𝙺𝙴𝙴𝙿𝙴𝚁 𝙾𝙵 𝙾𝚄𝚁 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝙳

Often one shouldn’t talk, but live in silence.

finn fox. handsome and wicked. marked for death. dafina fails to remember men with the same reverence that she remembers women  ( the men worth remembering often share the same fate, a sort of immortality because it's impossible to clean all the blood from a space and a droplet still lingers between the floorboards or beneath the bed ),  but she must remember finn because finn,  though marked for a sure, untimely death,  is still alive. he is pressed against her back so snugly that she can feel his heartbeat everywhere within her. oh, finn fox, marked for death, escaped the killer and the reaper. she feels about him as she feels about a girl she used to train with,  a girl with fine lips and hair the color of a raven's wing, with a body that made her mouth water but a demeanor that made her want to kill her. she wanted to devour her. take her between her lips and hear her cry, see her shudder. she wanted to kill her, take her head between her hands and slam it against the ground so it made a crimson mural.  this is what dafina thinks of when her eyes fall shut in the middle of the day, in the middle of a crowd with her body flush against his; flesh on flesh, bone grinding against bone. a whimper takes root in her throat, swallowed perilously among the thorns. "pure satisfaction," she repeats with a slow laugh. dafina wants to  ...  him. her fingers tremble. she maneuvers in his hold, becomes a killer again to preserve their distance, wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him even closer to her. she says in his ear, "i confess that i am haunted by all the things i dream of doing to you," and then  ...  she pulls away. rests her hands on the panes of his chest. an image of docility. to passerbys, lovers caught in an embrace. "but i'm retired. i'm good now, you know."

ever since childhood, she has had an affinity for beautiful things; an expected outcome when everyone tells a child that the flattering shape of her eyes and curve of her lips come together to create a most pleasing, most beautiful face. if everyone tells a little girl that the thing about her to be most valued is her beauty, then she will grow up to stare at beautiful things.  but, dafina doesn't want beautiful things, not to have, not really. they are not things that she wishes to have in the palms of her hands or on the soft bed of her tongue. they are things that call for much more, a sort of worship that bruises the knee and stains the sternum with the red wine of communion  ( this need to worship stems also from childhood, the rocky bed of it where people are telling her that she is blessed, that she is so lucky, that someone carved her face by hand and cast her from the heavens in fear of what they created ( and, by god, did they create a monster — she should be ashamed of what she does, she should be begging for forgiveness for the blood she has shed ) ). she told dilara this once, laid beside her and rested her head on her chest, looked up at her through her brows in a way she knew made her visage distorted,  haunted,  wrong. her eyes must have been too round, too droopy at the bottom and her lips must have been too red from the light through the window and she must have looked not like a worshipper but a woman crazed,  a maenad left without something to kill for.  dafina poured her secrets to dilara with blood in her mouth. said, i need something to pray to, something to believe in. listened to dilara say something with a curve on her lips so beautiful that dafina can't remember anything except the shape of them.  that must have been her mistake. blinded by the beauty of her dearest, closest companion  ( close enough that they share one, beating heart, dafina swears,  one heartbeat, one organ ... )  that she can't remember the things she said. "i'm sorry." repentance. penitence, if she chews on the inside of her cheek. a long pause draws itself out. the small, sharp rain of the city cuts her skin but lands safely atop dilara's crown. "i had this target, before i left. you didn't know, you weren't there when i got back — you didn't hear what i did to him or what he did to me or what they were going to do to me  ...  he lived in this mansion. white walls and crown molding and these tall, tall windows. do you remember when we were girls? that home we built with our words? i swear on all things holy and beautiful, dilara, he had a home exactly like it. while he was ... well, when i was waiting for clean up, i thought you'd like to see it." another long, long pause.  "i asked if you wanted to leave because i wanted you to see it."  dafina's eyes are heavy with saltwater and vanished futures.  "i left because  ...  i didn't leave you, dilara, i have kept you. i had to go without you. i didn't have a choice."

