This chapter has been edited due to content. If you want to see the unedited version GO HERE.
ALEX
I had seen more than my fair share of messed up crime scenes as an FBI agent. But each time I remained calm until the moment I entered my apartment. Only Saga had been able to see right through me when I was disturbed while out in the field.
But the possibility of having to kill mys-no, the possibility of having to kill Aleksi Kesa made it hard to push the bile back down my throat. I had been shaken when I first saw him but now…now it was worse.
“We’re discussing how to put your pocket dimension back into place.” I said slowly in Finnish as I had trouble remembering the proper translations.
Jash responded much faster in Finnish and I could barely understand what he said. But knowing him, he was telling Aleksi in more detail about our plans. If I had thought I wasn’t heading to Hell before, now I knew for certain I would burn for eternity. I would be torn apart again and again.
No. No. I would spend eternity with Jash in his plane of Oblivion.
Aleksi wasn’t me. He had a different life. Some things were the same but others were vastly different. We both had a failed marriage but I hadn’t left the FBI. Wait I had left but the circumstances had been completely different.
Aleksi wasn’t me and yet the first time I saw him in New York City I hadn’t been able to tell the difference. When I-he was murdered in Nightless Night I thought that somehow Thomas Zane had got me in his sick film.
Aleksi’s flesh was so much like mine.
Finally Aleksi spoke up in his native Finnish. I turned to Jash for a translation.
“Aleksi wonders if our plan will work.” Jash said. “He wants to know if he’ll just die, the loop will be reset, or if his pocket dimension will be put back into its proper place.”
“You know more about this than me.” I retorted. “You should’ve given him your answer.”
“He wants your opinion on the matter, my love.”
I looked at Aleksi and found myself in him. He was scared but there was a strength in his eyes that echoed in mine. I wanted to lie to make his death easier to bear. But would I want someone to lie like that to me?
“I don’t know.” I said.
I wanted to vomit. I wanted to curse everything I laid my eyes on. I wanted to fall down on the cold sand and cry as I froze to death. But somehow I remained calm as Jash translated my reply.
The waves crashed on the shore and I looked towards the horizon. Clouds had begun to gather and soon it would start to snow. I had to stop myself from jumping in the water to try and wake myself up from this nightmare.
“He says that even Oblivio-Hell would be better than this.” Jash said and pulled me from my thoughts.
“What?” I asked as I nearly **** myself from the sudden change of focus.
“Aleksi would prefer to suffer eternally than continue to die every sixteen minutes. I will kill him so that memory won’t haunt you.”
“You don’t give a **** about him, do you?”
There was a deafening silence as Jash just looked at me. In the way he moved his tail and how his crest released its grip on his head, I could tell that he was more than hurt by my accusation.
“I care about Aleksi.” Jash replied. “My lack of concern over his welfare isn’t the reason for my offer.”
“Then why?” I asked.
“Aleksi is not you and so I find myself able to observe the situation in a more neutral manner. If I had met him before you, it is entirely possible that he would be my husband. It is not beyond reason that he and I would have found ourselves tied to each other in such a way that no Divine could tear us apart.”
“Then why offer to kill him?”
“It is not ours to see you suffer.”
Of course Jash had been hurt when I had accused him of not caring about Aleksi. I had thought he hadn’t cared and there he was willing to sacrifice a part of himself for me.
“Is it yours to kill Aleksi?” Jash asked with the barest glimmer of hope in his voice.
“I don’t want to kill my-him.” I replied. “But I have to.”
“Are you certain that this is your fate?”
“I’m not going to let you suffer because I was a coward.”
Jash reached for his dagger and handed it to me. He opened his palm and forced me to bend down to grab it. I had time to rethink about backing out and letting him take care of Aleksi. It would be so easy to stand up now and let Jash hopefully free Aleksi.
It was as if I watched someone else’s hand take the dagger. It was as if I really didn’t have any choice in the matter. And that didn’t disturb me even though it should have.
The moment I stood up, Aleksi followed my motion. Jash helped the other man grab onto the side of the fishing shack. With a ragged gasp, he slowly walked towards me so that he stood right in front of me.
We nodded at each other. He didn’t mind the possibility that he would end up dead on this beach. I accepted the responsibility if things went wrong.
I had to kill Aleksi quickly. Unlike Jash, I didn’t have any expertise in murder. I could kill but the ability to make sure someone died exactly as I wanted to was not in my skillset. So the man would most likely suffer when he died.
My blade sliced across Aleksi’s throat. I must have hit each spot correctly since blood gushed out. As Aleksi’s body crumpled onto the sand, his lungs managing to get a few final breaths out, I hoped that it hadn’t yet been sixteen minutes.
I didn’t think I could do this again.
Murdering him must have worked as his body disappeared. The moment I was certain Aleksi wasn’t about to come back, I dropped Jash’s dagger. Without having known what my body was about to do, I landed on the sand the moment his blade did.
For hours I could do nothing but cry. All the pain of the murder and exhaustion of the ride took its payment from me. There was nothing to hold onto so that I could appear strong to Jash.
And in his love and devotion he knew all I needed right now from him was silence.
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