Gabriel, blind and scarred, wanders aimlessly, haunted by memories of his lost love. He remembers the thorns that took his eyes better than he remembers her face.
To him, his life is nothing. He exists only to suffer.
It takes meeting a woman with s...
A/N: I'm a week and a day behind, but at least I got a chapter posted today! Things have been busy lately. Enjoy!
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The girl named Joanna stayed latched to Diego's arm as they rounded back to the front of the house. He made no complaint since the poor thing had been through such a terrible ordeal—the prospect of being eaten by other humans certainly qualified as that—but when he spotted some bushes near the front door that were sufficient enough for her to hide behind, he felt thankful. She was obedient enough, so that when he urged her to sit on the ground, she transferred her death-grip to the bush. The maiden rescued, Diego drew his pistol and moved to the door of the dark cottage.
Things had quieted significantly, and the feline felt cautious, but when he aimed his pistol into the house and stepped inside, he was surprised to see that the conflict was all done with. The bald bandit with the black beard was lying crumpled on the floor, bleeding profusely from his head. A wooden club was resting nearby—the obvious weapon of his demise. The demi-human murderer was absent, and the last man who had a frightfully awful haircut was subdued in a chair with Gabriel's sword at his throat. Diego observed the scene a moment, listening to the buzz of the flies. Then, satisfied but feeling somewhat disappointed that there was nothing left for him to do, he put his pistol away.
"Well," he said nonchalantly. "I regret that I missed it."
"Did you secure the girl?" Gabriel asked immediately, though not with much care.
"She's outside," Diego informed him as he approached slowly, enjoying the sound of his own boots against the floor. "Poor young thing. Traumatized... Did you happen to, er, notice where our dear friend Hendrik went?"
"I was a bit busy," Gabriel reminded him, holding his sword steadily to his prisoner's throat. The firelight danced over his face, casting shadows around his many scars. "Perhaps he went off chasing the one that ran. Now, what should we do with him?"
The feline slipped his hat off the blind man's head and placed it back on his own. Then he proceeded to put his fingers to his chin in thought as he looked over the bloodied murderer—who was wearing his own blood as well as that of the mutilated victim on the table.
"Well, he certainly deserves death," the brown-haired feline said thoughtfully. "I suppose the other fellow laying over there is dead?"
"Not my doing," Gabriel said, so to say that he had no idea.
The immoral captive looked up from beneath his hair, glaring angrily but unable to do more than that with the blade against his throat.
"Piss on you both," he grumbled, as if he was the one who'd been wronged by these events.
"That wasn't very friendly," Diego commented in a teasing fashion. "In fact, it was terribly unfriendly. Don't you agree, Gabriel?"
"Decidedly so," the blind man said, pressing his blade harder against the man's throat.