but he looks at her and thinks of none of this. only feels the thin muscles of his hands tense under the threat of touch; only threads apart the reverent curve of her neck, reaches out — instinct, borrowed — and pushes the thin curtain of blonde hair behind her ear. he's settled, unperturbed, even as she holds claim to a great lie. doesn't everyone? opens his mouth to brush it away; don't worry about it or it's fine, daf. but all thought drains from him, pale incoherence left in its wake. a slight shake of the head. or is it a tremble? " sure, you knew her. half the city probably did. she wasn't a stranger. " now, his heartbeat has caught on and is making up for lost time. " can't blame ya for not remembering every face you meet. it's fine, daf. "

she can feel it. the doorknob is rattling. someone on the other side is telling her that it's an emergency. the light in this restroom is flickering and her blood is all over the sink. they put this here because it's dangerous to remove; the price of freedom is the risk of death. dafina blinks in the dim light of the bar. there's a trail of goosebumps left in the wake of his touch; ice against a blazing surface, snow landing atop a burning forest. she turns to face him, pushing her drink away, catching his hand and pulling it toward her neck. dafina makes herself prey with this display of hidden intimacy. she is mourning lamb, hidden beneath layers of wool, flinching away from the glint of the silver shears hovering over her skin ( but, she is careful when she holds him, because one of them is the lamb and one of them is the sharp edge of the shears and only one of them knows who's playing what role ).  "no,"  she says, pressing his fingertips against the raised skin. the scar is thin, minute enough to miss, hidden behind hair and the tilt of a jaw.  "listen, do you feel it?  ...  i know your wife and i know what she's done."  she pauses. pulls his hand away.  "i know what happened to her."

it's a modern day myth that murderers tend to return to the scene of the crime, out of regret, sometimes, a desire to make things right, a futile attempt to undo the past or, other times ( most times, according to legend ), out of pleasure, the desperation to see the ghost of a loved one, to remember where the skeleton is buried alongside the regret, for the sweet delight of knowing where the unmarked grave was dug.    her ghosts are not made of the ones she killed. dafina has not returned to any gory, bloody scene to make amends ( or to flaunt her vivid life in the face of death ) to the dead. her ghosts are living. left behind. they're with her on the streets, possessing the bodies of the people that pass her by.  she says, "even if you're no longer flesh and bone, you exist."  dafina is creation and annihilation, the mistake of a red eyed god who intends to cast her to the flames for finding worship in sweeter nectar. its decrees were carved into stone and broken between her teeth,  do not drink the nectar, do not feast on the ambrosia. if they did not want her tempted, they should have blinded her ( as margosha so did ). they should have muzzled her ( as margosha so did ). to keep her as their lovely, little creature, they should have taken her by the jaw and fed her milk; she never would have discovered something ( someone ) else.  "as a god does to a worshipper  ...  or, the hunter to the deer,  you exist."  it is an admittance of,  something, an intangible, aching thing. margosha knows. she knows what dafina's hip bones feel like beneath her fingers, what her hair smells like, how she sounds underneath a loud stream of water left running.  ( here's the truth: dafina knows this is not her god, but she is fervent in her worship, she misses her dearly, would do anything to get her back )  she chews on the inside of her cheek. "but, i do regret it. do you know what those men did to me?" she blinks at aranya ( margosha. ). "to us? ... do you know what i would do if i found him today? if he were here?"

he used to tell her that she would never see a view like the one from his window,  —  he, who margosha likely knew better than dafina did. blond like her, lanky and lean; he often wore three piece suits that made him look taller. he really wasn't that tall, though, for she could always see over his shoulder when they danced, swaying together to the beat of the song left forgotten in the background of conversation and sin. there was no place like his home, no view like the one from his window where she could see snowflakes and sunrises and a beauty that could never be captured by photograph or painting; except,  dafina could always see over his shoulder and she could always see her  —  a woman alive, a woman dead ( a woman dying ), a view more beautiful than the view from a dead man's window.   there is an obsession that still lingers on the bed of dafina's tongue, a desire to know who the other beast in the room is. it has followed her from body to body, from palm to palm , tongue to tongue. her skin burns where margosha touches; aches. she trembles as if she will turn to dust beneath her stare, underneath the strenuous weight of wanting to know what her desire tastes like, who her soul ( or lack thereof ) feels like.  they are home again, dancing around each other in a den of wolves, covering their bruises and skin in layers of snow and honey. dafina is on her knees in subservient worship, asking her god to share her mythology, saying, "i heard you had  ...  i left before you, i tried not to leave a mess." she lifts her chin away, strokes the spot where her fingers had laid. "still, i hear things about you, margosha. i see things."

