Her throat locked, heart pounded, blood beat hard in her ears.
Her breath started coming faster, until she was almost on the verge of panting, because he stood a few feet away from her, cutting a lethal form in the darkness that enclosed him, wrapped around him like a lover, wrapped around her like a foe.
And he uttered not a word.
God, he wasn’t going to give her an inch, not unless she forced him to. And she would force him to. There was no other way, not now, not for her, not for him, not for them.
With that knowledge deep in her heart, she closed her eyes once, gasped in another breath, and forced herself to at least appear somewhat calm.
“Thank you,” she began quietly, her words, though soft, loud in the silence of the graveyard.
She couldn’t see his eyes clearly, so she didn’t know how he reacted to it. She was almost going into this on blind faith and hope.
So, without waiting for his reaction, or give herself more time to panic, she started to talk.
“Thank you, for saving me,” she spoke to his hard, motionless form. In a way, it was better that she couldn’t see him. It made this much easier of sorts. “Not only in the past few weeks but twenty years ago.”
His fingers flexed on the gun.
“I know it came at a cost nobody should’ve had to pay, least of all a young boy, and I’m so, so very sorry for all of it.”
Only the movement of his chest.
In. Out.
Her own breathing synced with his.
Okay.
“But I’m not going to discuss it, not like this and not when you don’t want to. We’ll only speak of it when you are ready because it’s your story.”
And now came the tricky part.
Allowing the blast of anger to shoot through her veins, Morana took a step forward, her fear mingling with the rage inside her.
“You hate me, loathe me, for something I never did. While I can understand that – I completely understand it – I cannot live with it. Not knowing that I was innocent,” she sucked in another breath. “But you did save me, and my conscience won’t allow me to move on without giving you a chance for closure.”
The scent of incoming rain permeated the air, along with the scent of night blooms that grew wildly in the area. Morana drew in the scent, taking strength from the memory of another rainy night that had triggered the change in her.
Wetting her lips, she spoke, keeping her voice as firm as it could be while her insides shook.
“So here’s the thing, Mr. Caine.” She won’t call him by his name again, not until he gave her the right. “I have made my decision – for good or bad. Now, it’s time for you. I’m giving you the chance to kill me, right here, right now.”
A beat passed.
With that aforementioned strength, she threw the gun she had in her hand, the gun that had been her savior for so long, very deliberately to the side.
His own stayed right in his hand, his eyes burning on her.
Morana pushed forward, gathering courage as the words came to her. “My father already tried to off me and if I die tonight, none would be the wiser. They’ll all think I perished when the bomb went off and all the responsibility would lay at my father’s feet – not you or the Outfit. Nobody would ever need to know you even came here or that you were involved. No blame would ever go to Tenebrae. No mess. No foul. Nothing.”
The wind whipped her hair around her face, touching her all over before it reached him, caressed him, making his jacket flap against his torso.
Thunder roared through the sky again.
Morana waited for it to quieten before continuing.
“As for the codes,” she spoke, unable to stop now, wondering if anyone had ever made arguments for their own death like she was, “we both know you can get other computer experts, so that’s not the main issue. You’d never get a better opportunity to kill me. You know it, I know it. This would stay only between us and the dead that are buried here. So, point that gun at me one more time and aim for my heart. Shoot me. Find your closure. Find what you’ve been looking for, for twenty years.”
His hand didn’t move, even as his fingers twitched. The silence, though her ally as she delivered her words, was undoing her, bit by bit.
She took a step closer to him, still keeping many feet between them, to cover for her shaking body.
“But understand this,” she kept speaking, in the same firm tone, thankful it didn’t quiver. “This is the only chance I’m giving you to kill me. After this, should you choose not to, this will never come up again. After this, you’ll need to let go of the idea that you’re killing me. After this, you never, ever threaten me with my life again.”
The hand in his pocket came out, his fist clenching and unclenching.
That small outward movement gave her fortitude.
“You deliver my death or you let it go. Either way, you need to make a choice, as I’ve made mine and come to peace with it. Because if your choices affect my life so deeply, if a choice you made two decades ago is defining my life right now, then I’ll make you choose again. This time, not as a boy but as a grown man.”
And then the tremor in her voice came out, her jaw clenching as her voice broke. “Because I sure as fuck will never, ever let you think you’ll kill me again. This is the only chance you’ll ever have.”
Her instincts were raging inside her. “So, choose.”
Her palms started sweating.
She saw his grip on the gun tighten, his arm starting to move, and she closed her eyes.
The noises around her seemed louder in the utter darkness behind her lids. The sounds of creatures doing their nightly rituals, the sound of wind rustling through the leaves, the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.
The scents were more acute as well. The scent of the heavy clouds in the air, the scent of her own fear permeating her skin, the scent of the wildflowers in the night. The storm brewing outside, the tempest breaking inside, combining, colliding, capturing.
Was he pointing his gun at her?
Her chest grew heavy.
Was he thinking it over?
Lead settled in her stomach.
Was he about to pull that trigger and end her misery? Was her last act on earth going to be putting her trust in the wrong man, yet again?
Her heart thudded.
Should she have just run away and lived her entire life with the regret of never knowing, never exploring the possibility between them? Could she have lived better without offering him a semblance of closure?
Her body started trembling.
Seconds, minutes, hours. Suspended between them. Between his choice and hers.
Memories, moments, an entire history. Stuck between them. Between his choice and hers.
Questions, doubts, fears. Settling between them. Between his choice and hers.
Silence.
She was coming undone, bit by bit. She was fraying apart at the edges, bit by bit. She was imploding in on herself, bit by bit.
She needed him to make a choice. She needed him to choose her like he'd chosen her years ago. She needed him to choose her – because, after the day she'd had, her father trying to kill her like her life was worthless, she needed him to choose her, not for her life, but herself.
Silence.
A change in the air around her.
The scent of wood and musk.
The warmth of a breath over her face.
And then she felt it.