(I'm back! Sorry guys!)
When your life flashes before your eyes, you realize not how full it is but how empty it is of people. And that really there are only three people who truly matter. Your friend, your family, and your love. The only people that Emilia saw in that brief moment of dazzling sunlight that blinds her as the door swings open and she loses all hope, is her mother, Jasmine, and most surprisingly Alexander. She supposed it made sense, her only chance of survival flashing through her mind when she is certain the only thing left to her is death, she couldn't actually care for him that much, but if she did what did it actually matter now, she would be gone soon anyway, and he would never know or care.
Before she can blink, before Emilia can move an inch more, a gun shot rings through the store, the glass windows shaking in their frames, and the hand holding her bindings only clenches tighter, the gun at her back digging tightly between her shoulder blades as she thinks for the briefest of moments that he is about to pull the trigger, that she is about to end up like Rosie, just a name in a paper about a kidnapping or rape gone wrong, another pour young girl who ended up dead on the street with a bullet through her chest.
But then, she is falling towards the ground, dragged awkwardly by her wrists as her legs fold and her body hits the ground with a heavy thud, back arched painfully and head thudding against something much softer than concrete as she tries her hardest not to scream from fear and pain of the awkward position. She can feel the burning of her hands, the gun still stuck beneath her, and something sticky that begins to coat the side of her face as she gags from the smell of blood coating her hair and cheek, making its way to her tightly closed mouth.
And behind her she hears a scuffle, but she can't bear to open her eyes, to look at what is happening on the street before her, to see the concrete below, the car in front, or the blood she can feel seeping below her. All she can feel in that moment is the stinging of scraped arms and knees, smell the rancid copper scent of blood and other fluids that is making her gag, and all she can hear is struggling breath, not from the man behind her but from somewhere far away, miles away from where her mind is.
"Tell him, that if he wants to come after Mr. Delmont, go after him, not her, understood? Or next time, he won't get a warning." Comes a snarl, it is soft and distant, but she can still hear it, then are the pounding feet of someone stumbling, running past her as she struggles to control the panic and tears flooding from her body. In her ears is still ringing the gun shot loud and clear, and below her she feels the body, the body that she knows is dead.
Suddenly, a rough yank on her arm bindings and suddenly she is struggling, fighting to be free, sobbing freely as she tries to break their rough hold on her. "No, please! Let me go! Please! I beg you, he won't give anything for me, I mean nothing!" She screamed, eyes still screwed shut as she can taste the copper of what she knows is not her own blood in her mouth.
"Hey! Hey! It's me, it's Alex, calm down, you're safe." The arm restraining her shoulders, holding her tightly to a solid chest tightens, keeping her from thrashing as the voice breaks through her mindless struggles, and grounds her to the moment as she leans her head back against his chest, eyes slowly opening through the blur of tears to see the body before her, the van waiting for her trembling body.
"I'm going to untie you now, ok, just relax." He whispers in her ear, still supporting her with the arm across her chest, supporting her against him. She didn't understand how his breathing was so steady, how he was unphased by what just took place, and yet, it was comforting as she didn't dare to move. She didn't trust her own legs to support her at the moment they shook so badly beneath her.
Suddenly, the pressure on her wrists is released and even though her hands are free she doesn't move an inch, stuck against his torso as she simply stares at the gorilla man lying across the door way. Blood pooling down the slanted sidewalk, collecting in unseen cracks and spread over where her body used to be, an imprint of her face still there as she tries not to tremble, to be able to stand on her own two feet again.
"Hey, I'm not going to let anything happen to you, ok, believe me, you're safe Emilia, you're safe now." He whispered in her ear, trying to soothe her racing heart that would not be still. "Emilia, breathe baby, just breathe." He murmured to her, one hand holding her wrist awkwardly in his own, trying to rub away the red mark before it bruises too badly, dots of blood rising from how tightly they had been bound and shoulders aching from being pulled back in an unnatural position.
"Th-the blood, it. . he. . he's dead, he was going to kill me." She choked out, spitting to try and clear her lips of blood, face sticky as she tries not to breathe through her nose in disgust of the smell as she just stares, watching the dead man, the wide lifeless eyes, the gun still held loosely in his grip, the hole in the back of his skull where a bullet had taken his life.
