Dance Till I Die (gxg) ✓

"Till I Die"

         "Did you hear me?"

         Ace's hand tightened on the gun. 

         The Russian prince's voice grew rougher. "I said, did you fucking hear me?  Shoot her, or I shoot you."

         "I said no," Ace hissed, but she didn't drop the gun.

          The blonde of her hair was silhouetted in the golden evening light. The coloured-glass windows of the Czar Palace painted the marble floor in shades of blood and bronze. There was something about the way her jaw locked. Something about the way her ice-blue eyes narrowed, the long lashes casting pale shadows over her porcelain skin.

          She was beautiful in the same way winter was beautiful.

        With sharp lace and glittering, untouchable snow. With cold wind and beads of crystalline frost. She was beautiful and indestructible. She was stone and indifference. There was pride and arrogance and sheer, unflinching determination in the way she walked, the way she moved.

        Nothing could hurt her. 

        But Mavis held her breath, and she watched this girl―who she had come to love―break.

        And it was breaking.

        Glass. Jagged glass.

        If Mavis could touch her now, she would bleed.

        And she wanted to touch her, to cup Ace's face in her hand. To tell her everything was going to be alright, even though the gun in Ace's hand was now trembling as it rose. Higher and higher. Until it was pointed at Mavis's head.

        Please don't do this. 

        "Kill her, or I kill you," said the Prince. 

       "Your pretty floors will be stained red," Ace hissed.

       Aleksi cocked his gun. Unlatching the safety.

       "I want to see you cry," he said. "I want to see you hurt, the way you hurt me. You killed Galina. It was you." 

        "Galina was a psychopath."

       "And you aren't?" Nikolai circled Ace. Predatory. The gun he held to her head was all Mavis could focus on, thinking, Please, please, please. No. No, no, no.

        Mavis couldn't let this happen.

        Aleksi's attention narrowed to her. "Did you know your wife is a sociopath? She murdered the love of my life in cold blood. She has killed hundreds, hundreds, of targets. She is an assassin. She is a Russian spy. Do you know what she's done? It would give you nightmares for the rest of your life."

         Mavis pressed her wavering lips together. "Shut up," she hissed. "You're just trying to get in my head."

        "This girl . . . this girl you call Ace . . . did you know she's not only a killer, but she was the lead of our interrogation team?"

       "Shut up," Mavis gritted out.

       "Do you know what interrogation means here?" whispered the prince. "It means torture. Torture in every way imaginable. You probably don't know what your wife here has done. Do you even know her name?" He let out a soft, dangerous laugh. "Ace. She is versed in every kind of pain. She could probably make me cry for my mother."