still Chapter 12 – Vained
604 Words
— still Chapter 12 – Vained,
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She left the ship before dawn.
No port.
Just silence and a smuggler’s boat that dropped her in the mangroves near Beira.
From there, she walked.
Three days. No sleep.
She felt the jungle crawl into her lungs.
Felt her thoughts rot like the air.
But she didn’t stop.
Because the only thing worse than dying alone was dying unfinished.
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In a town with no signs and no clocks, she bought a motorcycle with gold earrings and a promise.
She rode north.
Past wreckage.
Past checkpoints.
Past her own limits.
Until she reached the place the coordinates in her mother’s journal pointed to.
A compound.
Abandoned.
But not empty.
---
Inside, she found a chair.
Metal.
Strapped.
Stained.
She knew it well.
She’d bled in one just like it.
But what stopped her heart wasn’t the chair.
It was the photo taped to the mirror beside it.
Of the girl.
Her sister.
Tied to it.
Face bruised.
Eyes wild.
Beneath it, a note:
> “I always get what I want.
– A.”
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She didn’t scream.
She didn’t cry.
She turned.
Walked outside.
Lit a match.
And burned the place to the ground.
Not out of rage.
But because memories deserve to die too.
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Adrian wasn’t in Mozambique.
But the message had been.
She traced the ink.
The style.
The stamp.
It led her to Tunisia.
Then Morocco.
Then across the sea to Barcelona.
Each step was a breadcrumb trail soaked in venom.
And at the end of it:
Paris.
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The city of light.
The city of lies.
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She arrived at midnight.
Wearing black.
Carrying nothing but a knife and a bottle of gasoline.
She knew where he’d be.
He always went back to where it started.
Their beginning.
The house on Rue Blanche.
---
She climbed the fire escape like a memory.
Quiet.
Cold.
Ready.
---
He was waiting for her.
Sitting on the floor.
No guards.
No mask.
Just a man.
Older.
Tired.
But still him.
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“Hello, Elena,” he said.
Her name in his mouth still made her flinch.
---
She didn’t speak.
Just stood there.
Dripping rain.
Breathing like a bomb.
He gestured to the space beside him.
“I kept it the same.”
She looked around.
He wasn’t lying.
The room hadn’t changed.
Same record player.
Same velvet chair.
Same bullet hole in the mirror from the night everything began.
---
“Why?” she asked.
Finally.
He shrugged.
“Because ghosts need a place to haunt.”
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She stepped closer.
Not for nostalgia.
Not for closure.
But because she needed to see the devil up close before she slit his throat.
---
“Where is she?” Elena asked.
He smiled.
“Safe.”
Her voice dropped.
“I’m not asking again.”
He raised a hand.
Tossed a photo onto the floor.
It slid to her feet.
The girl.
Alive.
Asleep.
Unharmed.
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“She’s not mine,” he said. “She never was.”
“Then why take her?”
“Because she’s yours.”
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He stood.
And for a second, he looked… empty.
Not sad.
Not cruel.
Just done.
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“I never wanted this, Elena,” he said.
She didn’t believe him.
She didn’t need to.
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He stepped closer.
Close enough to touch.
Close enough to lie.
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“But I did love you,” he whispered.
And that — that — was what broke her.
Because she still wanted to believe it.
Even now.
Even after everything.
---
That’s when she stabbed him.
---
- Writer
