The shadows of the dimly lit hallway parted their faces, lining the curves of their features as though each were looking out a window, simply through one another. Parting between the shadows were shades of gray creating distance between them. Contouring the distinct sincerities of the moment that were drawn within the lines of a perfect picture.
The height of this encounter set Christine’s nerves in a prickle of danger. The feeling clattered against her mind before the smoke of thought formed into shape.
The perpetual moment lingered between them. Pulling and giving way as they each impressed themselves against it. Her sense was heightened by the collision and spray of rash thoughts that came with the threat of him. It hung, airing in the moment. Swept underneath the broad skin of two rival minds.
The context clues of the confidence in his gait began her mind’s Michelangelo level of a masterful scribble. With the scalpel of her mind, she would carve out the truest path.
Proverbial poker. She felt the match brewing. The questions danced. Where would the cards fall? Who held the entire deck? These answers were held in the breaths they didn’t breathe. Tiny coded secrets held within the words they hadn’t spoken, rather than between the words they did. The prison of words of this exchange would be the loser’s tomb.
Time had slowed to the heightened moments in between the blink of an eye. Through their staring contest they tried to detect the mirrored/paralleled shades of morally gray in comparison to their own. To see how much of a match their histories drew in contrast to one another.
The sketch of minds had to be a quick one, a fervid skatter of hints placed upon the page of action that only instinct could draw. A colorless impression of who they were to one another. Predator, foe, friend? Rival? They would know at the end of this altercation whose confidence might rest in the hands of the victor.
The man saw right through her. Her presence was haunting, if you let it be. But to him she was nothing more than a slightly intimidating witch. His rich voice playfully beckoned her as he eyed the toothpick on her hip. “Will I be next?”
See, society hates murder because of the suspicion it places in our minds overriding society’s natural complacency of trust. With one simple question, the very question he had just asked. Each, however, seemed to have a sense in knowing that death and murder could be good or bad. Even when there was none. Still there was always someone that tried to assign the meaning of it all. And Christine got the sense it wouldn’t be either of them.
The answer of this conversation would fall to the winner to decide just that. It was the ultimate debt for either to pay out to one another. Any debt at all, for either of them, was utter and complete failure. Worth every tooth and claw it would take to climb to the top.
Weakness? Intolerable. Their unrelenting beast wouldn’t allow it. In which case, each knew the rules.
And it was time to deal.
Christine responded in a subtly smooth tone as the cards began to fall, clues stacking upon hints that they gave within their words to one another. Context? Who needed it. This decision, to gauge who they are, was everything. Christine responded by matching his playful tone with her own, “Be careful what you wish for.”
The gentle stacking of facts tilted until either of their chips would fall. A sketch drawn from each one of their individual smatterings of self-proclaimed justice. How much gray fell in the lines and what would be left black and white. Depth of illustration, designed in a mere glance of an exchange. It was not within their words. But amid the grind of pressure against them.
The duality of reflection in their shared ensnared gaze. Unmatchable by any others. His, ultra reflective. Hers, a deep abyss.
“Your eyes.” She casually regarded his most striking feature. There was something about his eyes that were different. She played her interest as lightly curious. Like hers, but also, certainly not. She sensed the killer equally in him. Something that happened naturally among beasts of men. And just as he, she would not relent. “They look like they see things most people would miss.”
Oh, the words she was saying in between the words she was saying.
Riddick leaned in, his coy response smothered by the deep rasp in his voice, “It’s a [/i]secret[/i].”
“Then maybe I can take a guess.” Christine was fully ready to shoot the shit. Her confidence bounded from the charisma she allowed to roll off her. Her poised posture illustrated her unforgiving nature. She was ready for anything and everything.
Christine tilted her head as the possibilities swished in her mind. The man was a predator. Nocturnal. She felt a click of response from her gut. Highly likely. Maybe he sensed heat? That was also likely, since her vapid existence emanated none, it would’ve caught his attention enough for him to come over in the first place.
Her now blackened hair, as though scorched by death itself tossed past her shoulder. Without telling her, he told her everything. Though, the woman couldn’t help but to wonder if he was able to see through her own darkness too.
“Something tells me you don’t see what you want to see when you get an impression of people.” Christine spoke again before deducing. “You’re not afraid of their dark.”
The stranger’s brow raised. He smirked. “You got that right, sister.”
