beautiful thieves | ✓

thirty-three

My brain struggles to register that it's Enoch in front of me because all I can see is red. I'm trembling as I hold up the gun. I'm about to kill my tenth person.

"Aurora, put down the gun," Danielle orders. I should obey her. She's the boss and I don't want to kill Enoch. But I don't put the gun down.

"Aurora, we're okay now," Blake says, placing one hand on the gun. "The cadets are here. You don't have to hurt anyone else."

"Red," is all I can say.

"It wasn't my best idea to wear red today, no," Enoch jokes, even though he's frozen solid with his arms up and distress all over his face.

No one knows what to do. I don't even know what to do. I just can't put the gun down. I can't do it.

Until I'm being suffocated and the gun drops from my arms and my hands fly to get the cloth away from my face but whoever is drowning me is too strong and everything is getting darker and darker... and darker... and... dark.

*****

I've been awake for some time but it's only now that I feel like I've been brought back to life. I'm in the living room, sat up on the sofa and staring at the flames that dance and flicker in the fireplace, allowing them to burn into my eyes. Once again, I'm covered in blood, my dress is in tatters, but this time I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I'm not really feeling anything.

The door has been locked and I've been left alone. It was like this when I woke up and has been like this for... as long as I've been awake. I'm not sure why they've done this, but I've found it's been nice to be alone. There's no one asking me questions about what happened or why I did this or why I didn't do that. There's no one shouting at me and treating me like I've failed and telling me I don't belong here. I don't have to explain anything to anyone and I don't need to relive everything that happened today. I can just sit, and think, and breathe, and feel grateful that we all made it out alive, and I didn't end up killing Enoch.

I only killed nine people. Nine people who were here to kill us. Who knows what might've happened if I wasn't there? I should feel proud of myself, but I don't feel like myself at all. Killing people is something I've never wanted to do. But now it's something I've done, and I don't know how to cope.

There's a blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I drop one side of it to inspect where the bullet had grazed my arm, to see that a fresh gauze has been put in place to stop the bleeding. My guess is that if the red cadet had shot one centimetre to the left, I would've lost my arm. I'm lucky.

A shudder travels right through me. Even with the fire going and the blanket, the room feels cold. I pick myself up from the sofa to sit on the floor, closer to the flames. My skin burns but it feels nice. It's not burning in the way that my arm did when I was shot. It feels more like a sunburn. It reminds me of summers with my father and brothers and the warm days I've spent here. It reminds me of happier times.

I hear the quiet opening and closing of the living room door, though I don't turn around to see who has finally joined me. I don't need to.

He takes a seat in the armchair and doesn't say anything for a while. In some ways it still feels like I'm sat with only my thoughts to keep me company, but the longer he stays here, the less I feel that way.

I eventually turn around to look at Blake who is watching me. "Still think I don't belong here?"

I hear his sigh as he shifts in his seat. He can never sit still. "You've made a point, I'll give you that."

I shake my head, looking back at the fire. "You think I did all that to make a point?"

"No," he says, surprising me. "You did it to protect us. To help us. Chelsea and Posie could've been dead if it weren't for you. Chelsea's been preaching it since it all happened."