The terrain of the city made it easy to blend in with the corners,       strike at opportunities like a lurking widow.       A paradise for those who do not want to be found:       It made its streets a hunting ground,       perfect for the picking when one isn’t being careful.       It is long after closing hours when Pimchan left her office,       but the city still buzzed alive,       neon lights still flickering Open for Business.       A routine they’ve committed to,       a hundred times over,       but tonight seemed colder.       A shiver racked through her bones,       following burning eyes that stabbed parts of her.       A wicked hunt,       and expert fingers pulled her coat closed further.       It’s still unpleasant,       more so when they are too aware of the footsteps that mirrored hers.       Quick followed quick,       calm matched calm.       She couldn’t go home,       not like this.       But a mind is sharp,       willing to risk fleeing a lion’s mouth only to walk right into another’s.       “There you are.”       Heels stopped short of the passerby,       an easy smile on her lips.       “Thanks for waiting for me.”       She lied,       in hopes the other would play along with the charade.       New York’s streets were never empty,       and it was easy to deter phantoms.       “It’s awfully cold tonight.”

in another life there is a girl with golden hair that stands on a well lit corner in a dirty, crowded city with a cigarette between her lips. the air is colder in that city, icier, more of a bite — a wind that pierces through cloth and skin to gnaw on muscle and bone. the temperature is why she smokes. it's why she carries a little silver flask that clinks against the naked flesh of her thigh through her long coat; anything to fight the cold, any vice to fight the winter. this city is not so cold,   chilly of a sort, not biting. there is a girl here, more a woman than a girl but more siren than woman, who stands beneath a flickering streetlight with nothing between her lips and nothing in her pockets but,    well    ...    a blade  (  switchblade, small, nothing egregious, of course, that's quite illegal  ).  it is well documented that all cities in all stories are dangerous, no matter the weather, no matter which streetlight a girl stands beneath.  dafina's lips tilt to the side in an uneven smile, hands in her pockets, chin starting to turn over her shoulder at an invisible beast stalking this stranger in the dark.  "isn't it? it's as if winter is creeping up on us earlier and earlier."  she loops an arm through the other's.  "how was your walk?"

she takes him in. her eyes paint a path over his frame, streaks of scarlet or crimson in its wake as if she's already taken her teeth to his flesh to tear him open beneath her. the mark of a sinner, or for the innocent, the touch of the devil. monsters are made, not born, but dafina dreams of slaughter the way a wild beast would. she reads long tales of gods and heroes only to bruise her knees against hardwood floors and burn her skin with droplets of blessed holy water. most times, it's easier to believe that it has always been this way; that the cross has always left a red print on her skin, that the temples shake when she crosses the threshold, that the ground opens beneath her feet to call her back home. it's easier to accept than to wonder if she could have been something different, because it is near impossible to mourn a parallel line that she can only half see over the horizon. in the end, anyway, she bites down the truth of her nature and chokes on it like swallowing pomegranate seeds. if monsters are made, they can be unmade  —  and her freedom has only made her lips redder with time.

open: everyone

Tequila probably won’t fix your problems, but it’s worth a shot. But Kruz was the type to drink it straight up for the most part. It could be compared to what he embodied in his personal life -neat and to the point. Though, the idiot a few bar-stools down was trying to play Casanova to any desperate woman who could play into his bag of tricks. Kruz could only observe which he did a lot. But he was no quiet man. Of course he had to put his own two cents in. Without shame. "I swear I need to get my kicks in somehow if I have to listen to this shithead try to become the new Hugh Hefner to the women here. I'll give one of them twenty bucks to slap some sense into him."

she ordered something fruity when she first sat down, a drink that practically glows pink and smells like strawberries. it is both a beacon and a warning, syrupy and bright, like the beam of a lighthouse or the flickering light of an abandoned, haunted house. people don't go to bars to be alone, but dafina doesn't come to be bothered. her eyes drift slowly from the man beside her to the man hopping stools and women. she says, "if you do it, i bet you'll be heralded as a hero." dafina laughs to herself and takes a sip from her straw. "interested in being a knight?"

𝚏𝚘𝚛: @inaulis

𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗: the borderline hotel

the visits here have become less frequent. it's been a fine enough season in new york city as the air turns colder, but it means dafina has less of an excuse to duck into the hotel. in the thick heat of the summer, she hides from the heat in the cool halls of the borderline, skipping over blood droplets to sit with dionne or daze at the bar. in the coldness, she stays longer at work and drinks the darkness like chilled wine beside a steaming bath — meaning, there's less reason to stray, especially when dafina has picked up her life so well.  when she arrives, she pulls her gloves off first before looking around. it's warm. smells sweet. she should leave a five star review. dafina leans against the desk with a hip and smiles at yue. "would you listen? it's a long story," she sighs, leaning her head to get a kink out. "and it isn't a very happy one, either. are you a fan of tragedies?"