“So, I can’t help but to wonder, if you see me as I am?” Christine took an aggressive step forward. Closing the space. His reaction was nothing, though she felt within a fighter’s sense that his muscles tensed and lay at the ready.
She then held his gaze for a moment, before stepping back. “Or maybe you came over just wanted to dance?” She regarded her previous encounter with the prior clumsy youth barely snagged away to this moment, where she needed each thought in between to run fluently for her. Her survival depended on it.
Motion of their words continued to ripple in time as Christine felt no need to move her still steaming hand away. The vapor rolling out of her was her version of blood. Maybe he’d see this with his special eyes. Ironically, if he noticed, he didn’t seem like the type to care on the same level as others.
Interest, for him, was deeply rooted in his own survival.
It wasn’t blood leaking out of her skinsuit. But the subtle flow of ashy smoke. Unabashed, she raised her hand for him to examine her own most distinct feature. By doing so, she declared to herself that she was confident and even stronger. And would never shy away from letting him see the darkness that lie within her form. Perhaps it was one even he could not see with the pair of moonstones he had for eyes.
“You’ve got yours and I’ve got mine.” She pronounced, alluding to his secret.
The man gazed at his reflection in the pitless depths of the void that was her eyes.
Truth? He could tell she had a mutual killer instinct. He admitted to himself he even liked, well rather, respected that in her. But would he use it against her? The thought grew within his mind as he narrowed his eyes. Shortening the measured distance between his focus on her.
She thought she was hot shit. She walked around like she owned the place. However, he had noticed that shift within her. The flicker as she’d gotten up and quickly run into a place that she wouldn’t be seen. Not so much to hide, no, this was a woman who would never lurk in the shadows. It was not within her nature, he deduced. Instead, something told him, the thought stood out in his mind, that she was like him in a way.
Control however, was everything. Perhaps she was losing hers. If she was it sure as hell didn’t seem like she’d lost her edge with it. Her eyes, sharper than any blade. Verbal combat? Impeccable at describing that great I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude.
“Good, then you know better than anyone what it means to keep one.” The man said calmly. The impending words hung above her.
Christine didn’t get this far in the universe, unable to detect these tiny, finite pieces of herself as they bonded into life. Her instincts told her he was the greatest threat to her in the room. Not because of anything other than his lethal observation. So far, her assumption was being proven. He deserved her utmost attention because of this. Analysis was everything. It painted the strength in her own resolve.
He knew everything he needed to through mere observation alone. This told her enough about the type of threat he posed. The type of threat she was in the face of. Not because of his physical ability, but because of his beastly ability to sniff out blood. His own inner truth was ruthless. Much like her own. She felt the conflict arise, twinging at her confidence. Would she pale in comparison?
Their ultimate difference, she began to suss out, amid the pause of brainwaves amid their vocal tussle, was that he didn’t care about consequence, despite being ultra aware of it. This complexity was certainly a hurder for her. Meanwhile Christine, a flicker of a smile passed through her lips as the thought crossed her mind. She reflected through her observation of him, in contrast that she herself enjoyed the consequences. It was her high. The only high she could get within her hollow, lifeless body.
Maybe it was the same for him. The woman was curious. This was a question however, she wasn’t sure how to ask within asking.
She pronounced her deduction of his character plainly. “I can tell you’re the type of person who isn’t afraid to die. You use this as an asset. You can probably tell with me, I’m the same. However, the reason is not because I’m anything like you. It is because I am already dead.” She said unexpectedly. Maybe this stranger’s presence brought out her truth. Maybe, she felt like he was the only person that she could share it with.
The stranger was uncertain if she meant this literally, or just as a metaphor. Coulda been both given the woman’s… Shadowy presence. Unlike everyone else here, she seemed particularly devoid of light. Sucking it in rather than reflecting it out.
She continued, “So I ask you, as a man of… Many talents.” Many murders “What do you think the difference between good and evil is?” Would his answer be the same as his definition of life and death?
The room. The life. And the death that always followed both of them. Always trailing behind the pair of captive killers in a tether of mangled corpses. Stalking the innermost of their minds.
His eyes flashed with seriousness. They drew lines within their words. Worlds within the worlds of one another. The ultimate cross of rivals.
She felt a flicker, a sense of the predator’s scent on her. Fear? No, she’d bled the last trace of that out long ago. This was one of a lingering question alone. She felt the power of that question flood her. She knew then that first blood had been drawn.