"Yes, he was, but he's gone now, it's ok." He tried to soothe her, but she only shook her head, hair flinging droplets of blood, sticking to her neck and face as she struggles to keep herself sane, to process what had happened.
"No!" She practically screamed, pushing away from him and nearly falling as she tried to stand on her own two legs, only to stumble back against him as muscular arms wrap around her waist to keep her steady once more. "He's dead! I was almost dead! I was. . . he was going to kill me!" Her mind couldn't quite seem to process that simple fact, the fact that she had been so close to death.
"But you're not, you're not dead Emilia, you're fine." He whispered, finally turning her to face him, pulling her face into his crisp white suit stained with blood, stained with the blood from the man he had killed. He had killed someone, the man holding her had killed someone. But he had done it for her, he had saved her life. Leaning forward he whispered in her ear once more, closer than ever before. "You're fine baby, I'm here."
And more than anything before, that was what calmed her, him holding her, him calling her something endearing, he hadn't kept his promise. Something had happened after all, she had nearly been kidnapped, nearly died, but then again he had saved her.
Yanked from her thoughts of death by a shaky voice hiding behind the counter, "Yes, 911? S-someone was shot in my store. . . yes. . . there was a fight, there were guns. . . I-I think they're dead." Cried the voice, and then, it is all interrupted by a snarl, one of absolute fury and frustration that rumbles from deep inside Alexander's chest, animalistic and viscous as she feels muscles contract around her, holding her closer than she thought was possible.
"We need to go, now. The police are on their way." He growls in her ear, but she doesn't move an inch, confusion swamping her again.
"Why?" She murmured, unmoving from her position against his chest, a steady heart rate the only thing consistent at the moment as her mind couldn't handle much more.
"We don't need the questions, it will only put you in a bigger spotlight and we don't want that." He murmurs in her ear, and then asks something she wasn't expecting. "Can you walk?"
"I. . yes?" She responds uncertainly, not really able to wrap her head around much else at the moment besides the fact that her legs are trembling so badly the answers is most definitely a no, but even now she doesn't want to admit her moment of weakness.
"No, you can't." He says confidently, sweeping her off her feet with a single arm and pressing her face into his red stained shirt with one hand and holding her up with the other, forcing her not to look at the body as he steps over it with ease and around to the car he had driven to this disastrous first date.
Emilia stands there, numb, under the cool shower water. Her eyes cast down as it trails off her head, down her face, and holding her body tightly in an attempt to compress her chest and ease her anxious mind. She watches the water's trail, watches it collect the blood from her hair, from her face, from her stinging arms and legs, watches it wash away any evidence of the day.
She barely remembered the car ride back, being carried inside, any of it. All she remembered was the heart beat of her savior steady against her ear as she was carried up the stairs, as he set her in the bathroom and told her to take a shower. All she remembered was listening to him, doing it without question or thought as her mind made an attempt to process everything that was had happened on this one fateful day.
She couldn't decide if knowing the truth made the events better or worse, if being oblivious had made it easier, or if the knowledge of today's events gave her some kind of power to accept what had just happened to her barely an hour before.
Had she been the cause of what had happened? If she had just never asked, if she had kept her damn mouth shut, if she didn't know, would that man be dead now? Would Alexander be wiping away the evidence of murder? Would he even be a murderer if it hadn't been for her? But then again, it wasn't really murder when he had been saving her life. He had been performing his job, what he was hired to do by Mr. Delmont. Mr. Delmont was the real murderer, he was involved in her father's death, in what had happened on the docks, he was involved with everything.
Her mind reeling with the information, with the events, with everything, she watches the water run clear and turns off the shower, wrapping herself tightly in a towel and not even bothering with her hair as she steps out of the private bathroom and into her brand new room.
She wondered, as she laid on the bed, not caring that her hair was soaking, that her bed would be wet, or that she was only wrapped in a towel, what the cost of her room was, how many people had died before he had built this safe house, before he became a deputy to the mafia, a person in charge of death and murder, the person that had married her mother, the person she was forced to live with.
And then, as her door opens and she glances towards it to find Alexander with a stone cold look on his face she knows what he is about to say before he even opens his mouth. "Mr. Delmont is back, and he wants to speak with you."