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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN dynamite girl
⋆*✧･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:
warning: this chapter contains suicide idealization and a brief mention of self-harm.
SIR REGINALD HARGREEVES might have thought Nadine Vidal a Trojan Horse, something dangerous wrapped inside a small, unassuming package, but he was wrong. Perhaps it might've been so when Nadine was a baby, a little china girl, with round and pink cheeks and that soft down of baby hair, but it couldn't be farther from the truth now. Nadine Vidal wasn't a Trojan Horse; she was a stick of dynamite, dangerous both on the outside and in. You see a stick of dynamite and run the other way, trying not to get caught in the explosion. You don't try and light it up like a firecracker, let it explode in your face, don't stick around. You run.
People had always run from Nadine. The kids whose faces she pummeled in on the schoolyard. Her mother, fleeing, seeking an escape from her oddities. Her girlfriends, one by one vanishing, leaving flowers or kisses or nothing at all behind. Even Hazel and Cha-Cha, dealing blows and then fading into the shadows, leaving Nadine to nurse her wounds. Yet the one who fled from the confrontation at Diego's place was not a bully, nor a girlfriend, nor Hazel or Cha-Cha. It was Nadine Vidal, who was, for once, tired of being so strong. Her steel bones were rusting. Her fire breath was scalding her. The iron she chewed rotted her teeth.
When she paid for a taxi, she didn't consciously know where she was going. She just needed to leave. To get away from that murderer Five and his calm stare, serene as if he hadn't stained his hands with blood. There was a type of blemish that was left when someone killed, Nadine thought, and it didn't just have to be the crimson you couldn't wash out of your favourite shirt or the screams still ringing in your ears. It was a contamination that settled over you like a blanket, that made your eyes sparkle with a bit too much manic. It was a disease, murder was, and Five was definitely infected. Nadine hoped the weight of his sins sat heavily on his shoulders.
It should've been obvious where she ended up, staggering out of the taxi with nary a thank-you. She stumbled up the steps to Vanya's apartment like a drunkard, her fists clenching and then unclenching as if she was holding her pain in them, like pain was something to be held. Her eyes were burning, and Nadine wouldn't have even been surprised if steam curled out of them, misting her eyelashes and scorching her irises.
She didn't know what it was about Vanya that was so alluring. She wasn't the enchantress Camille was, with her beguiling words and butterfly kisses. She wasn't bewitching with beauty; most people probably passed her on the street with nary an afterthought. Perhaps it was because she was comforting. Like a warm bed you always know you can slip into at the end of the day. Yes. That was it. Vanya felt constant to Nadine, like she'd always be there, waiting, even though Nadine now knew this wasn't the case. The end of the world was coming, creeping behind them, getting closer every moment that passed. When Nadine looked over her shoulder, she could practically see Death behind her, scythe in hand. Ready to swing and cut humanity down like stalks of wheat.