Proverbial, not literal.
The man’s brow furrowed. The first glimpse of a genuine expression she’d seen in him. He wasn’t trying to be clever when he asked her plainly, “What do you mean you’re dead?”
He wanted her to spell it out for him. Christine felt the agonizing question split her mind in two. “I am only barely a part of the world of the living. I’m sure you can see it with those powerful eyes of yours, my lack of blood, flesh… Life.”
The conversation’s captor toggled with the concept of this in his mind. He’d heard some fucked-up shit in his life, but nothing quite like this. He let the concept settle in before jumping to a response for her.
Within the draw of silence, inner doubt began to explode in her thoughts. The reason? She could not perceive whether or not he wanted to kill her then and there. Just to see if her claim was true.
He sensed the sudden flow of displaced ease in her breath and she knew then he wouldn’t ever, ever hesitate. The brawny killer regarded this. Perhaps this was the reason his reptilian predatory sense for her was omitted from his instincts. Leaving him without the need.
Christine’s subtle, flickering smile of amusement grew into a cold and rigid line. She considered the value she placed on her own being. The risks and extent she would go to assure her survival until the end of this wretched existence. It would define their perhaps inevitable deathmatch’s winner. Was it more than his? Was it enough? Or… Would it even be enough?
Christine’s doubt, her questioning. He seemed to relish in it.
It was then, within the sight of her own inner turmoil, the glimpse of vulnerability he’d inferred, that she had sensed him fully. At the fall of her own guard, she was able to see through him. And through the depths of herself she found a very important hint, intuition prompted her to ask herself a question that superseded her once-mounting doubt of where exactly he fell in the balance between her own life and death.
He decided her survival? Would she allow that? No, she too was unrelenting as the revelation descended in her mind. She’d been so focused on the threat he posed to her, what about finding his crux?
The new question. So, so simple. What was the curse he bore? For she now knew, the answer was his weakness. The same as hers.
Furthermore, she finally had the answer of the poker match that lay suspended in between the words of reality and those within her mind.
They… Were due to end in a draw.
The consequence of this weighed in Christine’s mind as a new question arose? How could she use this knowledge?
If the stranger knew this, if they were to continue on this path, she sensed he wouldn’t stand for it. The threat of losing what she could gain from the situation pressed in her mind. Christine tampered with the idea of allowing him to think he’d won. Would he even be able to tell?
She regarded him again, she needed a new light for this picture. A need for a new perspective alleviated with each in-between moment of their gaze.
Ego and arrogance did not run through this man like any other. This stranger whose sense of self began within his id. That fact alone was hard to avoid. It fueled the power of his unpredictability. And she was finding it harder and harder to convince herself this man didn’t need to die.
“Difference? Universally speaking? There is none.” He concluded her last question. The one regarding good and evil. He offered a soft nod, “Individually speaking, it’s everything. Survival.” The thing that pushes people to do things they would not even consider on a daily basis, amid the monotony of society’s complacent routine.
This was it. She let the words he spoke morph her perception of him. She now knew who he was and this confirmed it. She felt the smile return to her lips. With his response, she knew he would respect, or at least understand her quest then. His conclusion was one she pronounced her agreement, “Life, ironically being something you’d kill for.”
The woman before him was quite a piece of work. He sized her up again, seeing her make these statements and sensing an angle forming. She acted like she knew it all. Maybe she even thought she did, Hell, in her own reality, she surely did and if anything told her differently, she probably wiped the floor with them.
Except, the stranger knew something she didn’t.
The deciding factor on this woman was her remarkable ability to observe the truth. So far, he’d sensed no lie, no desperation in her words. Barely any emotion at all. Though, if she opted to feign weakness or sought to lie for her own betterment. His decision, his knowing that it always, always mattered who was the victor. Longterm, short term, past, present, everything that happened decided the future.
Because the past was the very factor of who was able to put it all on the line and sacrifice anything and everything and still be able to get exactly what they came here for. He’d come here for answers too. He felt his eyes soften as he realized that’s all she wanted from him.
But for what? He questioned with annoyance that she, like the answer, evaded him.
He didn’t know what the exact point of her observational remarks were meant to reveal. But it didn’t matter. He knew himself, he knew the lines people expected to put on conversations like these. She wasn’t drawing within those lines and rather was making her own.
