Icarus

Cards

Cards

        “You finally woke up!” the girl said while standing in front of him with a hand on her waist and the other holding his chin. “Your natural skin color is showing up again.” Little by little, Tate recovered his sight. In the gloom, he recognized a silhouette very close to him and felt the warm air of Cassie’s breathing.

 Like predator she was waiting for the pray to move before striking. She had an aggressive expression which didn’t at all match her delicate facial features. He looked at his hands, dirty and pale, how much blood had he lost? Though immortal, his body needed blood to function and all of the bullets piercing his chest over and over and over again spilled lots of it…but really the bullets were just a pain in the ass. I had to wake up to be killed again. At least he didn’t feel physical pain at all.

“Wow, how many shots did I take these past few days? I need a cigarette.” 

 He looked at the holes in his sides which made his voice echo as though he was in an empty warehouse. Cassie narrowed her eyes and pointed her gun at him again, but then put it down. Every time her finger pulled the trigger she was less scared because she knew that he was going to wake up sooner or later. That doesn’t made her a murderer, right? She believed that he wasn’t dying; that he was just falling asleep. She sighed and touched the little penknife she had on the pocket of her jeans, which always calmed her down.  

“Are you giving up?” Tate asked. “You know, I would kill myself just to not see you again. For someone who is supposed to be my love match, you are definitely an unqualified bit … .”  He tilted his head to the side and looked at her up and down.

“You don’t know me. Shut up!” Cassie said, passing her fingers under her eyes to clean the smeared mascara and then placing her messy strands of blond hair behind her ear.

“I’ll shut up if you stop trying to assassinate me. Anyway, IT WON'T WORK!”

“No, absolutely not—”

“Your words cut deep; your stare piercing my soul like a stiletto. I don’t care about the wounds on my chest as long as you were the one who made them ... and you stay here to heal them.” Tate interrupted, making Cassie's jaw clench, and one of her thin eyebrows rise. 

“You didn't know I had the soul of a poet?”

“All right, if you say so.”  Cassie’s satirical smile was fake and her movements exaggerated to match. Tate knew what that meant, opening his mouth before closing it again.

“You know what? I’ve been thinking… ”  He began talking, and talking, and talking. He stopped when he saw Cassie’s aggressiveness mood soften. Now she was more exhausted than anything.  “I have nothing else to live for; I don’t even know how many times I lived,” Tate conveyed honestly. 

“Are you always such a problem for people?” Cassie teased, though half serious. 

“Not really ... I like the way you frown when you get mad,” Tate said with a flirtatious tone. He noticed everything she did when he spoke, her little twitches and how she moved. Encountering so many people, he'd learned to decode what they mean by the way they acted. But there was one thing he couldn’t decode ... the look in her eyes. They projected sad, and confused, but strong at the same time. And where her eyes green or blue? But is that important? Not really as she was about to shoot him again.

“Okay, you know what? I’ll destroy myself; drag me to the beach so I can die. Oh, the irony of my life ... drowning in the water.”

“Destroy yourself?”

“I’m a piece of art. You can't kill art.  You destroy art, then it's lost to the world forever.” Cassie didn’t know what to say. Piero prepared her for this moment, he taught her to fight, not only using weapons like guns, knives, and her body, but using words as psychological firepower. Piero, the most innocent, mysterious, and wise person she knew, taught her how to trust and be wary at the same time.

 It’s a shame that everything Piero taught her didn’t really matter in this situation.

“How do I know that the minute I let you go you're not going to escape?” She challenged, looking at Tate’s tied hands and before turning back to his eyes.

“You just have to trust me. Do you trust me Cassie?” he asked in a barely audible voice. She was about to lose control. His gaze had become hypnotic … was he doing that on purpose? Cassie was shaking and sweating. It was oppressively hot inside that warehouse all of the sudden. Cassie trusted him even though she hated herself for being so weak. She despised herself and Tate for that.

“I do trust …” she started saying, looking at the floor, shaking her head violently.“No, I don’t! Stop messing with me, Tate! I’m supposed to ... destroy you.”  Cassie covered her face with her hands. There was something inside her that wanted to know more ... that's when she realized that no one can change their destiny, not even an immortal powerful being like her ... and she could not fight it.

“I think you are one of those people who in the right circumstances would be fun to talk to,” Tate said, ripping free of the ropes around him. Cassie wasn’t looking at him.  “If you ever decide you want to talk instead of attacking me, we should connect.”  Slowly he approached to her and touched her shoulder. Cassie shuddered, but she was too tired to react.  “You dropped this in the middle of your existential crisis.”  He held the penknife right in front of her.

 Cassie struggled to keep from reacting emotionally. Then, she realized all he wanted to do was to tell her it was all okay. But … was everything was going to be fine? Cassie wasn’t okay and neither was Tate.  He needed to keep his distance even though his arms wanted to hold her and his lips wanted to… “Goodbye,” he said before heading to the big metallic door.

 Cassie collapsed on the floor; she saw a strange dark silhouette running towards her. Even in that moment of weakness, she thought of how embarrassing it was fainting after showing strength. She fell like a house of cards blew by a gentle breeze, The problem--he wasn't soft summer breeze--Tate was a dangerous thunderstorm.

 It was difficut to tell if Cassie's breakdown was because of Tate's present or because of the blow she got on the head. Someone was behind her. When Tate ran to her to try to hold her three guys stopped and cornered him.

 Although she had her eyes closed she heard the crashing sound of Tate's jaw with one of the stranger's fists.

 And soon Tate joined Cassie. On the floor, nothing existed between them they were just two bodies, none of them was weaker than the other, none of them was more intelligent or brave.

 They were both cards blown by the same wind.