JOY
Valerian’s gonna die. I’m sure of it.
I stumble backwards into an air conditioning unit.
Seven more masked figures barrel forward. I scream, feeling something cold wrap around my wrist. Not something. Someone.
I look up. One of Siguard’s friends has my wrists locked. They’re all wearing the same masks, cut off at their noses. I wish they were full length so I couldn’t see their cruel smiles.
“Please, stop,” I beg as the man drags me back to the edge of the roof for the hundredth time.
I’ve lost count of how many times life has flashed before my eyes this evening.
Being pushed flat on my face was the first time, and honestly, I’d relive that experience over and over again just to get out of what they’re doing to me now.
My heart batters in my chest, shaking my entire body. “Please!” I start screaming again.
The wind howls down my ear canals, whipping my hair.
Terror digs its sharp claws into my heart, making everything hurt. It’s exhausting, being scared, not knowing what’s around the corner. There’s a line, and when you’re on the right side of it, the adrenaline can feel exciting. But I’m way over the line right now.
If I don’t lose my life tonight, Valerian will.
I peer over my shoulder, screaming his name. But he’s too busy thrusting his knife into one of the attackers. The man releases a blood curdled scream, his dead body thumping to the floor a few seconds later.
I’m pregnant, I remind myself as the man brings me to the edge of the building. He grabs my head, forcing me to look down at the drop. This is the worst way to die. Being strangled is nothing compared to free falling a hundred stories.
You wouldn’t thump to the ground like these dead bodies.
You’d go splat.
My pulse is racing. At this point, it’s humming like the air conditioning units.
“You heard what he just said,” I say to the man as he holds me in place over the edge. “I’m pregnant. This is no way to treat a pregnant woman.”
“You’re carrying your husband’s child and he’s still choosing to fight,” says the man. “Valerian had options. If he cared about you so much, he’d put the knife down and hand over his business.”
“You’re wrong,” I sob.
“See for yourself,” says the man, spinning me around. “Your husband made his choice.”
Tears conceal my vision, everything going blurry. I watch the blood spray across Valerian’s angry face.
Angry is an understatement. Fine lines cut twice as deep into his face as he moves through the masked men, killing them with Niko.
Doesn’t he want another child? Doesn’t he want me?
I turn my head back around, looking down. I can see all the different boulevards and avenues up here. Cars thread between the buildings, stopping when the lights tell them to. Control is everywhere, even in everyday life.
I’m up in the sky, away from the city, and my throat closes up the same way it used to do when I was a child.
Doesn’t matter where I am or which man I’m with.
The feeling of being boxed in never goes away.
And that’s because I’ll never be their first choice.
I’m convenient, and I always tell myself it’s enough.
I watch shadows pass below me from the car headlights.
I promised Lila and Mom I’d be back, but they’ll be the ones scooping my flesh off the sidewalk.
My heart aches in many different places.
“Anything interesting going on down there?” asks the man, peering down with me. “Or are you finally starting to accept your fate?”
My breathing is starting to even out as I slowly come to accept reality for what it is. One of us was bound to be dragged here. I’m glad I’m the one on the roof of this building, not Mom and Lila.
I turn around again, watching various muscles flex under Valerian’s shirt. He didn’t get those muscles from lifting weights in the gym. This is what he does. He kills over and over again with no remorse. It’ll never be enough. He’ll never be able to kill enough people and have his fill.
Flesh rips. Blood squirts, flying through the air. I watch it happen in the third person, no longer conscious of the events happening around me.
And then Valerian lands straight on his back, wincing.
My pulse spikes again at the sudden thought of him being dead.
His chest is still rising and falling, no blood spilling from it yet. I watch him, my heart starting to pick up again as I sink into the reality of what all this means.
I should want him dead after everything he’s put me through. But excruciating pain cuts through my heart every time I think about him dying.
“Valerian!” I use what little energy I have left to scream his name at the very top of my lungs.
Valerian, still laid on the floor, turns his head. The lines around his brow soften, his eyes glistening in the dying light.
Time stops. It’s like I’m breaking into Igor’s apartment all over again. He’s there, watching me. One minute, I don’t know he exists, the next, he's the center of everything, existing in my life more than I am.
