Dark Days (Written Pictures #2) (30 page)

And so, in a decision she knew would change her life, she reached up to her future and with a hesitancy that caused her hand to shake, nodded a barely perceptible acceptance and placed her hand in his.

CHAPTER LXVI – Solutions

Her hand placed on Alexei’s, Jacqueline’s eyes never left his. As she laid herself open to him, she explored his soul through the window of his eyes and watched as they grew distant, seemingly lost in the poignancy of the moment. So much promise and in placing her hand in his, so she placed her trust.

But her hand was never grasped. Slowly his slipped back to his side, allowing hers to hover alone, precisely where it had been abandoned. Jacqueline frowned and looked deeper into his eyes, hunting in vain for an explanation as they stared back at her. There was no depth there now, all they offered in its place was a reflection of her own anguish.

Why would he toy with her like this? He was just like he had always been, just like the other bastards, building her up only to smash her apart. Right before her eyes, the future she had hoped for was slipping away. It was only when he collapsed to the floor that it was clear it wasn’t through a choice he had made. She saw a knife that dripped with his blood, and a hollow horror hammered at her heart.

Two figures stood where her dreams had been seconds before. A large man looked down at the curved blade of the knife in his hand before wiping it carefully with the underside of his robes, then secreting it back beneath them. Only one word could form in Jacqueline’s head. With the utmost of effort, arm still outstretched though her hand had balled into a fist, Jacqueline spoke it. “Why?”

The man spoke in an accent which only hinted to his Middle Eastern origins, hidden as it was behind his carefully constructed Eton tones. “Because he tried to blackmail me, girl and did not keep his side of an agreement.” Purely pragmatic, his words belied the hurt Jacqueline felt inside. “For that a lesson must be given and an example set.”

Turning to the smaller figure beside him, the Prince continued. “I will not hear from Jade again.”

== ~ ==

While Mela nodded at what seemed to be a message, it was a simple statement of fact. Across the other side of the world, a figure hunched over Jade’s bedside punched a syringe into her arm. The chamber was slowly emptied and, after checking the corridor was clear of night time patrols, the figure quietly slipped out the room as Jade’s life slipped away.

== ~ ==

Jacqueline’s eyes followed his to the smaller figure beside him. She was barely able to register what was happening - her usually active mind simply refused to operate.

Functional black ankle boots gave way to skinny jeans and they in turn gave way to a vest top that clung to familiar curves. With a final tug, the burka was fully pulled away and Jacqueline could only stare at the girl that smiled back at her.

“Hello Mistress, it’s good to be back.” Mela was barely able to contain the excited tone in her voice as she fingered the collar she wore again with pride. With a deep bow, she thanked the Arab, “Prince Al-Nizam, it has been an honour to meet you, and thank you, thank you again.”

With a shallow nod of his head, the Prince took Mela’s hand and politely kissed the back. “You are an unusual girl indeed. We will meet again.” His eyes rose to meet hers, lingering before he rose back to his full height.

“The papers you need for travel await you at my embassy. Diplomatic of course, they cannot hinder you. A car awaits down there.” The Prince pointed down the track. “Go there. All is arranged, and may He smile upon you.” The Prince’s eyes rose to the heavens in a mark of respect.

With a sweep of his robes, the Prince strode to his horse, leaving the two women in a silence broken only by the squawk of the falcon which perched atop the partly collapsed chimney, watching with curiosity.

“How? Why?” Jacqueline’s mind ran through too many questions as she looked up at the quirky elfin girl who wore the collar she had once given her. It was all too much to take in. She was a shell. It felt as if her soul had been scooped out and stamped into the dusty ground until it shattered into infinite shards.

“There’s no time Mistress, we have to go.” Reaching down, Mela took hold of the still-outstretched arm in an encouragement of urgency.

Spiralling into shock, Jacqueline seemed to depart from her body. She could almost imagine looking down at herself and the scene around her. Two women, one functionally dressed for the country, the other dressed for darker pleasures, a man contorted and inert on the dusty floor, blood staining his otherwise pristine white shirt.

In slow motion, she saw herself look down at the man and heard a pitiful cry from the figure that looked just like her before it collapsed over the body, wanting to hold it and never let go.

“Mistress Raven,
please
, we
have
to go!” Mela tugged now with increasing urgency while trying to dress her with the burka she had just removed. Jacqueline clung to her lost love.

She had dared to dream and almost been free but Jacqueline now bore a new burden on her soul. Fate had scythed her hope again. It had toyed with her and would now torture her with the memory of what might have been. She had opened herself in a way she hadn’t thought possible again and that had only seen her thrown back into the anguish of loss.

Raven had always been her protector. She had survived horror upon horror and each time she had triumphed by shepherding her through even the darkest of times. She would need her again. They had destroyed her hope, her love, and she would avenge the death of it with a particularly pleasurable patience.

Clutching her girl’s hand with a firm nod of acceptance behind a cascade of tears, the two women hurried down the track toward the road. The smaller led the way as the other slipped into anonymity under a shroud, ready to be taken to what passed for freedom.

She would always carry his memory but she would carry so much more. Raven would rise again.