At the end of the day, there would always be a question of who was the greatest lion to rule the plains. It was a question no one ever had to ask because they always knew who ruled.
Who was the most badass motherfucker? No one could claim it didn’t matter. Because the answer was the person nobody dared to fuck with. They understood and lived with it. Because if they challenged his rule. They would die.
The stranger’s thoughts wove together, drawing a final line with a single dot of finality at the end.
That answer. The victor. Was him.
Within their tangle of words, they both knew.
However, this premature declaration would be his ultimate weakness. His gut told him the answer he knew as it garnered his suspicion. The one he’d been led to. By her.
The context of the importance of this drew a fresh new line over his finalized portrait of the woman. His previous thoughts on canvas all may as well have been destroyed.
Damn, she was a piece of work.
Overall, so far she had been dying to know him. Enough that she would take a strategic risk. She had already drawn her own first-blood. To reveal she was the least afraid of what he could ever do to her. Would she find herself going further still?
Wondering if he saw her plot already, her eyes laced with his. The solemn intensity of their exchange, unmatched.
They were twins. Everything was always on the table in each breath, each moment. It wasn’t a lifestyle choice, but a mentality of conquest. Each knew that everything was at stake. Because their survival was their everything. Because each of them knew that each moment would lead up to the next. And the next could be their last. If they weren’t careful. This analysis… Led her to a new question within herself.
The question being, would she dare to stop him? Was she foolish or brave enough? Her distinguishing marks would reveal herself whether she liked it or not. All the stranger had to do was wait for his moment to strike.
His silence had meant he agreed with her, to an extent.
The depth of their commonality straddled that of gazing into a mirror as each new word and moment added a fresh detail to their exchange of ever-changing portraits.
What both of them knew was that they were staring at their portraits of one another. A face was just a face. Beyond their perceptions lay the details they’d chosen to regard. Each hint they defined as worthwhile from the thin wrinkles crowding his eyes to the subtle purple tint under her own. Their gazes, both too confident and yet each one of them too ballsy to ever consider backing down. Because they sensed the inner monster in one another. Each, unrelentingly bared their covert teeth.
Their clash, a question of who was bigger and badder, was one only destiny could provide an answer to.
Their survival hinged in any context, on who could paint a more accurate one faster. This danger alone was perhaps even more visceral than any kill they had taken before. Better than a dagger pressed against her jugular, or the edge of her katana’s reach poking the underneath of his chin.
They were, at present, neck and neck. As they gallantly played their game of life and death, with the ease only a killer could pull from. Each, drawing their defining lines without needing to draw their blades.
A fresh reflection at her fast analysis of what Christine saw at her rough sketch of him and all her thoughts that had come before was that of… A challenge.
My, it had been a while since she’d met one so formidable.
They knew without words what each of them were to one another. But they also knew that each craved this, no they lived for this. For it was how the mind of a beast measured defined themselves. They had each previously slain to ascend to the same feeling. The paramount in between of the twin beasts alike was to meet their eventual match in the wild. Or perhaps it was destiny calling.
The truth no one wanted to look at was the key to winning the hunt was also about finding their own death. The ultimate dilemma of a monster with a deadly survival instinct was about deciding when. And always believe that voice in their head, the grip in their gut. Each knew their power. They each had the power to choose when.
And more distinctly, when not to die.
Christine smirked as she made the ultimate revelation. In this, she chose her own time of demise. It would be now. Not a literal death, her loss? Her tomb? Pride was the only hint of sacrifice. She wouldn’t even feel the remorse of its loss. She knew it was not this moment, albeit her strategy would conclude with a different final product. She did not want his blood the way she craved that of the weak simply because they were equals. Though fact alone this was not victory enough. The end result she thirsted for was not his death at her hands.
There was only one way to get what she actually wanted.
The stranger surely assumed victory ended in death, or forfeit, or at the cost of his challenge. She saw a new path. One that was different from the war currently waged against one another.
She intended to find out if she could gain the upper hand. She reminded herself she was speaking not simply for herself but as well for two others she had previously acquainted herself with, those who dwelled outside the conservation.
The mercenary knew how things got made. He was also aware she was playing a fun little game of poker amid their little talk. Subtleties could be her definition. He however, played a different game entirely.
