Gunned | SatoSere

Chapter 19 - Haunting Past Memories

The first thing Ash hears are screams and the sound itself isn't anything unfamiliar. His family danced in circles of violence, blades soaked in blood and bullets shredding through the fragile weave of human life. Screams were only natural, the only way to grasp fruitlessly at survival or mercy.

It doesn't last long — Ash for a split second wonders if anyone knows that it never works, really. They'd go quiet within moments and Ash would turn his head away from a closed door, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he walks by, well aware of the ghosts that lie behind it.

But these screams are different and more familiar in the way that it binds around his heart in a poisonous grip, a fear seeping into the spaces of his chest that festers and festers, lungs burning and flames in his throat. He had sprinted a distance without realizing only to be blocked by a barrier that his shaky hands reached to shatter apart. There's tears in his eyes and the screams he hears aren't anyone else's but his own.

His grandfather, Giovanni's father, stands with a pile of bodies strung out before him, soaked in crimson like the stench of the alcohol that reeks from his breath. There's a sinister silver smile on his face and gray eyes that glint in a wolfish shadow. A slayer of demons mocks him as the horror reaches and claws at the gold in his eyes that are stained with grief. He sees them all, haunting images of cuts across their throats and last words unspoken to the world of the living.

It's all wrong — it's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong.

His heart screams one name because her name has never been dim, never been without light, and even with blood on her hands, she's never been this sorrowful.

Serena's eyes are empty and her hand is outstretched on the floor, bruises on her knuckles and tatters in her clothes. Ash feels the world wither and stop its seasons. Winter doesn't suit Serena and he reaches desperately for the little warmth that's left. His fingers barely brush her frigid ones before the shadows eclipse faster and faster, the gravity grows heavy on Ash's shoulders and without warning, he's gasping for air and breaking the sea of his unconsciousness.

He coughs and coughs, and his vision is hazy, but he sees the blood he spits on the floor. There's a pain in his stomach and it renews with a fresh wave of agony as another fist is driven into his gut, causing him to wrench his body away from the impact with another gasp of pain.

The assailant growls. "Do you remember what you did?"

Ash breathes deep and steadies himself against his chains, his arms outstretched and bound on either side of his body, crucified on the wall in an unfamiliar hell. His head raises and Giovanni is looking down on him with a snarl on his face. The recognition alone is enough to break Ash of his nightmare and bring him back to anger.

He remembers.

There was no way he could ever forget — it wasn't his grandfather standing with the dead around him. It was him. His members were very much alive while his family was dead. The screams are gone and all he hears is laughter, a bit deranged and twisted as it falls from his lips. It shakes through his shoulders and creaks the metal tethers, and the sound haunts the hollow space. There's a look on his face that makes the guards at the door tremble, only fortunate to have the devil held down. For how long is what makes them terrified.

His chin tilts up defiantly through the trace amounts of blood on his lips, the barest hint of a smirk on his face as he drawls. "Oh? You'll have to be more specific. Was it the time I embarrassed you in front of the whole clan by snapping your arm in that duel you asked for? Or are you still crying over the fact that you blew that job with the head three clans and because of it, I got even the strongest sided with me instead?" Ash asks in an airy tone of mockery.

His grin grows wider at the subtle twitch in Giovanni's brow.

His head tilts curiously, almost innocently. "Or was it the time I cut off your father's head with his own sword and how it rolled on the floor with a pathetic look on his face? Pathetic like his son."

He pauses his onslaught once he feels something undeniably sharp and cold against his throat, just pressing into his skin with a warning.

"You pitiful being," Giovanni spats, meeting Ash at eye level. "I suppose I should expect that from someone who's so heartless as to take the lives of his own family."

Ash pushes further and doesn't miss the look of mild surprise on Giovanni's face as the blade draws blood on his neck, beading in a thin line and trailing to the collar of his shirt. His confident expression doesn't waver. If anything, the blood suits the pale of his skin.

"You think you can make me feel guilty for something like that? Don't be fucking ridiculous. Every single one of those damn bastards deserved it," Ash says flippantly before his gaze narrows on his prey. "My only regret is not killing you with the rest of them when I had the chance."

Giovanni laughs at this as the knife leaves his neck before he drives forward in a flash of speed and stabs into the wall beside Ash's head. A heartbeat passes before Ash feels the sting of a gash across his cheek and a deep scarlet falls in rivulets down the angle of his jaw alongside the blade.

"Well, I'll make sure you die with those regrets, my son," Giovanni promises with a sneer as he paces before him. "If only all of Lumiose City could see you now. Their fearless leader at my mercy because of love, of all pitiful things. What a fake you are."

"Says the man who only gained the stead of head of the family because I did the work of taking out the trash," Ash retorts. "Lumiose City will never have you. None of Kalos at that. You don't have the spine. But Serena? She's everything you could never be and in some ways, that goes for me too."

Giovanni glares, his eyes flickering with curiosity. "What foolery are you talking about?"

Ash smiles, but instead of an answer in words, he turns his head and clamps down on the blade with his teeth and rips it from the wall. He lets the knife go before kicking the handle upwards and in a twirl, he catches it with the little room his hand can move from the chains on the wall. It's just enough for him to whip the knife sideways, the blade embedding into one of the guards' heads that was standing nearby.

The satisfaction in the way his body crumples still lasts even when Giovanni's forearm pushes roughly into his throat and what feels like a solid barrel of a gun digs painfully into his sternum beside his heart. He smiles alongside the blood that seeps into his sleeve.

"She'll kill you," Ash says with a laugh, the edge of a wheeze on his breath with how hard Giovanni presses into his windpipe. He fights against it. "Even if you manage to get the information you want, my assets, my connections, hell, even my life. It doesn't matter. She'll kill you like the dog you are."

"You would put that much faith in some woman? You've gone insane in your years, son. She's a feisty one, yes, but what could possibly make you believe that?" Giovanni scoffs, but Ash presses on the waver in the man's eyes. Giovanni has seen first hand what Ash is capable of, what the years have afforded her — power, territory, fear by the billions, and loyalty. The fact that he's in chains is the only reason he's still alive and he knows that.

Ash stares back at him hard, his gold eyes rigid and dancing with mirth. In the dim lights, the guards that remain watch his eyes turn to a predatory gaze. He would kill him at any moment and enjoy it. The mortal chains were their only salvation and they held onto their bated breaths at any signs of his escape.

Ash's smile breaks out onto his lips, wistful and proud.

"Because she's mine."