Iðunn's Apples

Agasaya

† the warrior of the sky; she runs into battle shrieking, and returns victorious †

I watched through the slit between the door and the wall as Eric struck up conversation with the Varkolaks that emerged from the meeting. Isabella came out last. She stood, for a moment, listening to Eric's conversation, then nodded to something a young man had said and began walking away from the group. 

I brushed out as Eric and the rest of the group turned a corner in the opposite direction. I wondered how he could've known that she would walk alone before following her down the hallway, walking as silently as I could. The bones of her shoulder-blades stood out from under her thin shirt and I thought I might be able to aim after them. But when I raised the gun, it bobbed up and down ever-so-slightly with each step I took. I couldn't aim while I was still walking. 

So I stopped. She must've heard the shuffling of my feet, or she had known I was there all along, because she turned. It seemed slow. With my heart beating so rapidly, with the flood in my veins running so wildly, everything seemed slow. 

Her mouth opened. "Mel..."

BANG!

I hadn't hit her heart, but she fell back a step. Her hand grasped her chest, almost as if to catch the blood that poured from her wound. Then she stepped forwards. I backed away, tears filling my eyes, knowing I was going to...

BANG!

This time, she fell to the floor. But I couldn't know if...

BANG!

The sound of the shot roared like thunder, mixing with the rush of blood. I kept backing away. Any minute now, she might rise— and I screamed.

My back had hit something hard and soft all at once. Now it was over. Someone had heard the shots, they must've, surely they must've, and now I'm done for...

"Good shot," Eric said.

I twisted around and my vision zoned in on him. I felt as though I had run that marathon. My breathing was irregular, shallow, too quick to be any good. 

"The second one, I mean," he added with a smirk. 

"We have to go," I whispered, and pulled him away. I wasn't even sure if we had to, but I needed to. I couldn't stay here another second. 

He pulled back, into a smaller corridor. "Hide away your gun at least."

My head was pounding now. I felt as though gold rushed through my veins. I felt faint and weak, but at the same time stronger than ever. With shaking hands, I fastened the gun and zipped up my hoodie. 

"Good," he said.

And I kissed him. I rose onto my toes on a tidal wave of adrenaline and grasped hold of him by his shoulders, pulling him close. My mouth was greedy; there was no romance, no desire, not for anything but the steadfastness of his body.

He kissed me back, too; less severely, more as if to dull me, and it brought me back. 

"Now we do have to go," he told me, and his voice had not changed since before.

Neither had my mind, except for how much calmer it was. My vision, no longer tunneled onto one thing, was constantly looking out for threats. We took one of the smaller elevators to the first floor, then walked until my legs were burning and we found a staircase to the surface. 

At the top of the stairs, I found myself in a storage department. When he opened the door, I was met by the cool, brisk night air of Berlin. 

"Take the U-bahn to Alexanderplatz, then change to go to Mohrenstrasse."