See, the funny thing about poker is that it wasn’t even poker at all. They were playing a game of bullshit. There was no need to sugarcoat it. Who was more chicken? Who would flinch first? That’s who would lose in the end. No blades or blood, just whoever ended first and they’d count the chips.
He’d been drawn to approach her for curiosity’s sake alone. Or, because he had sensed when blood was about to be drawn, and by who. At that moment, she’d been it.
If he didn’t have this instinct, he’d already be dead. His instinct told him that it was definitely this bitch who looked like she was always ready for a kill. It told him that was how she had a good time.
But, maybe he’d give her the benefit of the doubt. Give her an opportunity for honesty. He seemed to know what he was dealing with. She certainly seemed capable of such a feat. So far, it had paid off. What may have been her deepest secret and vulnerability, he’d caught her not so red handed.
However, she had not shied away. He admired that in an enemy. Now was his turn to lean in. See if he could get her to admire him in the same way. In a way that might leave her quaking in her boots. Or, in a way maybe he wouldn’t expect. Either way, making a splash and then seeing whether or not people managed to float was amusing. Bullshit, poker, this conversation. Whatever, it was all sink or swim.
He in his life was not defined by the seasons that would trick someone into believing he was any bit of a behaviorist. He simply was an amalgamation of behavior and because of this saw everything so clearly. Answers he looked for not in her eyes for the clues to read the truth in her soul.
When he looked closer for this clue, he found however, there was a gap in his logic. A page missing from the book of her life. However not one he would ever miss. Which proved to him she was the one missing it.
Instinct rushed in with a frenzy of swelled adrenaline. He’d found it. Her jugular. He kept his credence hidden behind his own upturned lips.
Her morality. It was missing. Just omitted like the puffs of smoke still spewing from the splices in her hand and the distinct lack of blood.
She wasn’t fearless, she was incapable of fear.
Her inner moral compass? Was actually quite literally gone. Unlike his, which had been crumpled up and stuffed in a jar so deep inside him he’d forgotten which unlabeled piece of himself it hid itself away in.
The difference between them, he pinpointed. Was that he didn’t need his. And hers… Perhaps she was looking to retrieve it where it had gone missing.
His considerable tone narrated the moment of his ultimate deduction. Call it what you want, soul-searching, self-reflection. It had worked. He’d found her Achilles’ heel. He gazed at her with a new twinkle in his eye. Now, the idea teased his mind.
What to do with it? This all important information? The crux of her being. He looked at her, trying to decide. Her fate, a ball to be molded, resting in his hands.
Christine felt it. The vulnerable tug of his suspicions as they tweezed within her innermost specks. She did not give way to the dense gravity of his presence.
What did the fucker want? She could not help but to wonder this simple question for the adversary across from her. If he could have anything in the world, life, death, opportunity to play god? Within murder were all were one and the same. So, what did this stranger want? The answer was everything. What would his search lead him to do? And what did it have to do with her?
Could she just ask?
She knew his ability to see the light would not detract from the prince of darkness, for she knew deep down that would remain the queen of shadows. It was her very essence. He however, still had a choice about which path he would follow. The slow, stickiness was one she padded so delicately as her mind tossed up the options.
One led by light, or frequented by shadow.
“So, I’ll tell you what you want to know, though you already know it.” Christine would rather opt to cut her own throat with truth in hopes to gain from it, rather than wait and let him have the pleasure. “I’m willing to kill. Plain and simple. Not because I do not think life has value. But because I know it does.”
“Okay...” The man responded, she wasn’t bluffing. Nor was she threatening. Her claim however, seemed baseless. He didn’t understand what she intended to gain from this. Her self-pronounced definition seemed a little out of character. Though, that had been all she was doing.
All while a new thought descended. The nobility and naivety of her meaningless goal to declare her truth reminded him of something he had attempted desperately to forget. Humanity all within one human. One woman.
What about this had brought up this very specific memory? He wanted so badly to push it away, however the fondness of it stuck with him longer than he wanted to admit.
The smirk on his lips turned to a frown that swayed on his chin. His gaze fell upon the one in front of him. Distaste and anger surfaced in him as his eyes rested on the carves of her skin once more. Christine. Her naivety dwelled in a darkness. One he did not want to admit he recognized within himself.
Her? How could she -this bitterly murderous woman- be anything like Carolyn, who had died for him? The answer was no. Solid. Unmoving. But his gut churned, tempted by the press of an open-ended thought.
Maybe.
