STRANGER, jesper fahey

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Falling in love with Jesper was easy, it was true, he was a museum full of art while the stupid masses of the world kept their eyes shut...but breaking him had been that much easier, building him up only to tear him dowm, tear his heart into pieces and revel in his misery like a god of trickery, and finally, Gwen realised that she'd earned her name of monster most completely.

Killing men, killing the men of Ketterdam most specifically wasn't a sin, nothing true, nothing of real substance, it wasn't something that had stained her because they, themselves were sinners. They had all done something for survival, for greed, for power or their own sadistic needs, their hands had been stained just as much as hers were and they were the ones who'd suffered because of it from a god entrapped in a humans corpse...the people she was paid to kill were never innocent, they were never clean...and perhaps Jesper wasn't either but he was good, and the ruin of that would finally place her on her damned pedestal that she'd carved her way to with bloodshed and horror.

With a whimper, Gwen pressed her head further back against the pillow, throwing an arm over her eyes and pressing down hard until stars danced across the darkness in her vision, feeling that awful growl in her throat, that terrible ache that made her gaze sting holding the weight of unurshed tears, because what the hell was she meant to do now?

But the answer came quick, came violently, a spiteful thing that laced through her veins and made them twist with power until her breath was caught between bruised lips and held there most completely. You get up, you always get up, when the world knocks you down, when fate conspires against you to make you go gently, you get up with bared teeth and trembling hands...and you show them what happens when a storm wears the skin of a gentle human, the voice had aged, had changed with her grief, but it was her fathers, that much she could remember, even when it sometimes sounded like Jordies, it was his...and just like that, she was ready to face the day as if it were a battlefield.

Getting up was the hard part, it always was, but today just seemed that more difficult after the strain of her own abilities wreaking havoc upon the unfortunate souls who'd gotten in her way. The way her bones seemed to have become brittle, the way her skin felt as easy to bruise as a peach, the headache that was pressing against every side of her mind until she felt consumed by misery and insanity, it was all incredibly excruciating...and the proof that she was still alive as she stood on her own two feet with a pained groan that almost felt relieving as she ignored the familar mask that lay upon her floor like a calling.

Because it wasn't the Stranger who was needed today, it was Gwen Rietveld...and wasn't that a terrifying thought indeed.
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Strolling the streets of the Barell was alot more nerve wracking then it had ever been before, the slight limp to her step, and the way her hands seemed to shake something awful practically stamping a sign above her head that said 'easy picking, first come first serve'. She knew she could take whatever any of them threw at her, she hadn't made her name by just being a shadow to fear, but that didn't exactly mean she was dying to get her hands dirty again when she'd spent the vast majority of the morning scrubbing her skin until it was raw and bleeding in an effort to wash away the sins of the night.

And so, when the slanted building of the Slat came into view, Gwen would by lying if she didn't admit she could feel reliefs warm embrace wash over her as her shoulders finally slumped from their weighted burden, feeling as though she could finally breath as she wandered over towards it, aching feet dancing over the dips and cracks of the ground beneath her...only to stop herself short before she could reach the doors, her ever willing ear picking up the voices inside, speaking amongst themselves with aggression in their tones, like they were all rearing for some kind of fight which she didn't doubt they would.