Blood Ties

Cold

Gabriel lunged forward, but not fast enough. The figure swiped the blade across his side, tearing through his shirt and skin with a sickening sound. Gabriel gasped, stumbling back, blood already staining his shirt. The pain was immediate, sharp, but the fear—the fear—was what gripped him. He wasn't going to survive this alone.

"Eve!" he yelled, but his voice was strained, weak. He couldn't focus—he couldn't think. His body was already reacting, moving on autopilot, but the blood loss made his head swim, his vision dimming.

Eve had been standing just behind him, silent and tense, watching the unfolding chaos. When Gabriel called her name, her heart dropped into her stomach, and without thinking, she ran toward him, her hands shaking but steady as she gripped her knife. The figure was too quick, too skilled. Gabriel was vulnerable—he was bleeding, and that was something she couldn't allow.

Eve's eyes locked onto the figure, and without hesitation, she threw herself at them. Her knife found its mark in the figure's ribs, the blade sinking deep. The figure hissed, a sharp exhale of breath, and pulled back, but Eve didn't stop. She shoved the knife further, twisting it. The figure's blood splashed across her face, hot and thick. The metallic taste coated her tongue, and she felt her stomach lurch.

The figure went limp in her arms, but not before a final, sickening twist of the blade. The figure fell to the ground with a thud, blood pooling beneath them.

"Eve—" Gabriel's voice was hoarse, a ragged whisper, as he collapsed onto the blood-soaked earth, clutching his side where the deep gash bled freely. His breathing was erratic.

Eve quickly dropped to her knees beside him, her fingers trembling as she tried to staunch the bleeding. The rain didn't help, the water washing the blood away, but the blood kept coming, flooding his body and staining the ground beneath him.

"Don't you dare die on me," Eve hissed, her voice shaking with a mixture of panic and fury. She was used to this. Used to danger. But not like this. This was him—the man she hated, the man who had ruined everything, and now, the man she couldn't let die. Not like this. Not now.

Gabriel managed a pained laugh, his hand reaching up to touch her cheek, smearing blood along her skin. "I'm not the one who's dying... not yet," he rasped. His eyes met hers, dark with pain but something else too—something softer, a vulnerability that had been buried for so long. "Eve, I... I didn't want this."