22 – 5

I can't believe it. I can't.

He saw me – he knew me – and he let me go.

Again.

What is it that makes me worthy of being twice over spared and Juliana not once? Why did Merigold get a warning when Juliana got a bolt through her chest? Why are we still alive, and why is she not?

I don't know. Whatever reason he has – and have one he must – it is as inscrutable as the waters beneath the surface of a frozen lake. It's down there somewhere, hidden beneath cold, pitiless ice.

There to remain, I'd like to say, but the truth is slightly different.

There to await me, is what I'll say instead, for I've something else that needs doing first. I bite the hollow fingertip of my glove and pull my hand free. Reach for and drop a bolt with fingers shaking not from fear, hatred, or anger, but from eagerness. Anticipation. The second bolt settles into the crossbow's groove, its metal point glinting dryly in the winter morning.

Heart in my throat, blood in my ears, I round the corner. There she is: slender and small, golden haired and green eyed, leaned against the wall she was just pinned to. The lost, confused expression she wears is quickly turning to one of angry indignation. Her name leaves me in a hiss, pushed through bared teeth tightly grit. “Merigold!”

Her look turns to surprise. She sees the crossbow leveled on her and it becomes fear. Her eyes dart around our isolated alley. You'll find not escape nor rescue here, you heinous, hideous bitch.

Her hands come up. Her voice wavers. She stutters, stumbles over her words. I was wrong. There is hatred here; it's just so bright and burning cold that it feels like joy. “If – if you want coin, I – I don't have much, but – but you can take it.” She fumbles at a dully clinking belt pouch, holds it out like an offering. “It's not much, like – like I said, but it's all yours. Please – please don't...”

What is this? “I don't want your money.”

Confusion returns, wrinkling her brow. “Then what–?”

What is she doing? “Do you not recognize me?”

“I –”

I rip down my hood. “Do you not recognize me?!”

Her mouth works, soundless, while her witless eyes search my face. She doesn't. I see it before she says it, before the no ever parts ways with her wormy tongue. It's absurd. A bubble of mad laughter catches in my throat. My mouth parts around it, lips curving up. Naught but silence comes out. It's insane. How can she not?

“Whatever it is,” she says, cautiously, carefully, “whatever you think I've done, I promise you I didn't –”

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How can she not?!

“– you have me confused with someone else. I – I'm a businesswoman, I spend all day in an office, filing paperwork. I haven't hurt anyone a day in my life, ask anyone! Ask my husband! Ask my – my sons! I have three beautiful boys! They're so young, they need their mother, their father needs his wife, please – please don't take me from them!”

“You're lying.” I don't recognize my voice. It's cold; flat, like the surface of a frozen lake. Beneath it, though, beneath it is uncertainty. Beneath it is doubt. She lies about what she does, about who she is. She lies that she's never harmed anyone. But the family? The children? The husband?

That could be truth. It could.

“No,” she gasps. Babbles. “No, I'm not, I swear! By the – I'm not! I swear!”

Here is what is true, inviolate and undeniable: “You hunted us through the streets. Ran us down like deer with your hounds. You – you killed her. You made me watch her die. You smiled. You – smiled –!”

And there it is.

Recognition.

- - -

“I don't believe it!” Her fear gives way to shock, then doubt, then sheer disbelief.

Fitting. I'm half-surprised to be alive. What it must be like for her, I wonder?

“He – that son of a bitch – lied – to me!”

What?

“He told me – he looked me in the eye and – told – me you were dead, you and your little – friend –!”

What?!

“I never should've trusted him,” she's furious, offended; ranting like she's forgotten I'm here, like she's forgotten I hold her life's end in my hands. “After everything I did for him, he has the – nerve – to –”

“Hey!” My voice splits hers in two, a hoarse shout cutting off whatever she's vomiting from her putrid mouth. She snaps out of it, eyes back on me, on the crossbow, and she's shocked again. Another mad laugh bubbles up my throat.

Not like she'd forgotten. She had forgotten. I was stood right here, finger on the trigger, and she'd forgotten. If it were someone else, I'd think the threat I pose didn't matter; but since it's her, I know it does, it's just that Pike lying to her matters more.

Because she's insane.

Insane, and still talking.

“Listen,” She puts on the voice: the one she'd use on the people drinking in Dutton's taproom, the one she thinks makes people listen to her. “I know you think that we're enemies, don't you, but how well did you know her, really?” She pauses to let her words sink in, as if they're profound or affecting. "How well did you know...?”

Does she not remember? Has she forgotten Juliana's name?! This contemptible, murderous bitch watched Juliana – a better woman than both of us together – die with a smile on her wretched face and doesn't fucking remember her name?!

She's surprised when the bolt – when my bolt – hits her, drives deep into her chest. She looks down at it buried up to the fletching, her worm-like lips parting around a single, silent oh. Hatred rushes through my veins, a flood of melt-water that numbs me to everything else. I feel my chest heaving and my hands shaking, but they're distant things, removed from the flowing, glacial cold.

I plant the crossbow's stirrup on the snow-slush ground. Hold it in place with the toe of my boot while I haul the string back until the latch catches it. Rise to see Merigold trying to run.

She's leaned, grunting and groaning, against the building wall, sliding along it in a slow tumble of ungainly steps. Harsh breaths whistle out of her putrid mouth. Spots of blood fall brightly on the slush and snow. She's not gone far, nor going fast. She does have a crossbow bolt in her chest.

Two, now.

This one knocks her down. She falls on her side with a breathy, bloody cry of pain. It's on her lips, on her teeth. She starts to crawl. I follow behind. I'm not worried about her getting away or being found. This is a long alley. She won't reach the end of it, not before she dies.

It took Juliana a full minute, she'd only been shot once, and she was better – more – than Merigold.

I follow her for a half-dozen feet before she stops. She's still breathing, wet and bubbling, but its weaker by the moment. I kick her onto her back. She's dying and knows it, gray-pale and terrified, but not dead. Not yet.

Her eyes find mine. Hatred rushes through my veins in a flood of glacial melt-water. I'm numb to everything else. Her mouth moves, blood and spit and snow on her lips. A hiss of breath, the merest hint of words, passes between them.

I could make it quick. I could.

But she made me watch. She smiled.

I leave her there, once she's cold, still, and silent. I leave her forsaken in that alley with the crossbow I killed her with and walk, step by step, through the long, winding alleys back to the stable. It's only once I'm there and alone, with the flow of glacial cold subsided, that the frozen lake cracks, shatters, and – alone in a nest of hay – everything else comes spilling forth.