Octavia
My legs are shaky, but I still manage to slip out through the back.
I am, indeed, a coward when it comes to Markev.
After our kiss, and damn it, what a kiss, I push him away and escape through the back door.
It opens into a narrow, unlit alley.
I lean against the wall for a moment, steadying myself. My pulse is wild, and my head is spinning.
I take out a cigarette from the pack I bought earlier and light it with shaking fingers.
I don’t usually smoke. But when I am wound this tight, when I lose control, I need something. Painting, running until my lungs burn, making someone pay.
I have none of those options right now.
So this will have to do.
The guilt crushing down on me for kissing Markev feels almost absent, and that in itself is unsettling. It is there, hovering, unnervingly still, and the absence of it only fuels more guilt in its place.
Guilt for not feeling enough guilt.
It turns into a relentless back and forth, a vicious spiral, until the noise in my head grows deafening. The voices scream so loudly that, if I had my blade in hand, I might well drive it into my own chest just to make it stop.
Because he makes me feel something no one ever has in my twenty-two years on this earth.
As I look up at the dark sky, I find myself wondering why.
Why him.
And yet a part of me wants to see where this goes, just once, to know what it would be like to let go completely and exist inside the moment. To allow myself to feel everything, all the emotions he seems to awaken in me.
I breathe the smoke in deep, close my eyes, and let it out slowly.
The door opens.
I don’t open my eyes. I already know who it is.
Markev never takes a hint. He never gives me room to breathe. There is no space from this man.
I turn, ready to tear into him, when a hand clamps over my mouth and another arm locks around my chest, the cigarette slipping from my fingers and hitting the ground.
Cazzo.
I was actually enjoying a cigarette for once, and of course it gets spoiled.
“Don’t move,” a voice growls in my ear, and I go completely still.
I don’t even breathe, and he relaxes.
Huge mistake.
He murmurs something that sounds like bring the car, as if into an earpiece, his accent strong… though I don’t have time to worry about it.
I bite down hard on the hand covering my mouth instead. Blood floods my tongue instantly. He curses and loosens his grip just a little and I drive my elbow back into his stomach and bring my heel up hard between his legs. He grunts and stumbles, but recovers much quicker than I would like.
Now that I am turned, I look at him properly and see that he is masked, a plain black mask, nothing more than a piece of material over his face. He is dressed entirely in black, hood, jacket, gloves. Only his eyes are visible.
A gun glints at his side.
I swear at myself for being so careless, for not having my own gun on me, though at least I still have my blades.
“Who hired you?” I demand.
He doesn’t answer and moves on me again. At least he is not using the gun to shoot me.
I swing again, landing another kick. He grunts and catches my arm, twisting it before yanking me into a headlock.
Pressure bites into my throat, and my vision begins to blur at the edges.
I reach blindly over my body. My blade slides free, and I ram it into his thigh.
He screams and loses his grip, creating the opening for me to wrench myself away, the blade still in my hand.
I step back, turning to face him, ready to finish it, when I hear fast footsteps behind me. Another man bursts into the alley, but this one has his gun raised, aimed straight at me.
“Don’t fucking move or I shoot.”
I smirk despite the ache in my throat. I know it’s probably already bruising, and it’ll be a bitch to hide under foundation. “You won’t,” I say, coughing slightly.
He falters.
“You were told to bring me in alive.”
His jaw tightens. “Alive doesn’t mean unharmed.”
I look into his eyes and see that he means it.
Damn it.
Before he can pull the trigger, a gunshot cracks through the alley.
The man drops instantly, blood blooming across his chest as he hits the ground.
The first attacker scrambles for his own weapon when another figure steps into the alley.
Markev looks at the man, and the expression on his face is so unsettling that a shiver runs through me.
His gun is raised, pointed straight ahead, but it is his eyes that hold most of my attention. His icy blue gaze has gone dark, empty of anything I recognise.
It feels like something demonic has taken over him.
His eyes flick over me, assessing, and when it lands on my neck, I know he sees the bruising already beginning to form there.
