———

And no more will I hesitate before you,

Father dearest.

The tang of iron fills her lungs.

It's acrid. It burns its way down her throat and she can taste it in the air with each pummel. It's sickly.

The harsh squelch of her fist pounding against the messy canvas of a carcass once belonging to a man. Long gone is the structural integrity of his skull. An eye rolls down the filthy warehouse floor, with the viscous liquid that sheens and splotches off the smooth gelatinous sphere.

For if the sun breeds maggots in a dead dog.

But even a dead dog knows to heel. This one...this one beneath her does not. His hands weakly claw at her arms, twitching uselessly by his side. His vocal cords have long been crushed, the strained whistling and suckling of air mere wisps.

The thought that his infectious, curdled blood taints her wounds fills her with a shudder. The taste of blood and vengeance so sweet, so saccharine with the promise of forsaken catharsis, she shudders like a starved dog who's caught whiff of a butcher's cut. Perhaps not even the stray dogs would lick upon the worm-mangled flesh nor offals nor the veloute of his blood; not even the region kites would seek to fatten themselves with him.

She sees the sinews of the cheek; the urge to claw and tug and string him like an instrument is a slippery slop.

For they all lack the gall to confront a grieving girl in the midst of her vengeful vindication.

Her ears ring with dizzying tinnitus. Her nails are caked with clotted blood. When her tongue darts out to lick the rivulet on the edge of her lips, she tastes the same scent that has filled the air. Or perhaps it is not the air — has she bitten off a chunk of his useless, twitching body? She can't tell. But she knows she has yet to drag the lie from the depths of his conniving lungs, the lies he spins from the air he breathes...

So pray tell, she muses, who is it that dares pry her from her prey?

"Edel— Edel, stop now—"

It's a tangled mess of limbs, of a cadaver, as she scratches at the hands of the man who drags her away.

A snarl rips from her throat. Bloodstained eyes wild as her eyes dart back to Charpentier's lame body, still twitching. "Let go— Let me have at his goddamn heart! I will tear that bastard's lungs out, I will rip his tongue off—"

"Enough! He is already dead!"

She struggles some more, deaf and blind to the world like a feral thing fixating its gaze on its target. Maw drenched with blood, nails digging into the hands of her 'captor' to deter him further— Why won't he let go?

Her frenzied struggling ceases. The roar of blood in her eardrums quells to an eerie tranquility that stretches across the empty space of the warehouse. When the man loosens his grip, once assured that she will no longer bolt towards what remains of Charpentier, her legs buckle and she collapses to the floor.

"I need— I have to...I need to—"

"No more. No more now, you've done enough..."

"No." The cry that leaves her lips is a strangled, anguished sound, bubbling up amidst all the blood that stains her skin, akin to the way soft gurgling sounds occasionally puncture the quietude of the air. She shakes her head, as she feels a heavy shroud blanket her shaking shoulders. "No, no, no, no, no—"

He must be saying something. He? Haytham, or Daniel? She can hardly tell who, when the only air that fills her chest is the one of her own cries. Through the blurry haze of her tears, she can see a silhouette in the distance, as hands gently lift her to her feet and veer her away from the sight. Warm hands on her quivering shoulders. Hands with uneven, thin crescent marks where her nails had dug into them. She can hardly tell if it's tears or blood that drips down her cold cheeks.

"—She'll clean up here. Come, you should get cleaned up."

———