AGENT BLAZE | Aimed To Kill © [Blaze-Blue Duet One]

Chapter 47

Adira

Apartment

Of course, Adira doesn't live unprotected. Of course, Adira doesn't sleep without a knife under her pillow and a loaded gun in the drawer of her bedside table. Of course, Adira wouldn't make the mistake to leave the knife under her pillow to grab a glass of water.

And right now, Adira feels no remorse when she shoves the knife she hid - under her sleeve all along - even further into Vanessa's neck.

Blood spurts into Adira's face, but her grip around the shaft of the knife doesn't loosen once.

Vanessa's grip around Adira's throat does weaken, though. To an extent where Adira can just push her off of herself.

"I-I'm so-r-ry...I'm sorry, Ad-dira...", Vanessa squeezes out as her hands latch onto her own throat to stop more blood from escaping.

"I'm sorry, Vanessa.", Adira whispers as she straightens and bends down to look at her dying past ally.

The girl makes a gargling noise as she tries to pull out the knife, but she shakes and her arms soon flop down next to her into the pool of blood accumulating around her body on the tiles.

Vanessa's eyes spell a silent plea as she parts her now pale lips to say something.

But she can't.

And Adira can't watch.

Bile rises in her throat as she wants to turn away from Vanessa who now stopped fighting the urge to move, who now stopped resisting.

A harsh release of air escapes from Vanessa's lips at last and her eyes are fixated on a loose spot in thin air.

Cold.

"Don't you dare bleed on the floor.", Connie's words echo in Adira's mind.

Connie. Damian. Despite their true objectives, these two stayed in close contact with Vanessa. There have been multiple times where Connie even considered her as a friend.

Just like Adira did.

She can't tell them that she k-

A sudden shiver slices through Adira's body, clinging to her jaw and making her knees buckle.

A sour taste spreads on her tongue.

With the last energy she has, she runs to the bathroom before she could vomit on the ground.

~

The feeling of soft fur brushing against her bare knees make Adira look up from the porcelain of the toilet. Her black cat sits next to her, on the cold white bathroom tiles, studying her.

Adira wants to reach out and scratch it behind its ears, but she becomes aware of the blood staining her fingers.

Vanessa is dead.

Adira killed her.

She killed her own friend.

She was still her friend once.

And nothing – nothing – will change this fact.

~

Next thing Adira knows is herself staring at the bright screen of her phone.

Memorize.

Don't leave traces.

"But... you still know the address.", Connor's words echo in her mind.

If Velocity sent Vanessa out to kill Adira, then Adira must have left traces of her own existence to ever track back to her current location.

The gears in her mind start to click in place.

And the next thing Adira knows is her placing the phone on the ground and smashing it with a hammer.

Again, again and again.

Again, until shards of glass are spread everywhere, until the shape had flattened into half the original thickness. Until Adira feels her anger and grief towards herself vanish to glimmering ashes.

She slumps on the ground and drops the hammer. It noisily clutters, probably leaving dents in the wooden floorboards.

But that doesn't matter to Adira right now.

She exhales harshly as she feels her eyes starting to sting with unshed tears she had collected for so long. So many years she had put up an emotional dam to prevent herself from showing her emotions.

With a shaky breath, she pulls her knees to her chest and rests her head on them. And then, the dam breaks.