Dance Of Devils

Chapter Eleven- Nadia

Chapter Eleven 

Nadia

 When she next woke, it was only to find herself in some sort of twisted version of Dantes inferno. Not sure what layer of hell she was in, Nadia stayed still, watching, eyes trained on the redhead opposite her.

"Finally," the redhead complained, her heels clicking as she swayed towards where Nadia was bound. The girl gripped Nadia's hair, twisting her head to look her in the face. "you're uglier than I remember."

"You should see me on a bad day," Nadia grinned through her swollen cheeks up at the child she once knew, now a woman. Petra raised a perfectly trimmed eyebrow at her, unamused by the assassin's childishness. "Long time no see," drawled Nadia, eyeing Petra up and down like a starving man and his first meal.

"Oh, don't go getting all sentimental on me now," the redhead pouted, her bold red lip inches away from Nadia's face.

It was true, Nadia hadn't seen Petra since they were children vetted against each other for Ivan's attention. A girl always remembers her first enemy. But this woman before her was so different from the meek child Nadia knew.

Legs all the way up, slim built, sultry and drop-dead gorgeous. Her fiery red hair was darker than Nadia remembered, richer, warmer, just like every other inch of the woman before her. The small assassin's past stood right before her, yet again, but this settled the reality she faced in her mind. She and Petra had faced too many horrors together at too young. Nadia had never recovered from the guilt of leaving Petra behind in this place to rot, even if she didn't leave of her own volition.

"I see Ivan still has his favourite lap dog to call on," Nadia murmured, swallowing against the growing lump in her throat.

"That he does," muttered Petra. This close, Nadia saw the lingering sadness behind Petra's green eyes and understood the game they had to play. Old enemies in the eyes of their owner, but friends despite their differences behind his back. The lump in the assassin's throat grew. Nadia escaped Ivan, escaped his brutality, but Petra hadn't been so lucky.

"I'm so sorry," Nadia couldn't help but whisper, wincing as the hand in her hair tightened its grip. "I didn't know you were still alive after—" Nadia let the rest of the sentence die on her tongue. After Ivan's alleged death, Nadia had presumed Petra had died too, or worse, been taken in by another mafia but, it seemed, that neither was the case.

"I survived," came Petra's blunt response. "as did you." There was the tiniest indication of the redhead's understanding, her hope that seeing Nadia before her was a change in the tides of fate. A chance for better. Once again, Nadia was seemingly salvation in the eyes of the damned.

"He's watching," Petra leaned in closer to whisper in her ear. Nadia made a show of snarling back at her, hoping she would understand that her hate would never be aimed at the woman who did anything she had to do to survive. "there's a lot to tell you, but it's not safe here or now. I will, I promise I will," the girl continued to explain. Something tightened in Nadia's chest. "but for now, I have a part to play."

Nadia nodded a fraction, continuing to snarl and thrash, cursing the high heavens. A part to play. Another fucking role.

Petra took a step back, letting her grip on Nadia's hair go. The assassin saw the glint of metal flash and felt the sting of the slash across her cheek. The blood dripped down her cheek, landing in the space between them and a strange feeling broke out in her chest. One of many years past, a blood bond that had been made once being made anew. Before Nadia could grasp onto the thin straws of a faded memory, her hair was cut off in rough chunks.