#whitesharks

Wind soughed low through the blackened ribs of what had once been a chapel – now a ruin destined to drown in ivy and lost time.  Its crucifix lay toppled, its stained-glass windows shattered into jagged mouths, their once saintly visages reduced to prismatic bones strewn across the leaf-littered floor.  

Beyond skeletal walls, rain fell not in sheets but in needles – cruel and insistent – stinging any inch of bared skin, demanding penance.  Fingers, pale as candle wax, curled numbly around the threadbare hem of her coat.  Anri had not noticed the shivering until it reached her jaw, until her teeth began to clack and chatter. 

They had taken shelter here, at the fraying edge of some nameless, funereal American town.  Every building bore the same posthumous expression:  slack-jawed and hollow-eyed, doors flung open like silent, screaming mouths.  This world, emptied of humanity and meaning, cradled cruelty to its breast like a stillborn child.  

And then, his hands.

Nick said nothing.  There was no need.  Without ceremony, his palms found her arms and began to rub – up and down, over and over – with a friction full of urgency and unspoken things.  It was not tenderness.  It was insistence, a resuscitation.  As though he might warm not only her limbs, but the cathedral of her ribs, the vaulted, locked chambers of her chest where grief had made its home. 

This close, he smelled of smoke and blood, and some fading note of cologne that might have been born of memory alone – the ghost of a life lived in clubs and casinos, long buried now beneath ash and gunfire.  His hands were rough with the grammar of violence, of weapons clutched and fists clenched.  

Bowing her head, blonde strands clung damply to her cheeks.  Still, Anri allowed herself to feel it – that flicker of heat kindling sluggishly between them.  Not fire, not flame.  Something else.  Something far more unlikely.

Her gaze wandered past him, to the altar’s splintered remnants, wondering if people had sought sanctuary here when the world shuddered to a halt.  Had they come here, in those first, panicked hours?  Had they prayed?  She imagined the Virgin weeping in her niche, tears rusted into rivulets of iron down her marble face.

“I don’t think I was meant for this world,” Anri whispered confessionally – not to him, but to the damp air, to the shadow that clung to the broken pews.  Above them a bird, half-rotted, hung impaled on the wrought iron fretwork overhead, its flightless wings drooping like wilted lilies.  Beyond it, even the sky – rain-mottled and inky – seemed to mourn.  “Not this one.”

Still, Nick rubbed her arms.  Not because he heard her, perhaps, but because he knew, because some truths required no language – only touch, only the oldest religion.  

Forget-me-not eyes closed, and in the dark behind her lids, Anri imagined a hearth.  A bed warmed by bodies, not blood.  A morning where the only crimson she would glimpse would bead sweetly on the petals of roses, kissed by dew and not by death.  

When she opened her eyes again, it was only him.  Only now.  Only this solitary, ragged, defiant remnant of humanity stubbornly pressing heat into her chilled skin.

Once luxurious booths sagged beneath the weight of dust and disuse, velvet cushions torn open like thread-lipped wounds. The mirror behind the bar was cracked, and in its fractured surface, Anri beheld her reflection a dozen times over – kaleidoscopic, shattered in more ways than one. A neon sign hung glum and lifeless on the wall, its ghostly remnants still declaring it Happy Hour. Once, this place had been sleek and modern, a temple of excess and bad decisions. Now, in the dim hush of the ruin, it belonged only to them.

Anri perched on a high stool, cradling a glass of something sweet and relatively harmless, the maraschino-coloured contents fizzing weakly at its edges, tasting of cherries and artificial warmth. It dulled the raw places in her mind, and that was something. Across from her, Nick prowled behind the bar, half-turned away as he picked through the wreckage with the precision of a man who still lived by old habits. His hands – clever, self-assured – ghosted over cracked bottles, weighing their worth with the practiced ease of someone accustomed to measuring risk and reward. Even now, even here, he took stock of what remained.

She should have looked away, should have occupied herself with something else. Instead, she watched him move with a gambler’s ease, all lazy confidence and coiled awareness, his pale suit an absurd defiance against the ruin.

But it was his smirk that held her in place.

It came to him as naturally as breath, a handsome thing worn like a second skin – lopsided, knowing, devilish. It was the kind of smirk that made a person wonder what he knew that they did not. There was confidence in it, yes, but something else too. Armour, perhaps. A quiet pleasure in keeping people guessing, in playing the long game even when the world had already burned.

And then, suddenly, it was turned on her.

Nick’s gaze lifted, sharp as the broken glass crunching underfoot, and his smirk curled at the edges, deepening into something undeniably amused. He had caught her staring. Had caught her paying attention.

Anri felt the warmth rise in her cheeks before she could stop it. Perhaps it was the saccharine, miserably room-temperature cocktail – potent enough when one had eaten too little and fought too much. Or perhaps it was simply him, standing there so unbothered, so infuriatingly at ease, all lazy grace and half-lidded amusement.

To occupy her hands, she lifted her glass, swirling its contents with careful deliberation, as though her attention had never lingered.

“You know,” she mused, voice steady despite herself, despite the way her gaze skittered away like a startled rabbit. Happy Hour, the dead signage reminded her.

rochelle's head was propped up against a ragged pillow , forehead slick with sweat . a fever had settled in her bones , making her limbs feel like dead weight . they were rescued , but , rochelle still had nightmares .

rochelle huffed , wiping sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand . she was tired—tired of running , tired of shooting , tired of babysitting three grown men who couldn’t go five minutes without pissing each other off . and right now ? she was especially tired of nick .

rochelle let out a slow , heavy breath , brown eyes burning with barely restrained fury as she stared at nick . the weight of exhaustion , stress , and sheer frustration pressed down on her shoulders , but in that moment , none of it compared to the seething irritation she felt toward him .

the safe house smelled like sweat , gunpowder , and mildew—basically , the scent of survival these days . rochelle leaned against the cold concrete wall , arms crossed , face tight with exhaustion . her shirt was smeared with dirt and dried blood that wasn’t hers . she could still feel the sticky heat of savannah clinging to her skin despite the night's cool air slipping in through the boarded-up windows .

she let out a long breath through her nose and side-eyed nick , and for once , he wasn’t running his mouth . a miracle .

rochelle let out a short laugh , shaking her head as she held the plushie a little closer to her chest . '' aw , you really do have a heart ! '' she teased , giving him a playful nudge with her elbow . '' and here i thought all that was under that suit was bad attitude . ''

her smirk softened slightly as she looked back down at the elephant , running her fingers over the worn fabric .