STRANGER, jesper fahey

CHAPTER TEN

To a man that's said to be untouchable, her hands had wrapped around his throat easy enough, it was almost pathetic really.

His upper lip curled for barely even half a second, a quick flash of emotion before it was wiped clean, like to feel such things was a crime, like it was something that stripped him naked and deranged him as he took a step back away from her, gloved fingers dancing over the head of his cane ominously...before he lifted it up by the bottom and swung it across her face so hard she was sure she somehow managed to bite through the fragile skin of her cheek, her mouth filling with blood and her head snapping to the side with a wounded grunt.

She wanted to laugh, wanted to ask if she'd touched a nerve though her mere existence as copper morality sat heavy upon her tongue, devastating and bloody like damnation, the aftermath of her cruelty that had turned her bitter through emptiness and grief. She wanted to laugh, but it was caught in her throat that felt more like a sob when her gaze landed upon Jesper who stood with the others who watched closely, his face turned away with a pained grimace and his cheeks stained with tears that shone in the dull light, he, who opened up suns in her heart, that had left her hungry for love, hungry for him, who now looked just as ruined as she did.

But she granted him mercy, she'd grant him anything he'd ask for, because as much as he'd deny it until he was blue in the face his heart still belonged to her just like hers did to him, and seeing her like this, seeing her for what she was, a monster filled with dead and wicked intentions who'd become like this to survive. But he didn't know her as the Stranger, he loved her as Gwen...and perhaps that's why it hurt him so much, he hadn't yet realised that the monsters were one in the same, both hungry, both killers, both ripe for destruction.

"Name." Brekker snapped once more, staring her down with nothing on his face but the desire for brutality as she dragged her eyes back up to meet him, opening her mouth to allow the blood to drip down her chin, spilling down onto his floor in thick clumps of crimson with a certain flicker of something dangerous, trying not to show her shiver of disgust, trying not to show her weakness lest she wanted it to be used against her...and had to remember that she didn't want Jesper to see her bloodied any more than he had to as she sighed quietly, and decided to play into Dirtyhands games.

"Eddard Nobles...he was willing to pay a pretty penny for your demise. I mean, the job was pretty simple, catch you at a weakness and ensnare you like a lamb to slaughter and leave your body to rot in the reapers barge." She said nonchalantly, and almost the exact moment that she'd whispered the word weakness...his gaze had flickered, so quick and frantic that she'd almost missed it but not quite as she slowly glanced to the side, and felt something cruel and spiteful bubble in her gut when her eyes landed upon the suli girl who hadn't torn her attention away from them.

"I regret to inform you, but I don't have any."

"Oh, but I think you do. I stupidly thought it was kruge...but I see now...I should of just went for the Wraith." Gwen grinned through blood-stained teeth, and it was a vile thing, a threat, a promise, a haunting insight into her mind that she'd molded with hands stained with sinister intentions, becoming who she was, a myth, a legend, a ghost that still lived when she should of died. And oh wasn't it ironic how the mighty could fall, the so called Dirtyhands for the wraith...and the Stranger for the sharpshooter, but they all knew how it would end, she was a testimony to that...it would only end in horror because to love was a death sentence in the hell that was Ketterdam.

And then the Brekker lifted his cane once more, and this time? This time he didn't hold back as he brought it down and slammed it against her bound hand, forcing her bones to shatter, breaking against flesh that had been too soft to hold all the mess that was she as her screams filled the night like a sickening symphony, her weapons, her salvation, bodied and bruised and throbbing by her side as she gurgled blood and salvia in her mouth only to spit it onto his feet with a paling snarl on her gaunt features. "If you're going to kill me Dirtyhands, I'd prefer you get it over with...I do have people I want to see."