Page 60 of This Cruel Fate

So much blood.

So much blood.

And she had done nothing to stop it. Not a thought. Not a plan. Nothing. The pain ate away at her conscious thought, but she couldn’t let Adonis find her passed out on his kitchen floor, blood and a severed hand waiting for him.

With the last dregs of her control, she reached out to her blood and stanched the bleeding. She needed to close off the wound for a short time while the bleeding stopped on its own and the skin and bone started replicating themselves, stitching together a new hand. Although going to the hospital would help with the speed and pain of regrowth, there was no way she’d open herself to that kind of questioning. Please heal by tonight.

Xolia panted from the effort of keeping the blood inside her body. Sel, that was awful. She leaned toward the sink, jerking her right hand to the faucet and turning on the water. She leaned her head underneath in a completely undignified action, but she needed water. She guzzled down as much as she could before promptly throwing it up.

Maybe it would be best if she sat down first. Xolia made her way to the living room couch on shaky legs. It didn’t matter how many times she was injured, the pain never grew manageable. Recovery never got easier. She wondered how humans managed their brief lives, full of the same hurts but without the promise of a healing flawlessly. It’d drive her insane.

She sat on the couch, precariously oscillating between consciousness and unconsciousness for what felt like hours until the lightheadedness subsided and her heartrate slowed down to something resembling normal. Xolia was halfway to the kitchen, ready to try drinking water again, when the elevator door opened.

Xolia grimaced. This was the worst time for Adonis to come home. “Xo.” His rich voice rang through the apartment. “I thought we could get lunch.” He stopped in the kitchen, his eyes immediately drawn to Xolia’s unattached hand that was now in the throes of rigor mortis on the counter.

“Fuck.” His eyes widened at the horror of his kitchen. The hand, the blood, the vomit on the floor. “Xolia, what did you do?”

“It didn’t work,” she said, voice scratchy.

“This is marble, Xo.”

“Wait.” She swallowed while trying to process his words. They were so far from what she had been expecting, a strained laugh bubbled out of her. Even though it physically hurt to laugh, it felt good to feel light in the face of everything else.

Adonis turned his wide-eyed stare on her. He must be wondering if I’ve gone crazy. Maybe she had.

Once Xolia managed to settle down, she spoke to him. “I just thought you would be worried about me.”

“I am, you idiot,” Adonis said. “But I also know that you’ll heal. The counter won’t. Sel, what were you thinking?” He ran past the mess to her.

“I’m tired of not being able to do it,” she admitted. “You did, I figured I would imitate you.”

Adonis gingerly grabbed her mutilated and healing arm. He was careful not to touch anywhere close to the flayed skin and bone slowly building itself back together but ran a gentle thumb up and down her forearm. “Xolia, you don’t have anything to prove. You’re strong. People will listen to you. They’ll follow you. You’re the Selermine. The first in a millennium.”

“You don’t even believe in it, though.”

“I believe in you.”

Xolia embraced him with her good arm. “Thank you,” she whispered against the warm skin of his neck. Her eyes fluttered closed at his comforting presence.

“Hey.” He pushed her back, softening the movement with a kiss to her forehead. “We need to do something about the… hand in the kitchen. And then we need to get ready for the fights. After, we can celebrate your win tonight.”

She smiled at him, putting her hand in his. He believed in her. She would figure out how to expand her powers later. Everything would be okay.

By evening Adonis had already called someone to repair the countertop. The knife had scratched the soft marble irreparably, and even after the bleach, there was still the faintest stain of red. She had apologized profusely, but Adonis shrugged it off.

Xolia’s arm wasn’t fully healed. Her palm was nearly done regrowing, though there was no break from the burning pain as her fingers started the meticulous process. Xolia’s nerves exploded as Adonis drove them to the old barracks for the fight. Xolia’s partially reconstructed hand was wrapped up in black fabric, and she planned to hide it in the pockets of the Persion sweatshirt she wore. She was dressed head to toe in Persion athletic-wear with lightweight shoes that would allow her ease while fighting against Helen.

“Why aren’t there ever raids of this place? It can’t be safe to always have the fight in the same location,” Xolia mused.

“The barracks are private property now,” Adonis said. “Helen owns them, and she pays the police enough to not look here too closely.”

While the barracks couldn’t have been the most desirable property in Ris, they were a substantial amount of land that couldn’t have been cheap. Helen’s hold over every aspect of Adonis’s life came into focus. Not only did she have damning blackmail, but she had wealth that he couldn’t match even while his parents controlled all of the Persion family assets.

The barracks materialized outside the city. The ill-kept buildings loomed ahead of them, the knowledge of what she needed to do settled like a weight in her stomach. Xolia had never planned nor successfully executed a killing before. When she had served under the Gornne Administration, she’d always been in the city, protecting important people or patrolling the streets for petty thieves and criminals. There was no premeditated murder.

The war had been different. Silas would dictate her orders. Killing had always been in the heat of battle, an act of self-defense, really. It’d been her or her opponent. It had all been justified. Cut and dry. This was muddy. Helen didn’t plan to die at the fights though Xolia had no doubt Helen planned to kill anyone who stood in her way. Unfortunately for Helen, Xolia was thinking the same thing.

Xolia studied Adonis. His dark hair fell to the sides of his face, hiding his eyes but highlighting his nose. Are you worth killing for? It was for freedom. For their future. Xolia wasn’t well-versed in romance stories, but Rowan was a romantic. She’d regale Xolia with stories of love-struck couples and their declarations that the other was worth dying for. But to kill for someone? Adonis ran his right hand through his hair and must have caught her stare because he turned to her and smiled. Xolia smiled back at him.

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