Wendy
The cold marble against my skin is no longer a sanctuary; it’s a tombstone.
I force myself up. My legs are leaden, trembling beneath the weight of a thousand yards of blood-flecked tulle.
The gold chain between my wrists drags against my thighs, a heavy, rhythmic clink-clink-clink that sounds like a clock counting down to zero. I grip the cold steel of the gun he shoved into my hands—the weight of it is foreign, disgusting, and the only thing keeping me upright.
I step through the shattered remains of the French doors.
The ballroom is no longer a place of floating candles and silk. It is a slaughterhouse draped in gold leaf. The air is a thick, choking fog of gunpowder, expensive cologne, and the metallic, copper stench of fresh death. My lungs burn with every breath.
I see a man—one of the Council’s guards—slumped against a white pillar, his throat opened like a second mouth, his blood painting the marble in a grotesque, crimson fan. I keep walking, my heels crunching over the shards of a billion-dollar chandelier.
Then I see him.
In the centre of the ruins, Peter is a god of carnage.
He isn’t using his gun anymore. He’s hovering over a man from the North End, his charcoal suit shredded, his white shirt soaked a deep, horrific violet.
He has the man by the hair, slamming his head into the edge of the long marble table with a rhythmic, sickening thud-crack, thud-crack.
The violence is visceral. It’s raw. It’s the kind of cruelty that makes your soul want to exit your body.
There is bone white and brain matter smeared across the caviar plates.
Peter’s face is a mask of splattered blood, his eyes glowing with an unhinged light that suggests he’s forgotten he’s a man.
I freeze. My heart stops. The gun in my hand feels like it weighs a ton. I’m a ghost in a white dress, watching the devil claim his tithe.
Peter senses me. He always senses me.
He drops the limp, broken body of the assassin and spins around.
His chest is heaving, his muscles twitching with the high of the kill.
For a split second, he doesn’t recognise me.
He looks at me like I’m just another target, another thing to be broken and buried.
The predatory void in his gaze is so cold it makes the winter air outside feel like a summer breeze.
Then, his pupils snap back into focus. He sees the blood on my dress, the gold on my wrists, the terror in my eyes.
“WENDY!”
His voice isn’t a whisper anymore. It’s a guttural, earth-shaking roar that rips through the sound of the distant fires. It’s a command that vibrates in my very marrow, snapping the paralysis that held me.
“GET DOWN!”
He’s lunging for me, his hand reaching out, but I see it before he does. A shadow behind the fallen piano. A barrel of a rifle levelling at my chest.
“DUCK, YOU STUPID GIRL!”
The scream snaps the final thread of my shock. Reality rushes back in—the heat, the noise, the smell. I don’t think. I drop to my knees, the silk of my skirt blooming around me like a target, and I lift the gun.
The crack of the rifle is a sound I’ll hear for the rest of my life.
I’m falling, or the world is, but Peter is faster. He moves like a shadow cast by lightning. He doesn’t just reach for me; he throws his entire weight in front of my body, his charcoal-clad back a shield of meat and bone.
The impact isn’t a clean sound. It’s a wet, heavy thud—the sound of lead meeting life.
Peter’s body jerks, a violent spasm that sends him crashing into me.
We go down together, the white tulle of my skirt tangling around his legs like a shroud.
Then comes the heat. A hot, rhythmic spray of crimson erupts from his shoulder and chest, painting the pristine lace of my bodice in a steaming red.
“Peter,” I whisper. My voice is gone, a ghost trapped in my throat.
He’s heavy. So heavy. I scramble to sit up, cradling his head in my lap, my gold shackles clashing against the marble as I press my hands to the ragged hole in his suit. The blood is everywhere—it’s slick, it’s iron-sharp, and it’s pouring through my fingers like I’m trying to hold back a river.
He’s still breathing, but it’s a wet, rattling sound. He looks up at me, and through the mask of blood and the soot of the explosion, he smiles. It’s that same dark, smirk that makes me want to kill him and kiss him all at once.
“I told you…” he rasps, a bubble of blood blooming on his lower lip. “I told you I’d die for you, Wendy. I just… I didn’t think it would be so fucking soon, Darling.”
“Don’t you dare,” I sob, the tears finally breaking, hot and jagged as they fall onto his face, washing away the blood in pale tracks. “Don’t you dare leave me in this dress, Peter. Don’t you leave me alone in this house.”
I lean down, my forehead pressing against his, the gold chain of my wrists draping over his neck. The ruby on my finger is pulsing a frantic, panicked red—a heart monitor for a dying king.
“I love you,” I say, the words tearing out of my chest, raw and unbidden. “I love you, you bastard. Please, just stay.”
He lets out a weak, wheezing chuckle that turns into a cough, staining his teeth red. “Of course… you waited…” he breathes, his eyes fluttering but never leaving mine. “You waited… until I was fucking dying… to tell me. Trust you… to have the last word.”
I let out a wet, hysterical laugh through the sobbing, my fingers clutching the fabric of his ruined shirt. “Trust you to be a smartass when you’re bleeding all over my dress. You’re ruining the lace, Peter. It cost more than a house.”
“I’ll buy you… ten more,” he whispers, his hand trembling as he tries to reach up to my face. His strength is failing, his fingers dropping to rest over the centre of my chest, right where he touched me before he left the balcony.
“You have… something of mine, Wendy. Keep it… keep it beating.”
His eyes start to roll back, the light in them flickering like the dying candles above us.
“Peter! Peter, look at me!” I scream, the sound echoing off the blood-stained vault of the ballroom.