Before Everything Burned.
Rain slicks the pavement beneath my boots, heavy drops hissing as they strike metal, concrete and skin. The wind cuts sharply through the warehouse lot, curling beneath my clothes and dragging my sweat into a chill.
Not far behind me, the burning wreckage crackles, destroying the remnants of the man he’d tracked down and tortured. The man we’d both planned to bury…instead, my Glock is raised…both hands on the grip.
It felt heavy, slick with blood, regret and whatever the hell else clung to the air around us. But my aim was sure, directly targeted on the man in front of me.
We were in the middle of nowhere, cracked pavement with steam curling into the air under the weight of the storm. The headlights of our bikes burning in the dark like waiting eyes.
Mine idled behind me, the engine sounding like a low and restless growl. And ahead, Nico Romano was on his knees…smiling at me like he’s already won this fucked up game we’ve been playing.
The worst part is he looked like fucking sin, even like this. His long, jet black hair wet with pieces plastered to his jaw. His black shirt is slashed open at the side, clinging to muscle and no doubt soaked crimson red. Blood runs down the corner of his mouth, washing away into the stubble along his jaw. One hand clutched his side, fingers stained dark where the gash is still leaking, as the other rested on his thigh. Relaxed.
Like he’s not even phased. Like he hasn’t just bled for me…that it wasn’t me who put him here.
The grin on his is fucked. I mean sick, it’s an unbothered smile you’d expect to see on a man who just crawled out of his own grave and actually fucking liked it. His lip is split, teeth streaked red with blood, and there’s a look in his eye that says he really doesn’t care that I’m the one holding the gun. One that says I’ve never been the one truly in control. That I never had the upper hand, not with him. Not ever.
It’s the look of a man who’s survived too many endings to be afraid of this one. And I hate him for still looking so fucking beautiful despite it.
“So, you gonna do it, princess?” his voice cuts through the rain, voice rough and taunting. “Or you gonna keep standin’ there lookin’ pretty?”
“Shut the fuck up!”
He laughs, actually laughs, and the sound scrapes against my nerves like nails on concrete. “There’s my girl… there’s that dirty little mouth I love so much.”
I shake my head subconsciously, tightening my grip on the gun. My finger’s on the trigger, and I know I should pull it. End this. End him. But something keeps me frozen, watching as the rain washes his blood away in thin rivulets down his chest.
“You know what your problem is, Nova?” He spits blood to the side, still looking at me like I’m his next meal. “You think you hate me, but baby... that ain’t hate burnin’ in your eyes.”
“Fuck you!” The words come out shaky, and I hate myself for it.
He grins up at me from under his brow, “Already did that. Multiple times. Remember?”
His voice dips lower, dark with blood and something even uglier, desire slicked in defiance.
“Remember how you screamed my name?”
The words land like a blow to my chest. I flinch, just barely, but he sees it. And fuck him, he smiles wider.
My throat tightens, fingers locked so hard around the Glock my knuckles pale beneath the rain. I want to scream. Cry. I want to pull the goddamn trigger. Anything but feel the way my body betrays me at the sound of his voice.
This isn’t love. It never was. This was hunger with no bottom. Fucking gluttony. Ruin with no exit… Poison disguised as a shiny red apple.
And he knows it. He sees all of it and still drinks it in like it’s his last goddamn cigarette.
“So, c’mon…” he rasps, pushing up straighter on one knee. “If you’re gonna shoot me, don’t make me wait for it, baby.”
I kept the gun steady in both hands, aiming center mass. My finger hovering just shy of the trigger.
“Whatcha waiting for, Little Red? I know you got it in you, I’m right here…” he goads, spitting blood at the gravel between us.
“Shut. The fuck. Up!”
“Why?” He tilted his head, neck popping, lips curling as if he had no care in the world. As if he wasn’t bleeding out in the goddamn rain. “You’re the one aiming at me. Don’t get shy now!”
“I swear to God, Reaper-” I grit out through my teeth.
“Oh, I’m Reaper now?” His smirk widens, but there’s a something behind it, a flicker, or a crack even. And as much as I don’t want to see it, I do.
It’s small, and hell, maybe he didn’t even realize it, but I do. I hear it in his voice. The hurt — splintered, raw, and unguarded.
It wasn’t because I was pointing a gun at him… it’s because I stopped calling him by his true name.
And just like that, I see it happen. The shift. The careful control he always wears around me begins to peel away bit by bit. The mask slips and underneath it Reaper breathes freely.
He looks up at me from under his brow, darker now, sharper. “You sure that’s what you want?”
My voice comes out softer than intended, “Nico, please…”
That makes him pause, but not in shock or some kind of regret of his own. No. He likes the way it sounds.
He leans back on his heels, eyes glinting like the devil had just made him a lavish offering, “Oh, baby… you know how much I love it when you beg.”
His tongue runs slowly over his split lip before he bites down, “Say it again.”
I hold my ground, trying to remember who the fuck I am and why this has to be done. My voice drops. “I want. You. Gone.”
“No, you don’t.” His voice is smooth and taunting. “If you did…we wouldn’t be here.”
“I can’t to do this anymore!!”
He narrows his eyes before he straightens through the pain, rising like something spat out straight from hell, “Then do it. Shoot me.”
The gun trembles slightly in my hands now. I don’t know if he notices, but I do. He takes one step closer, but I don’t flinch this time.
When he speaks again, his voice is low, gritty and so close to unholy I’m surprised I don’t already see a fucking cross burning behind him, “Go on... I dare you,” he breathes, “But if you’re gonna keep aiming that at me… pull the fucking trigger. Empty the clip, Little Red. Because if you don’t—”
His eyes lock on mine; wild, obsessed, and glowing with fire, “…I won’t stop. And I’ll drag hell behind me to I find you over and over again.”
My breath hitches and something twists inside me. It’s not fear, or doubt…it was something much worse.
I know he’s telling the truth.
And then the silence came; thick, tight, choking and clawing at my throat like heavy smoke.
I never thought the man who embodied everything I hated would become the hardest thing to watch die…
But before I get too ahead of myself… Let me take it back.
Back to the first night I ever laid eyes on Reaper.
