Heaven's Crime (gxg) ✓

twenty-eight. why are the villains always so hot

                    It's also safe to say I'm terrified.

                    Veah and I are sitting on a bench, the sound of a waterfall rushing behind us. Okami is gone, but we are silent now. Light trickles through the foliage, and though I breathe in the scent of lavender and honeysuckle . . . it feels poisonous now.

                    Watching Veah kill people was different. She might have been thrilled by the danger, but she didn't kill like that. With an axe, cleaving through the air, over and over.

                    That was . . . that was brutal. 

                    And I can still see the corpse in the corner of my eye.

                    My stomach lurches.

                    "One second," I say, before I throw up in the Garden of Eden.

                    I can still see that ravaged flesh, the drip of black blood. I can still see the way his eyes opened, his head at an unnatural language.

                     She kept going―even after he was dead.

                      And she smiled afterwards. She smiled like the only concern she had was that purple clashed with blood.

                       I can't do this.

                       I can't do this. 

                       I thought I could ignore the fact that the girl I'm falling for is a boss for the Japanese Mafia. But this is her life―this is who she works for, who has power over her. 

                       She is a criminal and this―this is why I like rules.

                       My breath comes heavier now. I grip the bench with one white-knuckled hand. The overwhelming feeling of it all rises up around me.

                       "Hey. Hey." 

                       "No," I say, shaking my head feverishly. "No, don't―don't touch me."

                       Don't touch me.

                       Her hand, just above mine―as though she might have reached for it―stills. Drawing back. And is that . . . no, it can't be. Hurt that flashes over her face.

                        I look away. Does that make me a coward?

                        "Breathe," Veah whispers. "Breathe, Kaya. Focus on me."

                        The sound of her voice is a tether, and I . . . I breathe. 

                         "Well, isn't this just heartbreaking," murmurs Okami's soft voice from behind. "And here I was, wondering why my favourite assassin was keeping you a secret."

                        "Leave her alone," Veah growls.

                        "Chimei-tekina megumi,"  Okami rasps. "You seem a little off edge. Could it because we've been apart for so long?"

                         Chimei-tekina megumi. Hunter called Veah that, too.

                         It meant Fatal Grace.