Blood Remembered, Love Rekindled
722 Words
“Damien!” I screamed.
But he was gone again—lost inside the monster they programmed him to be.
His pupils had vanished into ink.
Muscles tense, jaw clenched, veins black with nanotech rage.
I should’ve run.
Instead—I charged straight into him.
Fist to jaw. Elbow to ribs. A knee to his stomach. I didn’t want to kill him—I wanted to wake him.
“Come back to me!” I yelled, slamming him into the wall.
He threw me off.
My body hit the ground, but I rolled, came back up, gun raised.
But I didn’t shoot.
Because in the blur of a second—I saw it.
A tear.
Sliding down his cheek.
He’s still in there.
My hands shook as I aimed at his chest.
Not to kill him—but to remind him.
“I know you’re in there, Damien. You told me once that love was the flaw in the program.”
I stepped closer.
“I’m still flawed. I still choose you.”
He blinked.
The blackness flickered.
“Aria…” he whispered, voice cracking. “Don’t. Please.”
I dropped the gun.
And ran to him.
---
Flashback – Two Years Ago
Rain slicked the rooftop.
We’d just assassinated a senator. We were nineteen. Bloody. Laughing. Invincible.
He cornered me under the satellite dish.
“You feel that?” he asked.
“What?”
“When I look at you,” Damien said, brushing wet strands of hair from my cheek, “my training disappears.”
I tried to laugh it off. “You’re just glitching.”
“No.” His fingers traced my jaw. “You’re the only thing I wasn’t programmed for.”
And then he kissed me like the world was ending.
Like he was tasting freedom for the first time.
Like he already knew we'd never be allowed to love.
---
Present
I kissed him now the same way.
Fierce.
Desperate.
Risking everything.
And something broke inside him.
He collapsed into my arms, sobbing—shaking.
“I remember,” he gasped. “God, I remember everything.”
I held his face. “Then fight it.”
He nodded, struggling to his feet.
But before he could speak, the room exploded.
Smoke. Heat. Screams.
I shielded him with my body—but it was too late.
A drone hovered overhead.
And on the screen?
Mina.
Smiling.
“You really thought I’d let you two rewrite history?” she cooed.
---
Shocking Twist: The Lab Wasn’t the Beginning
Mina’s voice filled the space, venomous and calm.
“You don’t remember your first mission, do you, Aria?”
“What are you talking about?!”
She held up a photo.
I froze.
Because the little girl in the image—covered in blood, holding a gun—was me.
And next to me?
A woman.
Shot in the head.
“Your mother,” Mina said. “You killed her, Aria. You always did.”
My knees buckled.
“No. You’re lying.”
But I saw it in Damien’s eyes.
He knew.
He’d always known.
---
Age 6
A facility.
A gun in my hand.
I remember being told it was a test.
But the blood…
The screams…
The warm hands that cradled me one last time.
That wasn’t a simulation.
That was my mother.
---
Present
“I was the experiment before the experiment,” I whispered.
“You were bred for obedience,” Mina said. “And you broke protocol. You fell in love.”
She turned to Damien.
“You could’ve had power. Instead, you chose her.”
The screen blinked off.
---
And Then the Final Blow
A soft beep echoed.
Damien looked down.
A red dot blinked on his chest.
“No,” I breathed.
“Run,” he said.
“Not again.”
“ARIA, RUN!”
But I didn’t.
I grabbed him—yanked him to the floor as the sniper round exploded through the wall.
It missed us by inches.
But now?
There were hundreds of red dots blinking around us.
We were surrounded.
Outnumbered.
And the kill order had just gone global.
---
“We fight?” Damien asked, breath ragged.
“No,” I said.
“We burn it down.”
And this time?
We weren’t running.
We were hunting.
- Writer