CHAPTER LXVII – Immunity

For a hastily thrown together plan, it had worked to perfection. Whether it was because of the speed or perhaps just plain good luck, it didn’t matter because it worked. Raven had breezed past Natalia at the airport, a heart-stopping moment but one that worked like a charm.

Clad in a head to toe Burka and shuffling along amidst a posse of similarly-dressed females, even the tall Raven had gone unnoticed as the ambassador to Prince Al-Nizam had moved through the small private terminal, his diplomatically protected entourage in tow.

Sitting now with a seatbelt secured around her waist, Raven afforded herself a smile as she recalled the frustration and anger on Natalia’s face as she had watched the ambassador. Powerless to delay let alone stop him, the thought to hadn’t even occurred to her as she had jabbed orders at a troop of police officers, focussing instead on the public terminal, combing it for Raven’s expected attempt at escape. How could Natalia delay a representative of the Prince anyway? After all, he was the man that would sign the deal securing her future.

Mela sat beside Raven and was looking out the window as the jet taxied from the apron and waited at the end of the runway for clearance. She was a good loyal girl, if a little wayward. She had risked so much in coming to help her and Raven allowed herself another smile which, when reflected in the window, had Mela turn with a smile of her own.

It wasn’t Alexei’s hand, and never would be, but when Raven placed her hand on Mela’s as a thank you, she found something that resembled comfort with the supportive touch of another.

The plane started to trundle forward. Ever faster, they sped, the seatbacks shaking from the effects of a runway that had seen better days. Raven gripped the arm-rests tight, then tighter still with the image that formed in her head while Mela gripped too for reasons of her own. ‘I wonder if he is still lying there?’ was her first thought. ‘I’ll always love him,’ was her next. She hoped they had found him, but she had to rely on the Prince to have done the right thing. Biting her lip, Raven turned her head to cope with the hurt, she was reliant on the man that had driven a dagger into her hope.

Raven would be needed to help her through the lingering pain. Their stay in the embassy compound had been relaxing – days by the pool always were. She would apologise to Jade though, to Kat, to Amber. She now knew how they had felt, what they had gone through at her hand. When Mela had explained in the car that the rescue had all been Kat’s idea, Raven had been stunned by the goodness of a soul she had been determined to crush.

“You did the right thing, Mistress,” whispered Mela softly as if reading her mind, trying to find the right words. “We had to go, otherwise they would have found us.”

Mela couldn’t understand though and she would never know just what Alexei had meant to her. Even in that brief time, he had changed her, but not in the way he had originally intended. She had been bent but not broken by force, she had been changed by love. A frenzied fuck and then the hand of salvation – they had told her all she needed to know.

When the wheels finally lifted off the tarmac and retracted back into the fuselage with the usual ‘thunk’, a tear slipped from Raven’s blackened eye. She was speeding from the love of her life, flying from her possible future.

EPILOGUE

The little black and white cat gathered her hind quarters, setting her body in place ready to spring at the threatening-looking sparkly mouse. There was something about it that did things to her, perhaps it was the pink. She couldn’t quite place it but whenever she went close, her body started to tingle and she knew it just had to die.

She pictured herself toying with it, allowing it to run from paw to paw before it got batted to a halt, then being released again to repeat the fun all over. The eyes just seem to stare at her, had done all day and she was sure she had never seen them blink, an intolerable audacity here, at the very heart of her empire between the sofa and the footstool.

The worst thing though was the tail. Florescent pink feathers; what was a cat supposed to do against such enticements? Most of the time they would stay still but every now and then they would twitch with the breeze from the air conditioner and that was just too much to bear.

And so she hunched up, poised and ready, waiting for that next flicker of feathers. Her whiskers twitched, gathering all the extra sensory input she needed. She was so ready to deal with it once and for all and when the air conditioner clicked on again, the little cat pounced for the kill.

== ~ ==

Watching the little cat spring and skid over the wooden floor to land in a mass of pink feathers, Katarina, her head resting on Amber’s shoulder as they curled together in front of the TV, smiled in amusement.

“I think the mouse has had it,” Amber stated.

“Yeah, the great hunter strikes again,” replied Katarina, adding the pink, sparkly mouse to a lengthening list that included her slippers, two hairbrushes and a whole host of pens. “Speaking of which, Mela and Raven should be landing about now,” added Katarina, eyes flicking to the clock on the wall.

Comfortable in each other’s embrace the two women watched the little cat as she tore the toy mouse apart. The tail flew off after a particularly toothy tug. Batting it away, she darted after it and leapt, catching it deftly between two arrays of claws and dived in with teeth just to make sure it died.

“We did the right thing, Amber.” Kat held her blonde lover closer, sensing the turbulence in her mind at the thought of Raven coming back and her fear of the risk that might pose to them. “You know we just had to do it, sweetie,” she added, waiting for a nod of agreement that never came. “She’ll have changed. Just wait. You’ll see.”

Outside, in the gathering gloom of dusk, a dark figure shrank deeper into the thick foliage of the bushes, watching.

Books in
The Written Pictures Series
:

Descent Into Darkness

August 2014

Dark Days

September 2014

Enlightened Nights

November 2014

Where Once Was Light

January 2015

Shadows Creep

2015

Days End

2016