Page 41 of Reckless
Five years.
Five years ago, I killed for the first time. Five years ago, I plunged a sword through a man’s chest for the first time. Five years ago, I watched a man crumple to the floor before running from the first of my many crimes.
Five years ago, it was her father who was my first kill.
How did she know this, and I didn’t? Why was I sent to kill him in the first place? Maybe she’s mistaken. Maybe she’s looking for yet another reason to loathe me. I think back to that haunting night, the one that forced my fate upon me. I can almost see the room, the blood, the shakiness of my hands….
The room.
I nearly stumble when the realization crashes into me.
Her house. The one I burnt to the ground. That room I was standing in…
That wasn’t the first time I had been there. The pieces begin to fall into place, connecting that shadowy house where I had my first mission with the one illuminated by flames.
It was me. I killed her father—
Movement has my head jerking toward the shifting shadows.
I know it’s her even before I glimpse the figure darting across analley. I have a throwing knife in hand, aimed at her before she can melt back into the darkness.
Her scream is strained, as though she barely has the energy to express her pain. I take my time walking over to her, watching her slump against a grimy wall before sliding to the ground beneath. She’s panting in pain with a bloody hand pressed against the healing wound I’ve reopened on her thigh.
“What?” she huffs. “Slicing my leg open once wasn’t enough for you?”
“Well,” I sigh, “apparently it wasn’t enough foryou, considering you’re still trying to run away from me.”
“Get used to it.”
“Oh, I’m beginning to.”
Her head is propped against the wall, eyes fluttering with fatigue. She looks tired. Too tired. As though teetering on the edge of something more devastating than sleep deprivation. I tilt my head, examining her in the veiled darkness. “You feeling all right, Little Psychic?”
Her laugh is breathless. “You just cut me open with a knife. What do you think?”
“Oh, come on, I barely grazed you.”
She pins those blistering blue eyes on me. “Yeah, yougrazeda wound that’s still healing. One you gave me in the first place, might I add.”
I almost smile. “You knew that was me, huh?”
“Of course it was you,” she huffs. “You’re the only one with aim almost as good as mine.”
“Almost?” I say dryly. “Really?”
“You heard me, Prince.”
I see her fingers flinch toward the knife in her boot before I haveher wrist clutched in my hand. “Enough,” I sigh. “I’m tired. You’re tired. Let’s call it a night. Not to mention that you’ll bleed out if you don’t get that wound wrapped.”
“If you think I’m going to go without a fight—”
“I think,” I cut in while pulling the dagger from her boot, “that you won’t have any fight left if you don’t get some rest and bandages.”
“Isn’t that what you want?” Her voice cracks with the weight of accusation in it. “To stop fighting you? Come quietly to my doom?”
I study her for a moment, study the stubbornness sketched into the scowl she wears. The truth has my chest tightening, my heart heaving a sigh when my lungs cannot. Because I can’t seem to decide what’s more frightening—watching her stop fighting or watching her die.
What is she without her fire fueling her? A shell of the Silver Savior she once was? The ghost of a girl I was willing to ruin myself for? If she fights for nothing, she lives for death. But if she burns for something, she lives forhope.
