Our last hope dropped to the floor together with Iwanow's dead body.
Amid all the bewilderment, I noticed something else; Erlina made her first sound as she let out a terrified scream. I immediately noticed the red spatters on her face and realized that she had gotten Iwanow's blood on it from being so close.
Within seconds she was in Emilio's deadly grip again, the knife back at her throat. I felt my protective instincts, which I didn't even expect to have, kick in. She, an innocent little child, had just witnessed a cold-blooded murder from the front row and was now beginning to snap out of her torpor because of the gun at her neck and quite possibly even more because of what she had just witnessed.
God, the poor girl... She's scared. She's scared to death. And I am unable to protect her, let alone Ainara.
"Do you recognize the knife, Ainara? It's the same one that you used to kill her father," grinned Emilio.
Ainara sucked in air while my heart skipped a few beats. He had revealed to her child what should have been a secret. Erlina's look was completely desperate and overwhelmed and I seriously wondered if she had even noticed anything about this revelation.
There was no way out, so there would never be a continuation or explanation about Erlina's father. I had never been religious, but now seemed like the best moment to send a prayer.
The look in the girl's wide eyes burned itself into my mind like a seal of shame and undeniable failure. I briefly looked at Ainara and back again at Erlina when she gasped loudly for air. I panicked, but quickly realized that she wasn't choking but instead was having a fit of crying while frantically trying to wipe the blood from her face.
"Mom... there's blood... Mom..." the little girl cried, desperate for her mother's help so she could wake up from the nightmare to drink a glass of warm milk, to calm down and forget about this hazy memory.
But she didn't wake up, neither of us did. I swallowed hard, feeling a huge lump in my throat and my lungs didn't seem to be working as they should.
"I can tell you what I'm going to do now, Ainara. I'm going to take everything from you. Everything you love. First your beloved Adrin will die, then your bastard and finally I'll avenge Gutiérrez by sending you straight to hell," Emilio said as coldly as ever.
"Get them to her knees, hold them down!" he ordered the men behind us and immediately we were mercilessly kicked forward, onto the stone floor again. Erlina cried even harder when she heard that he wanted to do the same to us as Ivanov.
I didn't want to die. And I wanted even less that the people who finally made my life worth living would die. Erlina hadn't been part of the plan - she never was in the first place, but I was wrong. In my assumption that family was just a burden to carry around.
I had found my home without looking for it. It wasn't a place - it was my family. My real family. Ainara had become my home - the bad, the good. All this connected me to her. Just like she said; it was probably the bad, in a twisted way, that bonded us all the more and made us partners.
The bad had dominated my life for so long, but she managed to turn it into something good. Because then everything I had experienced and had to go through finally made sense; it lead me to the point where I finally met her.
In the past I had often thought about ending it- my life, because it had just lacked meaning. Funny how life goes sometimes... At first I wanted to die to give my life some sense (a paradoxical thought) and now I was right here, ready to die with and for that purpose, even if everything inside me screamed to fight for living.
"Mama... Mama I- I don't want to die..." A heart shattering sob escaped her as the child said the last word.
My heart clenched painfully and I lowered my gaze in shame, briefly closing my eyes.
"Don't worry, baby. Trust me." I heard Nara's amazingly soothing voice, which sent goosebumps down my spine. She had accepted it... her fate. That's why she was so calm.
"Close your eyes, okay, Elia? Close your eyes and think of something you love like I taught you."
I looked at her, tears in her eyes and mine, and she met my gaze with an unbelievable sadness and love in it.
Emilio interrupted our moment. "Miguel, take my gun."
They exchanged the weapons; Emilio held the knife and put it against Erlina's throat another time, while Miguel took the heavy gun, looking at it for a second, then nodding at Emilio as a sign of acknowledgement.
Everything in me ached at the thought of losing. I lost myself in the deep green of her eyes one last time and cursed the universe for how unsatisfyingly unfinished our ending was.
So much was still missing... So much that I still had in mind for her. So close to the goal. So close to living her dream with her. But maybe it was just karma that brought me the end I deserved from all the suffering that I had done to others.
It didn't lessen the pain one bit, but her eyes did. That moment was all the time with her compressed into a single second. I felt it all- the nagging pain and hate as I looked into her eyes and knew it would be the last time, and the warm love because there was no one else I would want to be here with right now.
And because- despite of my fate, I wouldn't have traded with anyone else if that meant she wasn't there with me.
It was then when I realised, I really only needed her to make my heart beat. I only needed to look at her for me to feel alive.
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