What a dangerous word. What a threatening, potentially life-altering thought. One that sliced straight to his very core.
No longer was there anything but hesitation within him. All thought seized as they tugged and gambled at the utter hindrance of the concept.
Maybe.
He stared at the portrait. The flame of newly ruptured emotion hidden behind his reflective eyes, tossed up by a blow that landed too close to an old wound.
How could this be the outcome his instinctual dice had tossed at him?
The woman. Her slightly muscular stature was nothing compared to his. Her demeanor was too careless to ever seem serious enough to even deliver death. And her expression? Fraught with the simultaneous engagement of their conversation.
His own must’ve looked the same. Empty and emotionless while their minds tangled in full blaze.
He hated her.
He hated the weakness she’d revealed within him.
The maybe of it was all the hesitation she’d needed to deliver him to. And he’d brought it on himself.
A worthy adversary. An even worthier ally. No, the only worthy person actually worth his time. The hardest pill to swallow? This phantom of a woman had made it seem like hadn’t even tried.
Worse. For Chrsitine was that she had no way of knowing she’d won by revealing everything he needed to know about her, only to reveal his own weakness within himself within the observation. No blood had been drawn. But the memory of blood, the thought of what could be drawn had been enough to stop him in his tracks.
The man tasted the loss and it was worse than actual hot gooey blood on his teeth, but did not let it make him bitter. Even with such a revelation, their rivalry had been a shared defeat, he had won in revealing her weakness too.
A draw indeed.
But, in the wild, where blood truly ran when beasts like them fought. A draw started with blood and ended inevitably in the death of two untended, unrelenting, stubborn ass wolves who would keep going until they were too weak to even lick their own wounds. Each would bleed out. Just lethal enough so the other wouldn’t survive.
He could see it now. Like a duel under moonlight. Two killing blows. Equally laid. They both would lose. Perhaps that was why he had the impression she’d ceded her hand first. Without a whisper of protest.
Because she knew and preferred someone had to win. Christine honored the natural order of things. It seemed, she would have even died for it.
Given the context, she might as well have said: I’m at your service.
The stranger considered this amid his frustration, the pull of a rain-filled memory threatened to take him away. He was liking her more and more despite his own mind moving faster than their conversation could carry.
Amid their draw, it was evident. Christine had chosen him to win. Why?
He could only guess as to why. Self preservation? The natural order of things? The internal juggle continued as the question screamed. Did she think she could use him? The only answer could be to benefit her. Did Christine think she could get her way by ceding their good natured little… Scrimmage.
The ending however, she alone decided. With the collateral offered in her words, she now chose to fall on her own sword when she revealed everything he needed to know about her without even asking. Honesty, complete and utter honesty, truth revealing her ultimate weakness. Her unbridled truth. A jugular he could and would strike at without even bothering to aim.
Her silent whisper began at the parting of her lips. Words meant for his ears and his alone. As though answering the questions he felt forming within him.
“I will tell you everything. I will tell you why.” I kill. “I’m searching for a possession of mine that I have lost possession of. You may not know, or care to understand. My soul is missing from this thing that some might call a sentient body.” I lack a heart, her eyes said with a smoldering subtext.
She explained, “Whether you believe this or not. It is my truth. My soul has been reborn within another presently living person. The only clue I have is that he is someone stronger than me. I search still, because I happen to believe it is still mine. Because of what my existence has meant without it. Who I have become. I am willing to die… More importantly, to kill. I kill others in search of it. Each death provides me an answer. Like chalk on the wall of a cell, tallying up how many days spent in my lifeless prison in vain. Instead of days, I’m spending lives. Life is the currency and it is not mine to cash. But I do it anyway. Because my goal is enough to outweigh its burden.”
Her fervent eyes rested on him as her shield tossed to the wind. Her tone, breathless as it carried the weight of something he did not detect as a lie.
The man regarded this. Mulling it over as the theory of a lie began to dissipate. And a fascinating concept remained unearthed. Her truth. He almost pitied her. Almost.
She was searching for her soul and using their deaths to find her salvation. No the murder of others. And after all these years, he thought he was soulless.
Talk about soul-searching. He smirked sarcastically, “You’re on a search for your soul? Well let me tell you something and save you the trouble.” His gruff voice cackled, “You don’t need it back.”
