[Locked and backdated to Sept. 29th] Am I waiting for a white light?
He can’t tell if its his pulse translating through the blade to thump against his fingers or the fear shaking his hand. His whole arm is behind it, a twist of force prepared, the tip of the switchblade dimpling his neck and leaving a point of pain where it threatens to break the skin. Carotid, not jugular. He knows how this works. He’s done it enough to others--you’d think it would be easy to do it to himself.
Adrian closes his eyes, braces, tenses, and can’t bring the blade down. It’s like trying to kill Natalia all over again, fumbling the first effort when she closed her eyes and gripped the blankets and invited the end.
Rachel is going to be so mad at him.
Grow the fuck up.
He’s outside, cold, his throat aching enough to make him cough every time the wind hits. Grant Park. He thought of going somewhere else, somewhere further away, but in the end settled for the farthest and quietest place exhaustion would carry him. Some little patch of trees, private enough in the dark.
His back hurts. His wings itch. Adrian wrestles his shirt off and lets them out, unfurling in the dark and almost luminous in the brown and gray around him.
Yeah, Chicago, this is what I was. Congratulations. One less monster to worry about.
That’s what does it. He scrambles to his feet, grips one of his sheltering trees hard enough to drive splinters under his nails. His pulse or his nerves, it doesn’t matter.
One.
Two.