"The deal is off."
He'd been dead, he'd been dead she was sure of it, she'd heard their hearts stop beating, felt their cold skin against hers as she'd held them and screamed and wailed to the thundering skies, as if they'd hear her on their decent into the heavens and come back for her instead of leaving her to rot. Saints she'd mourned them for so long, her grief persevering into her skin until it had become her completely, made a deal with death itself to become something monstrous to take revenge against Kettedam for taking them, her last thread to humanity snapping and leaving horror in its place.
She should of done something, should of fought harder against the men trying to throw them with the rest of the bloated corpses covered in their own dirt, she should of stayed with them, should of followed, should of waited, she should of fucking died with them but she didn't she couldn't, she just ran and ran and ran after something finally exploded inside of her and made the whole sky tremble, killing the men surrounding her and staining her hands that would never be clean for years to come.
Gwen slammed the door shut behind her as she finally stumbled home, falling onto the ground with a grunt, heaving gasps escaping bloodied lips as she tried to crawl across the floor as grief and rage clawed at her insides until she felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside out, as raw as a wound and left to bleed out because of her own selfish mourning. Everything hurt, agony striking her every limb, her broken hand that throbbed, the gaping hole in her thigh from that stupid cane, the bruises, the cuts, the pain in her chest that felt far worse than heartbreak.
It all just kept mounting and mounting inside her, the wind howling outside, battering against her windows as the night thundered followed by flashes of lightning that struck the ground inside, getting louder, stronger the more sobs that escaped, some awful sounding things that sounded like they were literally being forced out of her chest until she could barely breath, could barely do more than lift her head as she lay there on her kitchen floor.
His eyes, her eyes, their eyes, how could she not of seen? How could she not of noticed that they had the same fucking eyes. Her brother, her brother, her brother, her Kaz was alive...and she'd been the one who left him to rot all those years ago, not the other way around.
And that was when the dam she'd built of her own violation to keep her complacent and alive finally broke, finally cracked under the pressure of her devastation, the weight of her sins and all consuming grief as she opened her mouth and screamed, objects flying as her powers unleashed from her skin, the table smashing to pieces, her window shattering, the room exploding with white light as lightning scorched her home, the storm that was she becoming one with her ruination.
Flashes of the past, her mistakes, her lasting pain kept rushing her, mouting inside her mind until it felt fried and wrung out, questions and prayers slipping through her trembling lips lost in the howling winds as she continued to lay there, sobbing and trembling from broken limb to broken limb. She could remember that time very well, felt it inflict its misery on her memory, the source of her nightmares, her trauma, her greatest grief and most painful loss because she'd loved her brothers to the point of ruin and ruin her they did when they left- no, when she thought they left her.
She remembered that the only time she'd left their sides was to delve into the streets of the Barrel with greedy fingers, clumsy and trembling taking anything she could get her dirty hands on and usually rushing back to the alleyway with new hand shaped bruises and gashes across her face for the trouble of less than fresh bread tucked under her armpit that she'd water down like disgusting soup to gently tip down their throats, ignoring her own stomach that rumbled in vile hunger as it ate away at itself, only focused on her brothers, the ones who were meant to protect her and look after her only to find the tables turned.
The hopelessness that had wound in her gut that grew tighter with ever passing day that they didn't get better, unable to do anything but watch as their skin grew paler, their eyes sunk in and they looked like mere ghosts haunting the corpses of what was once her family...she remembered her hands coated in the bile as she'd tilt them to the side to stop them choking on their own sick, remembered cleaning them, remembered slowly finding the sight of feces and vomit and all sorts of matter disgusting to the point she'd wash her hands until they'd bleed in muddy puddles and not caring about the way her fingertips grew numb.
But most of all, she remembered the night which she became an only child, the only Rietveld left because the rest were gone. There's been a second, just a second where she'd thought everything would be alright, when Kaz had opened his eyes, her eyes, their eyes and looked up at her with a barely there smile on his pale lips, his grip tightening over her scabby palm until she worried he'd cut off the circulation...and then he'd went to sleep once more, only she'd been sure then that he hadn't woken up, as she, herself was pulled out of her slumber to see those men trying to cater her brothers stiff bodies to the rest of the pile of rot.
And then that's when the details began to get fuzzy, because what happened next was the first time she truly discovered what she was, what she could do when she screamed and lifted a man so high in the air that she could hardly see him, before dropping him back down to splatter on the pavement, watching as if time had slowed at the way his skin had peeled upward, the white bone of his skull splintering in all directions, his jaw tearing away as his body crumbled in on itself in some meaty mess...and then Gwen had never moved faster in her life as she ran away with her ghosts haunting her and those men hunting her.
She snapped back into the present as she felt more blood seep out of the wound in her thigh, feeling like she was being torn in two, a war against the deepest and most secret parts of herself, her survival fighting against her humanity.
