between justice and vengeance. Which side he ended up on depended a lot on the girl. He wore the ring, not for the memories of laughter and friendship, but the reminder of all that he had lost.
It was time to bring it back.
The rain was consistently coming down in sheets.
The drops splattered against the windshield and died an instant death, weeping down over the glass as occasional bursts of thunder rent the night sky.
Morana was still on the other side of that window, still looking out at the shower, still removed from the drops trying to penetrate the invisible walls and touch her.
This time
though, she wasn’t untouched. She’d already been kissed by them, ravaged by them, made love to by them. This time, she was drenched and wet and shivering with the force of the memory of those raindrops caressing her skin for a moment frozen in her heart.
This time, as had been that night in the penthouse, she wasn’t alone.
She still hadn’t turned her neck to look at him in the car.
He wasn’t untouched either. Earlier, she’d watched with rapt fascination as he’d silently gotten inside the vehicle after walking away from her.
The clouds had rolled. The lightning had split. The winds had whipped.
And she'd stood outside, exposed for a long time while he'd gone behind his walls.
But not completely.
Though he’d turned on the ignition, he'd not made any move to pull the car out, soundlessly waiting for her as she’d stood to his periphery and let her eyes linger on the exact spot where she’d made her choice and forced him to make his. Their footprints had been washed away by the onslaught of rain, mud, and grass covering up on the outside what had been a turning point inside her. The deluge had also washed away most of the smudges on her body remnant from the blast and opened the graze wound she had on her bicep. That had worried her slightly, since getting it wet was something she’d avoided last night and now it was completely drenched.
Even as she’d stood feeling and contemplating the tautness in her arm, he’d not once honked the horn, nor opened the door, nor revved the engine. He’d not made a single move to overtly indicate that he’d been waiting for her. Yet, she’d known it simply because he’d still been there, a silent but magnetic presence lingering forcefully in the empty area – a sentient life amongst the death and destruction surrounding him.
Silently, he'd offered her a place behind those walls that sheltered him. Just as silently, she’d accepted. She’d made her way around that beast of a vehicle and climbed right into the passenger seat. He’d simply pulled out of the cemetery.
The warm air blowing from the vent felt good on her clammy, cold skin now as she thrust her palms directly in front of them, letting the heat from the circulation seep into her bones slowly. Allowing her eyes to roam freely around the interior of his car for the first time, she was not in the least surprised at the black leather seats that were now completely doused in moisture, thanks to both their clothes. It was her first time in his car, a gorgeous black BMW she was slightly envious of if she was being honest.
Shaking her head slightly, she turned towards the console, seeing ‘Play Music’ glowing on the digital dash and raised her eyebrows, wondering for a second what kind of music he indulged in if he even did. Did his taste in music lean towards Rock or R&B? Or was it as eclectic as her tastes? Simple questions that she’d never allowed herself to ponder about him rifled through her mind as she took in the objects surrounding them.
Her wandering, inquisitive eyes came to a halt at a small pendant. It was really small, feminine, dangling on a silver chain that hung around the mirror in the center, a tiny round disk on it.
Without seeming too obvious, curiosity getting the better of her, Morana squinted her eyes and tried to make out if there was an inscription on the flat disk-like shape.
There was.
‘Baby sister’
Oh lord… it had been hers.
Luna.
Morana felt her heart squeeze painfully, all her newly acquired knowledge making her fall back against the backrest, her gaze falling to the silent man beside her.
He appeared relaxed in his seat, neither of his hands clenching on the steering wheel or the gear stick when he shifted it, his breathing smooth and even. Everything seemed fine. Except for one little thing - he was looking straight ahead with a devout concentration that she doubted he needed to drive, avoiding her eyes since the moment he’d handed over her the fallen gun to her.
Since he’d kissed the bejeezus out of her.
Morana let her eyes flutter back to that simple, small pendant, weaving in circular motions with the movement of the car, and felt her chest hurt. That tiny piece of jewelry dancing freely between them – the silver that bore the imprint of and had once belonged to his beloved baby sister – said more about him than anything else ever could. So much pain, so much rage, so many scars…
And along with the heaviness in her chest came another epiphany - the car was his territory too. Or else that pendant would never have hung there, so exposed, so pretty, so vulnerable. Its very existence in the car told her it was very, very private.
And she realized – just like he’d done at his penthouse that first night of the rain when he’d decreed she would stay at his apartment rather than leave with Dante – he’d let her into his territory. Again. Even after making a choice she could not even begin to fathom.
The aftermath of that choice still clung to her muscles, still bussed in her blood, still hummed in every cell in her body. She could still feel the cold metal of that gun against the pounding of her beating heart. She could still feel the pressure of those lips throbbing against her swollen ones. She could still feel the slide of that tongue stroking against the inside of her mouth.
A shiver wracked her frame – from the chill or the memories, she didn’t know.
Questions swirled in her mind, words formed in her throat and came right onto the tip of her tongue, but she bit them down, unwilling to break the silence. She had just forced him to into a spot, and knowing what she knew of him, she understood that he wouldn’t respond well to being coerced to talk, not until he’d had the time to process it all.
Or well, at least that’s what she would’ve wanted had she been in his shoes. She was still uncertain about him, about where his brain was at, but she was alive and shivering beside him after giving him a chance to kill her. And that was enough. For now.