He keeps watching me sideways, laid on the floor, chest rising and falling as masked men move around him, going in for the kill.
He can’t die.
Thinking that is very irrational. But the logical side of my brain stopped working the second we crossed paths.
I’ve never been so certain of something in my life. I need him, and I need him alive so we can raise this child together and give it everything we both never had ourselves as kids.
He’s a good father. He protects his own son even if it comes at a cost to himself.
I breathe deeply, feeling the wind through my hair.
Goosebumps appear on my skin, a chill passing through me.
Being fired from my job was for the best. It opens up new opportunities, and I haven’t stopped thinking about what that photographer said about me starting my own line. Strangers believe in me.
Perhaps Valerian even does. The night after we got married, he questioned my life. And now, a week later, I’m questioning the same things myself.
He knows the answers before I even start asking the questions.
A harsh yelling sound grabs my attention. I snap around to the roof as one of the masked men drags Valerian, pinning him down on the ground, where he’s still watching me. More men join, each taking an arm and limb as Siguard himself steps forward with measured steps, gun at the ready.
“No!” I scream, still having energy left in the tank, it seems. My voice cords rip to sheds but it’s worth it to scream for something worth fighting for.
I look over at Igor, confusion creased across his brow. He’s slipping between worlds, struggling to face some very harsh truths, ones Siguard is encouraging him to accept so that he can use Igor against his own father.
“Igor!” I yell as Siguard steps closer to Valerian’s body. His chest is on display, vulnerable for attack.
Niko is too busy warding off the last two attackers.
“Igor!” I manage to rip Igor from his trance with this second scream, his gaze lifting.
“You won’t hate your dad forever. But you will hate yourself forever if you choose to let him die.”
Igor—standing a few meters away from the chaos, looks deep into the depths of my soul, like he’s searching for some answers there.
“Your father got your fiancée pregnant, Igor,” says Siguard. “He kept the truth from you for years. What other truths could he be hiding?”
Igor keeps watching me, something shifting in his gaze.
“I’m not sure,” he says to Siguard. “But I’d like to find out before I kill him myself.”
Igor steps into action, swooping the knife from Niko and running over to where Valerian is laid.
A scream rips apart my throat. I can’t watch, but the man holding me down is making me.
A loud squelching sound fills the air as Igor shoves his knife into warm, gooey flesh. I look up, tears concealing my vision, and see Siguard drop dead to the ground.
I gasp.
I wasn’t expecting this, and neither was Siguard, still registering the knife in his chest as he goes down. His hand hovers over the blade as he attempts to remove it, but all of the strength has gone from his body.
The politician falls to the floor, blood gushing from his chest, a puddle of it quickly forming on the ground.
The shocking turn of events sends the other masked men into disarray, giving Valerian and Nikolai the perfect opportunity to take care of the rest of them.
Blood fills my entire vision, the sounds of ripping flesh cutting through the wind as Valerian, Niko and Igor finish off the rest of the men.
It’s over in the space of a few minutes. The man holding onto me is the last one to join his friends in the afterlife.
I suck in a deep breath when his body flops to the floor, like I’ve been underwater this entire time.
Valerian scrambles to his feet, barreling my way. He scoops me up and throws me over his shoulder, fireman-carrying me away from the edge. My hands grapple with his shoulders, struggling for purchase as I try to hold on.
But I realize I don’t need to anymore.
And that is honestly a very terrifying thought, putting your trust entirely in another person.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what came over me.”
That’s the problem. He thinks he has everything under control, but he loses the control the second things get real.
Siguard was a significant person in Valerian’s life, taking everything away from him when he was just a boy, birthing a monster as a result.
Can things return to how they were before Siguard? Valerian lost his father and buried the past to become something new. And sometimes, old versions of ourselves are so far buried, they’re unsalvageable.
Siguard is dead, but Valerian will never be the same person he was before, the one capable of showing vulnerability.
It’s the reason he lost touch with his son.
I sigh, collapsing into Valerian as he brings me back inside, Igor and Niko following behind.
He kept truths from his son to protect him, and that makes him a brilliant father. But the anger he feels toward the world will never fade. Siguard already left his mark.