Behind The Hands That Kill

FIFTEEN

I knew that this day would come. I did not know when. I did not know how. But I knew, and I never really could prepare myself for it. Killing someone you love is not something one can ever prepare for. And in my case, it is not something one can change, either. Whether by my hands, or by the hands of my enemies, Izabel was destined to die too soon—and either way, it is me who ultimately kills her.

Slowly I look at her, and it does not surprise me that she looks back, unflinching, and unafraid. She has always been the strongest woman I have ever known. Even before she found her true self in her alter ego, long before she escaped Mexico in the backseat of my car, long before she began to learn the ways of an assassin’s life—Izabel has been more powerful than I can ever be, possessing virtues that I never could get right: compassion and love, strength and balance. She—not Nora Kessler—is who I should have always strived to master. Izabel is the me I could never be. And that is why I loved her. Why I love her.

My hand grips the knife with an uncontrollable force; I feel it burning, the heat from its purpose boring into my bones, traveling up the length of my arm, and shooting into my heart.

“Just do it, Victor,” Izabel says. She steps up me, presses her lips to base of my throat, and then lays the side of her face against my rapidly beating heart. “I’m ready,” she whispers. “And I…I’ll still love you even in death.”

Wrapping my arms around her, I do not want to let her go. I grip her tightly, bury my face within her hair; I feel like I am going to break, that my bones are suddenly glass and I am going to shatter into a thousand pieces around her. I feel my teeth grinding in my mouth. Anger. It rises up inside of me so great that I cannot fight against it to make myself calm. But why anger? Why not regret, or anguish? Oh yes, I know why anger—because I despise the man I am; I am ashamed of my own soul, one forged by vanity and greed, poisoned by weakness, damned by my own demons.

Beautiful but defeated and damaged. Damaged for the rest of her life and no amount of emotional mutilation will ever fully give her back her innocence. The girl is a ticking time bomb, a danger to herself and very possibly to others. I was not sure before, but now I know that she is more unstable than I ever could have imagined. And because she is so skilled at hiding it, not only from me but also from herself, she is more dangerous than I am. I am discipline. Sarai is rage. I am aware of my choices at all times. Sarai’s choices are more aware of her, lying in wait to decide for her based on the severity of her mood with no intention of leaving her any conscious control over it.

I know what I have to do.

I cradle the back of her head in the palm of my hand, my gun resting beside me on the bed in the other. I feel her tears soaking my shoulder, her body wracked by sobs that coalesce into my muscles. And her sweet spot still presses against my cock every time her body tenses. But I leave her there despite the moral need to pull away.

“Sarai,” I whisper against the side of her head, “I am sorry.”

I raise the gun slowly behind her.

I squeeze Izabel ever tighter; the anger, the memory, rendering me powerless, and I find myself turning her around violently in my arms so that her back is against me instead of her heart—I cannot bear to feel her heart beating next to mine!

“Do it, Victor,” Artemis says, but I cannot look at her; not in this moment of all moments.

I put the blade to Izabel’s throat.

Tears begin to wet my face.

“I was wrong about you, Izabel,” I whisper near her ear; the pain engulfing my insides. “I am the ticking time bomb. I am more unstable than I ever could have imagined. You are discipline, and I am rage. And the only way I know to control the chaos inside, is to eradicate the things that control me.”

The room begins to blur and fade in and out of my vision; unfortunately this time not from a drug injected into a vein in my neck; sweat drips from my forehead, tears from my chin, love from my heart, light from my darkness—how did I get on the floor? I do not recall the moment when my legs failed to hold up my weight; I am on my knees on the stones, Izabel clutched to my bare chest, the ceremonial knife still pressed against her jugular.

“Kill her, like you killed me,” Artemis says nearby, but from where I do not know, because I do not care. “It’s the only way out of this, Victor; it’s the only way to save yourself, from yourself.”

“Please, just do it,” Izabel says in a soft voice, and it rips me apart.

I squeeze her tighter, enough that I hear her gasp for air and feel her muscles stiffen beneath the power of my arms. A reddish-black fog covers my eyes, swirls around behind my closed eyelids, and suddenly everything goes silent: Artemis’s taunting; Apollo’s deafening smiles of satisfaction; the guard’s hands gripping tightly to their weapons; my raging, spinning thoughts; Izabel’s sweet voice.

I feel the warm blood oozing from my hand, dripping down my wrist. And then suddenly I can hear a faraway sound amidst the monumental silence, but I cannot make it out. For a moment, I listen more closely, trying to understand the sound, to understand what I have done, but I am denied the answers. I wrench the knife tighter, press down harder, and another gush of blood seeps through my fingers. Blinded by my own rage and insanity, I scream out into the ether, trying to drown it all out. “NOOO!” My own voice frightens me—or is it the desperation bleeding from it?

I hear the knife clink against the stones, thunderous in my ears, and I open my eyes; the gash across the palm of my hand is deep.

Izabel is sitting on the floor feet from me, her back pressed against the cage bars, her hands still bound behind her, a look of astonishment consuming her beautiful features.

I look down at my bleeding hand again. Back up at Izabel again.

“VICTOR!” Artemis shouts.

Izabel and I remain locked in this moment of eternity.

“Goddamn you! Kill her!”

“They’re coming, Artemis,” Apollo says. “We have to leave! NOW!”

“No! I’m not leaving until he slits that whore’s throat! KILL HER! KILL HER NOW!”

I do not move from my knees on the floor; I do not look at anyone but the woman I love and would rather die for, than kill.

“Why won’t you kill her?” Artemis screeches; desperation and pain in her eyes. “Victor…why can’t you kill her…like you killed me?” She is crying.

Finally, I look away from Izabel and see only Artemis. “Because I love her too much,” I say, and feel a heavy weight leave my body.

Artemis stiffens, her features stunned.

Then suddenly I glimpse movement behind Izabel—fast, but painfully slow at the same time—and the flash of another blade. I freeze; I cannot move anything, not even my eyes; I scream out, but I cannot hear my own voice.

“I love you, Victor,” Izabel mouths, and then blood pours from her throat.

“No—NOOO!”

From the bars, Artemis’s left hand is wound in the top of Izabel’s hair, the right, slowly, horrifically, moves away from Izabel’s throat, a knife, stained with Izabel’s blood, clutched beneath her fingers. Izabel’s eyes roll back, and the whites come into view; her body slumps sideways. I still cannot move. It seems as if some invisible force stronger than my own will forbids it.

Dead. I am dead inside. This is how it feels to be dead.

After seconds that stretch like hours, in a rush of emotions, I feel my knees trudging across the floor, carrying my trembling body toward her. It feels like an eternity, but in seconds I am struggling to get her into my arms, my hands covering the gash on her throat, trying to stop the blood flow. “Izabel!” I cry out, my voice straining through the tears. “I am so sorry, Izabel! I am so sorry! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP HER! FUCKING HELP HER NOW!”

My pleas go unheard.

Everything becomes a blur, every sound and movement is chaotic, whirling around me and inside my head like debris tossed by a tornado. People running, guns firing, boots pounding against the stones, screams, more gunfire. “Forgive me,” I whisper to Izabel, ignoring it all, as if I were in the eye of that storm where everything is calm, rocking her limp body in my arms. “Forgive me…”