He doesn’t shoot the man, and the man in question doesn’t even finish reaching for his gun. He looks caught in a trance, rooted to the spot, unable to move.
Markev closes the distance and starts punching him, over and over again, not stopping until the man’s face and body are unrecognisable.
He stops abruptly, his hands slick with blood, pulls out his phone, and lifts it to his ear. “I’ve got another one for you,” he says coldly, then ends the call and slips the phone back into his pocket.
He is on me a second later.
Both hands cup my face, forcing me to look up, probably smearing my skin with blood.
His touch is frantic, searching, his hands are everywhere.
“Are you hurt?” he demands. “Fuck, gorgeous, tell me you’re okay.”
I smile.
A real smile.
Which is so unlike me, but at this point I couldn’t care less.
“I’m fine,” I say softly. Then I narrow my eyes at him, the smile still in place. “I had it covered.”
His eyes stay dark, but when he sees me smile, he smiles back. It is small, and so mesmerising that it knocks the breath out of me.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “You fucking did.”
He rests his forehead against mine, breathing hard. “Fuck. I can’t believe I let you get hurt.”
I close my eyes and inhale his scent.
His hands still cradle my face, and without thinking, I lift mine over his.
Everything quiets.
The rush of guilt is strangely absent, and so are the voices. The void is no longer threatening to swallow me whole.
This is either very good or very damn bad.
I wouldn’t actually know, because this has never happened before. I have lived with those bloody voices for as long as I can remember.
“It’s not your responsibility,” I whisper.
“Like hell it isn’t,” he replies instantly. “You’re my woman, and I protect what’s mine.”
I step back at the words. His hands fall from my face, but he catches me again, one hand sliding to the back of my neck, pulling me firmly against him. I gasp when my chest meets his.
“Don’t,” he says low. “Don’t walk away from me. Don’t hide. Don’t shut me out.”
His voice drops. “I want all of you. Even the parts you think are broken.”
Something in my chest cracks.
“Especially the damaged version of you,” he exhales against my hair. “That’s the only version I want.”
We stay like that for a moment, pressed together in the cold alley, and for reasons I don’t stop to examine, I whisper, “I need to find out who sent them.”
He opens his eyes. “I will,” he says darkly. “I’ll find them.” His voice drops. “And I’ll bring their heart in a box if you want proof.”
I smile again, and my cheeks ache with it. I can’t remember the last time I smiled this much in a single night.
“Did you just quote Snow White?” I ask.
He looks confused. “Snowed who?”
I roll my eyes and shove his chest lightly. “I can’t believe you don’t know the story.”
He takes a step back, but his eyes drop to my neck, and the darkness returns.
“We’re getting someone to look at your neck,” he says.
“It’s fine,” I reply, though even to my own ears my voice sounds scratchy.
“It fucking isn’t.”
He looks at my dress, then shrugs out of his jacket with a low grumble and settles it around my shoulders.
I don’t protest, I am freezing now that the adrenaline is wearing off.
The thought that he might catch a cold crosses my mind, and the concern is so strange that I don’t know what to do with it.
He takes my hand, and I let him, too lost in my own head to resist.
We step out into the street, the night bitterly cold. He asks the bouncer about a shop nearby.
Two minutes down the road, we are told.
We start walking, my heels clicking against the pavement.
“You must be cold,” I say, and something possessive glints in his eyes.
Without warning, he scoops me up, holding me bridal style.
“Problem solved,” he smirks.
“Put me down,” I protest, kicking lightly.
“No.”
“I can walk.”
“Your feet hurt.”
I glare at him, but my arms slip around his neck anyway, because my feet do, in fact, hurt, and he keeps walking as though I weigh nothing at all.
It might be the adrenaline, or the exhaustion, or the unsettling fact that I feel safe in his arms.
I shouldn’t let this happen.
He’s a Markev.
Everything about him goes against what I believe.
But my eyes close anyway.
And somewhere between his even steps and the warmth of his arms, sleep takes me.