~~Young~~

Chapter Thirteen

   She fought so well, fearless, skillfully, as well as Gage ever could. But pride was the last thing he felt seeing her unchanging expression, seeing those dull cold eyes the likes he had never seen before on her.

   This wasn’t the Sera he knew, feared this was the real Sera.

   The one that was absolutely dead inside.

   No, he argued with himself. He knew there was warmth inside her, had seen it, had felt it…he reached up to his chest without thinking…that wasn’t Sera but the darkness inside her he reassured himself. But now he feared for her.

   She had indeed been waiting for someone, anyone really who would act against her because this is what she was really waiting for. A fight, that was her release.

   It wasn’t Twitchy and his friends who had arranged this, it was her.

   “Oh beauty…” Gage whispered.

   “I had no idea,” Michael mumbled in disbelief as he struggled to sit up, pain written across his face as he shifted his wings, “had no idea she was so ruthless.”

   He wanted to argue with him, but seeing Sera’s face so clearly now as she walked back down the end of the alley towards the only man left, the one choking for air, he couldn’t. There was nothing there. No fear, no remorse, not even any enjoyment. No-thing.

   Gage pulled the hand from his chest and gripped his face, for the first time wondering if death would be the best outcome for her. If she had this inside her, if this is what she fought so hard against every day, then maybe death would be a relief for her…

   He felt the glow before he saw the light, knowing without taking his eyes off of Sera that Michael was being retrieved by God himself. They weren’t anywhere near a church after all, and with Michael’s injuries he wouldn’t be getting to one soon. Plus being injured as he was would just leave him vulnerable, what a terrible thing for one of God’s precious archangels.

   He felt a sting on his cheek and ignored the lightning bolt that had been thrown at him for the most part, “Yeah fuck you too,” his mumbled response being the only acknowledgement to the deity.

   Which would normally make Gage feel a little better knowing how much God hated- yes even God hated- being ignored. But he didn’t give a shit about anything but Sera at this moment.

   She had just wrenched the gasping man off the ground and pulled him to her so she could bury one of her blades in his side. It wasn’t a fatal blow, none of the wounds she had inflicted on the men were themselves lethal, and he thought that somewhere inside she knew that. But left untreated…

   Gage sighed and stepped off the roof, that he just wouldn’t let her do, kill.

   As the man stumbled around her for some sort of safe haven she just stood there, arms now limp at her sides, facing the end of the alley with those same dead eyes.

   Well no, she did do something, she blinked, she breathed, but that was it for a long moment, as if she was just soaking it all in. Gage began pulling his wings back inside as he walked up to her, sure her brain wouldn’t register his appearance out of nowhere, if it registered him at all. He paused and considered calling his own blade just in case, just in case this darkness of hers didn’t recognize him as friend and tried to attack him.

   Friend?  Was that what he was to her, what she was to him, a friend?

   In the end he decided not to. Afraid that even if her darkness did accept him that it may see his own blade as a threat.