If she did ever get to return this notion of her soul to herself. He wasn’t sure she would be able to face herself, after all the bloodshed, she probably wouldn’t even be able to look at herself in the mirror. He smirked, basking ever so slightly amid the aptness of his truth. He’d been correct.
He could laugh. And did. Outwardly, a burst that echoed the hollow hall they sulked in amid their hidden exchange. He retorted wryly. Curiously suspicious that she had not told him so that she could freely attempt to kill him too. “And how do you know your soul is not in me?”
“Because you are… Not more powerful than me.” She declared, unflinching as she tested the waters with her analysis. It wasn’t meant to be an insult. “If we would clash, it would end in nothing but a draw. I know it as you know it, to be true.”
“How do you know you’re even killing the right people if you’re able to kill someone you believe is stronger than you?” The man’s grisled voice picked the most irrational point in her logic. She must’ve been crazy if this was her truth. Her truth, a lie she told herself to kill. It wasn’t all that uncommon.
“Simple.” She declared confidently. “By being faster and ultimately better. I don’t need to be stronger than them to win. Just better. Better in every other way.” Her gaze narrowed on him.
She was right. He’d killed bigger guys, impossible situations. Guns versus his bare hands. Deep in the shit, logic would tell anyone, you can’t kill someone without being an equal match. But it wasn’t true. An equal match was hard to find.
He found himself agreeing with her, mostly. The probability they would kill one another rather than one die before the other was likely enough.
Plus, the man couldn’t call bullshit on something that was just outrageous enough to be true. Plus, she did seem to be fast. If her wit was anything to measure by.
The chips began to fall. Truth being their catalyst. He accepted it.
Touché.
The man thought as he regarded where the cascade of thought was leading both of them. Realizing he’d been clueless. The entire time to her sacrifice. She had forfeited their game just as it had begun in order to show him how she identified, appraised, and regarded his value of the utmost importance.
The answer rested in this. Her own forfeit. She regarded him as more pivotal than herself. And was able to set her self preservation instinct aside in hopes of an acquisition.
The man’s gaze finally settled as his jaw unclenched from the depths of thoughtful contemplation. He regarded the deadly female’s knowing gaze confirmed what he’d already evaluated. She’d lost in order to win his trust. Clever.
Because she knew he was worth it. Her loss, her self mutilation revealing a vulnerable sacrifice. How could she have possibly known out of this entire crowd that he was the only fucker here who wouldn’t explode his own justice on this murderer’s fact against a deprived salvation with an even more daring conclusion now forming within him.
Thing is, it was ballsy.
She’d revealed her final truth. She had wanted him to win.
And? Well, he couldn’t argue with that.
He knew he was damn well worth it.
After the vigor of their intensive mental joust, he considered that he actually liked the outcome. He sat on top. She’d known enough to forfeit. He’d won the game of bullshit before they’d even begun to play. It was enough for him to grin. A leisurely, well-deserved smile.
Victorious, indeed.
All the while, Christine surmised that this had been the only outcome where she won even by losing. The best possible choice for the situation and one that elevated her status in his mind past what he thought even possible.
If neither could win, if they were both bleeding out, both destined to die. She had chosen her path. Simply, to lose.
Within this notion, he found her allegiance to him.
This… Soulless woman standing in front of him could very well have been his ultimate match. She was strategic, smart, and cunning. Everything he wanted in someone who might stab him in the back… But wouldn’t out of respect for the ultimate law of nature. The initiative allegiance she’d revealed so subtly…
He shook his head as he marveled.
She’d created a wolf pack. Called him to be its leader. He howled, and she’d be there.
She’d kill for him without a second thought.
In the context of a death game? Someone who was willing to lose for him. The deeper context was far from coincidental in the game they would soon play.
And you know what? He didn’t doubt it for a second. Her intentions. Her willingness to die with the consequence. The untold sacrifice of truth, appealed to his all important survival instinct. He caught no scent of even a trace of a lie. A soulless woman capable of sacrifice? Now part of his command?
Their wordless pact, this woman was suicidal enough for it all to not only be believable. But for it to be true.
He thought and then threw all this shit out the window.
The woman before him was a fuckin’ monster. And he’d just decided he liked her for it. Because she was now his fuckin’ monster.
He’d cheers to that.
“And what about blue and green over there?” The man alluded to the pair she’d left to dine alone.
Christine smirked, “Funny, in the dark, I thought you only saw in shades of gray.”