Fallen Ashes |✔️

Pandemonium

Venus

My world felt dampened, as if every movement was miles away from the surface of reality.

The flame from the lighter flickered between my fingers as I faced Myra, my silent tears mixing with blood as I strained my neck, strangely finding how peaceful I felt at the quiet. There was a world outside, a crime world wanting a spectacle Myra had orchestrated for them.

If they wanted one, I'd give them a goddamn sight to see.

Some dark part of me smiled at the silhouettes of figures as far as my vision went, the blurs of darkness who I knew were mafia agents watching, discussing, gambling.

Perhaps this was as close to a wedding procession I'd ever get- a guest list of killers and mafia pricks who wanted nothing other than something to gain for themselves.

Where was Ash? I wondered- perhaps he'd made his way into the crowd of night already, the dark figures looking as if they were fragments of the sky itself.

No, I wouldn't let him find me dead by the hands of Myra, refused to let him make his way into this deathtrap. I wanted him far away, wanted them all left speechless by the final stand of Venus Castellanos, so much more than the red devil they wanted me to be.

I could have been a wife, a mother. Anything other than the killing I'd come to believe was part of my blood.

"We were made, not born." I whispered to Myra, not expecting her to understand after the hatred that had become an integral part of her.

I wanted to despise her and torture her until she lay dead in my arms. But part of me wanted to pity her. I wanted to mourn the sister I could have had, the reality that could have been if we hadn't been made into weapons and monsters. I wanted to pity the life she'd lost through becoming consumed by her own rage, the vendetta that set her down this path.

But most of all I pitied myself. I could have murdered the Prince of Scars, Ash D'Angelo- my target. If only I'd come to terms with the reality sooner that we belonged to each other completely, regardless of the rivalries and killing that separated us.

"Your fate was written for you already. And you threw it away for him." Myra's lip curled with disgust, boasting how her vengeance would have find me one day to carry out the retribution she'd been after.

"You'll never understand. My life only began with Ash, not the power games you wanted to play. And my life will end with him too." I hissed at her, my gaze settling upon the warm hues of the flame- a sinister end to everything in my hands.

I could hardly give a fuck. Not when I was so close yet lifetimes away from Ash, the only person my thoughts drifted back to.

They'd be fine without me, I convinced myself. I needed them to live- everyone I'd left behind.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Myra jerked into motion though I registered the reluctance in her movements, as every fibre of her being no longer wanted to enact her cold-blooded vengeance.

"Ash." I savoured the sound of his name on my lips as I let the lighter hover over the trail of wires, the explosives I knew had been strategically set in place around the mansion for one destructive end to it all, the birth of freedom through chaos.

"S-stop." Myra aimed her gun at my head, visibly swaying on her feet from the gash on her head that continued to leak blood.

I wondered how I remained standing myself- every part of me ached in pain, ached for Ash and the future that had been ripped away from me.