Loving Through Glass

Chapter Nine: The Last Swan

Rain pummeled Elizabeth's body as she sprinted through the streets, her water slicked body causing her clothes to conform to her in such a way that they could have been spray painted on.

She ran into the maze of alleyways, dodging trash cans and graffitied cars purposely trying to lose herself.

"Well lookie here! Daddy's little girl comes home!" A harsh, gravelly voice said from behind her, shoving her into the nearest wall.

The man cackled, yanking out the slumped form that lay at his feet, not holding back in pressing his knife close to the figure's throat.

Liz stared in horror at the sight of her mother bound and gagged in the hands of her estranged father, eyes swollen shut and dried blood near the corner of her mouth.

Holding out her knife in defense, she yelled. "Release Mother, Father, you have no type of gain in killing her now!"

"Incorrect my dear Lizzie! Yet again." He laughed. "I know how much your mother means to you and what better way to make my conniving, mongrel of a daughter suffer, then killing the one person in the world who truly loves her? It is the best kind of suffering dear especially in knowing you could have stopped it by killing the Masterson's boy."

"What does Cole have to do with any of this?" She screamed in fury. "Your hatred goes beyond the understanding of even Andre! Your long devoted son!"

Her father stepped forward, dragging her mother by the hair, digging the point into her neck just enough so that her blood would stain the tip.

"Cole is the key to my sentence! Did you not ever question who put your father into exile in the first place? It was that wretched boy and his good for nothing parents! Well, if I was unable to continue my purging of the guilty, then they could very well live their lives with one less son!"

André stepped out from another car, stringing his bow with an arrow and centering his weapon dead onto his sister, awaiting the orders from his father to release.

"That makes absolutely no sense Father! All of this time you've been attacking another family, within the Assassins Blade no less, in hopes for revenge over something that was entirely your fault in the first place! If anything, you are the one who deserves to die for the crimes you committed against so many, going against the Assassins code and betraying the people who are suppose to be closer to you then your own family!

Well, I don't apologize for freeing that young boy all those years ago, he deserved to live, whereas people like you Father, people as despicable as me, deserve to die for what we've done against so many others.

And while you continue to wallow in your own anguish and grief, I have learned to move on! No more anger, no more tears, even for many of the things you stole away from me as a child. But Father, even if you hate me till the day you do finally meet your end... Know that I forgive you for everything you did to me. The scars, the beatings, all of it. You're free from any guilt you could possibly have involving me. Now release my Mother!"

He tapped his head thoughtfully. "Well now that you mention it...No I don't think I will. Because If I'm going to rot in this hole of a city, then she is coming with me for bearing such ignorant and insolent children!"

André hesitated in pulling his bow back at his father's words, the quiver shaking with his indecision of killing.

"I'll see you children when you decide to join me," He whispered, holding his knife high, ready to strike his wife in the heart.

"Father, No!" Elizabeth screamed, preparing to throw her dagger.

When a blade went flying through the air and sank into his chest, his arm spasmed and before he fell to the ground, struck his wife deep in the shoulder with his knife.

"Mother!" Elizabeth shrieked, dropping her weapon and falling to the side of her mother to cradle her close, ignoring André's wide eyed stare and silence at their father's dead body laying on the ground.

Her mother opened her eyes briefly and held onto her hand in a death grip, hardly noticing the form of Cole as he dropped down from the rooftops.

"Mother, please, just hang on. I promise you're going to be ok, we've got you and I'm not going to let Father take you away from me again."

Liz pressed her jacket against the wound to try and halt the bleeding, but her mother had already lost so much that she began to fade in and out.

"Elizabeth," She rasped out, "don't be afraid child, you'll never be alone, you have Cole. And you have this." She said smoothing her hand over the locket.

She coughed wearily before exhaling a short and final breath, the life having been drained out of her in one last farewell to her daughter.

A scream pierced the air, and Elizabeth saw red, the sound of her locket breaking open and of wings the only sound she was capable of hearing in her uproar.

Color decorated her vision, purples, pinks, blues, violets, it was like the rainbow spread out before her very eyes, and then the pain set in, setting fire to her limbs and everything around her.

When she came to she found Cole looking up at her, realizing in terror that she was a good inch or two taller then him now.

"What happened?" She gasped, noticing her hands were far more elongated now, and she wore a deep dark leather jacket and jeans with a weapons belt around her hips.

"I told you my love, you're the Last Swan," Cole said gently, "the last great Assassin of our age. Now that you've been released from the burdens of you're Father and Mother it appears that you are ready."

"Ready?" She questioned, looking to her brother who had handed his weapon to Cole's mother, slumped in defeat with nowhere left to go.

Cole nodded and led her to the form of her brother, placing her hand on his shoulder to show him they were there for him.

"To lead us, the Assassins Blade." He said, as his mother and father and the other assassins around them bent down on one knee in respect to her.

She fumbled with her words as André too looked at her and swiveled on his knees to bow his head in acknowledgment and acceptance of her new leadership.

"We need you Liz, without you there is no hope for us to survive on our own, will you accept us as your students?" He begged.

She looked out over the crowd around her, seeing the family she had grown to love, including the man she loved with her entire being and she knew in that moment that there was no place she would rather be, but with these people who had grown to love and accept her in kind despite her appearance and where she had come from.

This was what true love felt like, it wasn't always being the princess who was kissed by the frog, or the one who saved the kingdom because of the aid of a handsome prince, it was being accepted for who she was and loved in return.

With this final thought in mind, she leaned forward and kissed Cole passionately, weaving her hands into his hair before pulling away briefly to stare into the eyes of the one who held her destiny for all eternity.

"I do."

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