Victory's Price

Phoenix - Mollen (Part Seventy - Seven)

Chapter 77

Tomorrow it would all be over.

Phoenix stood in the corner of their tiny, stolen, room and stared at the wall.

She couldn't even look at him. It actually hurt. To look at him hurt.

After Yellow Cat, after reviving his cooling heart, she wasn't even sure if she could do what she needed to do.

Phoenix took her head into her hands. It didn't even matter now. The die had been cast, there was no stopping him now.

Tomorrow he would take the final Star, she would be free, and he would have the rest of eternity to pay out his debts.

Phoenix took in a breath, filling her lungs with life, and contemplated, for what she hoped would be the final time, the sins of her past.

And when she was done, hours into the night, as Wolf's breath drifted peacefully over the midnight air, she contemplated the only sin of her future. The sin that would end as his burden to bear.

The moonlight seeped soothingly into the room, casting his features into gentle silver, a gentler silver than the Stars. As his chest rose, she found herself craving the sensation of touch. She wanted to rest a single hand on his breastbone and sense how even the lightest of his pulses pressed against her fingers.

But she could not. She had no right.

The Phoenix had made the Wolf, she had made him great.

And still she was the worst thing that had ever happened, and would ever happen, to him.

Phoenix stood, careful not to disturb the groaning floorboards, and stalked from the room. She could not look at him, she could not be with him.

As the heavy door swung slowly shut behind her and her heavy heart, she did not look back.

xXXx

The night was dark, ever black, and Moll doubted anyone in the Motherland could sleep this night. He lay on his back, cradling Kat in the crook of his arm, and stared sightlessly up at the distant ceiling.

She was sobbing, as she said she would, and he knew her too well to offer the comfort she did not want.

With her arms around his waist, he had never felt so alone as he did now. Moll sighed, relishing her weight on his chest, and gave up swearing not to lose her. She took her own responsibility, she always had, and if she didn't want to be lost, he shouldn't be worrying.

But still the next morning promised no light, no day. It loomed on the horizon, dwarfing the dawn, a great void of… nothing, of absolutely nothing. The future was empty.

He blinked, floating on his bare sea, and wondered if she knew he was awake. He truly hoped not. They were sharing their private moments. They were sharing their final hours.

And, in a way, he could think of nothing better. Though she cried and he probed endlessly at the carcass of his future, he could think of nothing better.

Moll had given up on wanting to survive, he had given up on justice. He had given up on his duty and he had abandoned his promises. They had been swallowed, by the hole of the morning, and it left him cold. He was a man of fate, now, his heart and his movements written by another's hand.