Gwen Rietveld had rushed to the surface the moment she'd met those grey eyes of precious steel without her truly knowing, and she only got stronger and more hungry with every shared moment, every lingering glance, longing touch, brushing lips...and then she'd been solidified when she finally looked at the last remaining part of what had once been her maimed soul...she'd pushed everything she needed to survive into the Stranger and buried everything that had once made her her...and now she was broken, completely and utterly and without a shred of mercy.
And for hours she lay there, blood in her teeth, eyes closed and skin rippling with something akin to power as the storm carried on overhead, dark and dangerous and just as devastating as she was...before she finally rose up on shaking legs, mouth lifting into a terrible snarl as she forced herself up, shoulders back and baring the weight of her trauma and fear and pain as she looked down to where her broken mask was sprawled at her feet, and ever so slowly slipped it on as her being flickered, turmoil wreaking winding havoc on her stomach that only grew tighter with every minute.
Luckily, she didn't exactly have much of a door anymore to struggle with as she simply turned and limped out of what was once her sanctuary as a plan formed in her sick mind that craved only two things...death and destruction, and she was dying to get her fill before the night was over.
It was easy enough to find a healer, a grisha healer if her whispers were anything to go by as Gwen sat upon the woman's kitchen table, dressed in her attire of the Stranger with her throbbing hand placed upon the dull wood and one of her legs crossed over the other, half hidden in the darkness of the room with only the moon to grant her something akin to saintly with its silver glow that washed over her.
And thankfully, she didn't have to wait long for her to finally come down the stairs, didn't have to wait long to hear her terrified screams at the monster in her kitchen, and didn't have to wait long for fear to take hold and wind the woman's lips shut as she trembled. "Now now, enough of that. If I wanted you dead there's not a force on the earth that could stop you from meeting that fate, especially not your cries."
Obviously, her words weren't exactly reassuring or comforting enough for the healer as silent tears started to stream down her face, thick wobbling things that painted her a rather pathetic creature indeed as she stood in her own home like it was her death sentence, all the while the stranger looked down at her almost boredly with a terrible tension in the air, an awful ominous aura that radiated from her in waves as the sky outside continued to storm and thunder as if the saints and the gods were battling for purchase in the heavens above.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Sit down, I don't have all night."
She was quick to do so, still looking at the literal myth of death in front of her as if waiting for her to disappear into thin air and becoming one with the shadows around them. But nothing happened, for a minute or two at least, before Gwen slowly pushed her broken hand across the table over towards the older woman, watching as her eyes went wide, starting at the bruised and swollen skin in disgust...before finally, it seemed she realised exactly why she was being visited by the monster of Ketterdam, as she looked up at her in terror and whimpered.
"Fix it...and if I hear a whisper of this happening upon your tongue, I'll slit your children's throat and drown you in their mortality...is that understood?"
It was safe to say she suspected that the healer had never moved faster in her life as she got to work, her trembling palms dancing over her skin, knitting it together as flesh began to move and crack, her bones resetting and joining together painfully slow until she was ready to lose all semblance of composure and start screaming and cursing...but instead, all the stranger did was glare holes into the side of the woman's head, watching the way she sweat, the way her bottom lip trembled, the way her whole body seemed to flinch and draw in on itself with every single breath she took as if expecting her to lash out and show her the truth of how dangerous she truly was.
But she didn't of course, she had no desire to stain her hands with innocent sin anymore than they would be tonight, and so when she could finally flex her fingers without her whole arm erupting in agony, she stood up and left the healer to crumble in on herself in relief without so much as a backward glance, knowing her threat, her reputation, her vile and corrupted legacy would keep her complacent.
And as Gwen stalked through the crooked streets, only limping slightly and feeling all sorts of wrong and twisted, the two halves of herself still battling for control in her mortal corpse that just made her ache, she knew she had only one destination in mind...because the Stranger never left a job unfinished, it was true, and because she couldn't kill the boy who'd brought her such turmoil in the first place, she'd have to end the deal another way, and that was by making sure Eddard Nobles never whispered her name ever again, and the choice was up to him whether it be through his torn out tongue...or his wasted breath.
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There was no point in making a dramatic entrance, she didn't have the patience nor mental stability for such things as she strolled on into the merchants mansion with her boots echoing through the halls ominously, twisting her hands out in front of her to force the guards into the air, hitting off the walls to either side of her with a loud crack of skulls breaking and necks snapping before their bodies dropped to the floor and began to stain the marble red...but she didn't flinch, didn't spare them a glance or even a mere change of expression as their deaths joined the ever mounting numbers she collected like a reaper does souls.
But when the doors to Nobles bedroom swung open by a nonchalant wave of her fingers, she realised very quickly that he'd obviously been expecting her visit...if the numerous rifles pointed at her by straight-faced guards dressed in black were anything to go by as she slowed to a stop, tilting her head to the side as her cold eyes of stormy seas danced across the room until they landed on him and grinned dangerously.
"Well, what to we have here, Eddard? This isn't exactly the welcome I usually expect."
