SAINT

CHAPTER 12

''It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scars to show for happiness. We learn little from peace.'' ~ Chuck Palahniuk. 

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Aaradhya Agarwal

The rain weeps, curling the ends of my hair as tears, saltier than its counterpart, slide from my eyes. I wrap my arms tightly around my knees, shielding my upper body. I observe the rain eroding the once-floating soil, my boots sticking as they sink into the earth. I strive to prevent myself from succumbing to the mud and despair.

I gaze as droplets cascade down the gravestone like the tears of angels, seemingly cleansing the sins of the innocent. The irony is that this man, under the guise of protector, inflicted harm on the most vulnerable. Children who pleaded for money to satisfy the law enforcer's demand for the dust that would be their undoing.

With lifeless eyes, I recall his gaze begging for mercy, his head bleeding onto my white heels, his fingers nearly shattered. A single false tear, coupled with Killian's performance, painted me as the innocent one. I had once pleaded like him, not out of selfishness, but for love's sake.

As I press my foot against his hand, his screams resonate like a symphony on my skin, akin to a blade gliding through thick blood on sullied flesh. I remember the sound of his skull against the window, leaving me with nothing but a minor scratch on my elbow. "RAAZ," I chuckle, raising my head as the rain showers over me like falling petals. It wasn't sufficient; I craved more blood to flow through the heavens. I yearned for Lady Justice to remove her blindfold and acknowledge the agony inflicted by the affluent upon us.

My fingers clasp tightly around the silver pendant hidden beneath my clothes, safeguarding it from thieving hands. I flick my thumb over the delicate clasp, opening it to gaze upon old memories, then snap it shut before the rain can turn the last photo to ash.

As I sit, the mud splatters softly, its sticky sound accompanying the boots of the person beside me, his knee pressing against mine. I despise physical contact, the very idea of someone's pity touching my marred skin. Yet, inexplicably, I crave Damon's claim over me, the entwining of our lips in silent devotion, the shivers his caress sends across my blemished flesh.

My mind is a tangle of contradictions, especially when his blue eyes seek mine, filled with a yearning to draw closer. I've never wished to harm someone who isn't an enemy, someone unconnected to me. But this fixation ignites every vein, my loathsome veins, demanding him in my system until we're consumed by infernal flames. He's not mine to break, yet I yearn for him to quiver within my hold. I was utterly fucked up; no prayer could help me any longer. 

I long for his touch to trace every curve, to worship the shadows that dwell within my mind. Some might brand me a devil, and perhaps they're not wrong, for the devil always seeks to conquer heaven—and I've found mine. To claim something as my own feels like a chapter from a distant past.

"Little A," Killian's voice wavers softly to me. It's always a contrast, the sociopath whose life as a specialized assassin for Trade Investors is ruled by watching Veer Singhania manipulate us—the public, the jobless, the desperate. Killian was both until he spared a child's life, which led to his sister Vanessa Reid's disappearance into the depths.

His suit is fully coated in what looks like angel tears as his brown eyes lock onto mine. "Your suit is wrinkled by tears that aren't blood, and you're not slaying the angels above. How odd," I remark, a shiver of coldness lingering in my tone, mixed with the obvious. "How could I leave my Little A here, watching his dead body perish in hell with my sister's name on his lips?" The menace in his voice brings a smirk to my face.