"You promised he'd be dead. That his rotting corpse would be hanging for the whole of Ketterdam to see...and instead my men told me that instead of doing what I was paying you for, you were saving the bastards sharpshooter." He shouted, borderline on hysterical as he stood on shaking legs to point at her, unwashed hair slicked back through grease and sweat, dark bags and his once plump features gaunt and eyes nothing short of wild and feral, a man that was well and truly pushed to the edge of insanity if she'd ever saw one...well, he could join the club.
"Yes, there's been a change I suppose. Brekker offered me something far more valuable for his life over yours...so, in other words, the deal is off." Gwen said simply, arms folded behind her attire of black and fading in and out of sight like a haunting mirage of death, her dark gaze moving sinfully slow across the room, drifting from guard to guard with a certain calculating glare, knowing she was outnumbered, outgunned and still wounded...but also knowing that at the end of the day, she was the biggest threat of everyone in the room, you didn't gain the title of the reaper of Ketterdam with clean hands after all.
"No. No! Brekker needs to die, you made the deal! Your promised me you stupid cunt!"
The Stranger tutted in displeasure at his words, mockingly shaking her head as if disappointed in him as she took another step into the room, directly under the chandelier that glistened above her, listening to the echo as it bounced off the walls and watching as his so called men were quick to shift their rifles into position to follow her and smirking darkly as she glanced at him with her brow quirked and hidden. "Ah, words are but empty things my friend, just like promises, just like prayers...there is only one absolute in this world and that is death, something you will be soon acquainted with if you speak to me like that again."
"We have you twenty to one, Stranger." Eddard seemed rather confident or rather stupid indeed as he gestured around, as if she hadn't been able to see them when she'd first strutted in. And oh, wasn't it amusing, wasn't it precious what a false sense of security could give a man that constantly looked on the verge of tears whenever he'd whisper for her, and even know, it was like he couldn't allow his eyes to linger upon her, as if scared if he did so, he'd take one look in her bloodthirsty gaze and combust into pieces like many others before him.
"I like those odds."
"I'm going to fucking give you one more chance-"
"As am I...stop while you're ahead, submit to Brekker, and never breathe a word of this night." She snapped, the wind that had almost settled outside suddenly picking up again loudly and furiously, ominously howling as it slammed against the glass panes of his window, the sky rumbling with thunder with lightning following soon after as rage, as her humanity began to boil in her gut once more to make her feel...and that only added to her vile frustrations because she couldn't do such things, the Stranger didn't feel, didn't mourn, didn't care...and the Stranger was the only reason she survived this far and she couldn't let it go.
But it seemed that Eddard took her words to mean something else as he snarled, enraged and baring his teeth like a feral animal, delving further and further into insanities controlling hold that would never let him go until death and fate itself would battle to meet him. "I knew it...you're working with the bastard! You've been with him from the start, trying to get my secrets, to take me for everything I have! It's all been one of your schemes!"
She didn't say anything, just continued to watch and grimace as he spat on his floor, practically frothing at the mouth with his white shirt sticking to his skin in perspiration, and then he started to laugh, a spiteful and wet sound that cut through the tension like a knife to butter, thickening the strange cloud around them as his own guards shifted in unease...but she refused to move a muscle, just staring up at the man as his rage clouded his fear and made him blind to his own future if he followed down the path she knew he would.
"Kill her. Kill it now!"
And then bullets were raining through the air towards her, the sounds drowning out the pounding of her heart or the way her blood rushed through her veins and made way for her devastating power...before she threw herself down onto the floor, twisted herself so she was on her back and forcing her hands into the familar position as the wind finally shattered through the windows, raining glass into the room that sunk into fragile flesh as the men started to scream bloody murder, but she had her eyes on a bigger prize...quite possibly, the last thing of value in the mansion which would only solidify his complete ruin.
Gwen took a breath, focusing hard on the trembling chandelier, feeling that tingling in the tips of her fingers and that familar pull in her gut, and then yanked her hands downward, tearing the chandelier from the roof and then sending it flying in all directions like her very own kind of bullets, her aim true and nothing short of deadly as red sin began to pool over his white marble floors, with his men's dead bodies pointed and pierced by their own loyalty.
The Stranger stood up nonchalantly, brushing her shoulders for any dust before she began to walk through the room, glass crunching beneath her feet, her boots leaving bloodied foot prints in her wake as her dark eyes full of wicked intention stayed firmly on where Eddard Nobles cowered and whimpered, looking at the morality around him, the death, the natural disaster of the monster that could never be human...and then his desperate babbling began as he looked up at her, begging for mercy when she didn't even know the meaning of the word. "Please- please, I'll give you anything- anything! All the kruge I have left is yours- just don't- please don't-"
But he was cut off from his worthless cries when Gwen leaned forward and pressed her foot against his throat, pushing him back to the floor as she looked over him with a grin sharper than a knife as lighting flashed in the night sky and lit her up like the horror story she was. "I don't want your kruge, Nobles...I want your pain."