Change Your Mind

|Six

"You're lying" she pulls again, fighting his grip but failing against the stiff curve of his fingers 

"that's all you've done, right Miran? All this time?" she says, tears dried by the fire that burns now in her eyes 

"lie"

He might have been more mindful of his grip, were it not for his own fire that seems to surge through his veins and that compels him to hold her even tighter, tight enough that his handprint might be etched on her wrist by now, no matter how hard she pulls, no matter how hard she struggles--our destiny is one now, Reyyan is what he means to say but can't quite get around to it, not when its looming over them, the threat of someone taking her away from him

"Who did you call Reyyan?" he asks again, the mere act of having to repeat himself already making him restless. He fights the urge to pace like a caged lion but he can feel it, despite his efforts, his control, slipping slowly from his grasp

Something must flash across his gaze, something feral that Reyyan has yet to see there, something mirroring the feeling that gurgles in the pit of his stomach and it elicits form her a quiet, trembling gasp "who are you?"

"I'm your husband" Miran says simply, raising his eyebrows as if daring her to deny it

"You are not" she retorts, skin growing hotter where he still has her captured "Miran Aksoy is my husband-you, Miran Aslanbey are nothing, nothing to me--wasn't it you who told me that?" she pulls her wrist, finally, from his grasp, using both hands then to shove at his chest

He stumbles backwards, feeling stricken by her words and then-

And then it's all a blur,

a noiseless blur of motion

And he can't think clearly enough to track the precise sequence of events but, somehow

She's gone

"Reyyan!"

Disappearing in a mess of hands and force, ripped from his side by an unfamiliar face before he's met with one he's seen before, 

Azat Şadoğlu

He stands before him with a stony look, and behind him, at least three more men that he can count

"I told you I wouldn't leave her to you so easily" says Azat, speaking from behind the loaded barrel of a heavy and ornate gun

He registers, somehow, despite the frenzy, that Firat has taken his place beside him, his own gun pointed in the direction of the dispute

"You'll have to kill me where I stand to take Reyyan away from me" Miran says, like its a fact, stepping closer into the range of the gun that points at him with resolve 

"and who said I would leave you alive?"

The next burst of motion happens like an explosion, the men that had so confidently charged in with Azat seeming to reveal their real purpose for being here with a swift and efficient shift in loyalty

"Take the girl!" one of them demands while the other strikes Azat with the butt of his gun. Azat falls to the ground with a heavy 'thud' while Reyyan is pulled into the grip of a short but brawny looking man

A gun is pointed at her head no sooner than Miran can blink and a warning rips through the air 

"don't move or I shoot!"

"No!" he hears her yell "Let me go!"

They're surrounded, that much is clear, and he turns to Firat, the silent question in his gaze finding its answer in the slight shake of his friends head

He turns to her, before they finish dragging her away

"I won't let them hurt you!" he screams "I'll find you!"

*

It doesn't take long for Azat to come to, though it's enough time for Miran to be more than ready to shoot him

"I am not in the habit of shooting unconscious men" is the first thing that Azat hears upon waking

"it's the only reason you're still breathing"

It takes only a beat for Azat to scramble to his feet, feeling around for his gun and fumbling it into his grasp in an awkward motion

He finds though, that there's already a gun pointed at him in each direction, one held unwaveringly by Miran and the other, courtesy of Firat

he bristles, once it's clear that he's  lost the upper hand, his breaths turning shallow and his hands shaky as the events seem to come rushing back

"Reyyan" he gasps and Miran snorts, a humorless, visceral kind of sound

"Ah! He remembers!" Miran exclaims, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He goes through the theatrics of nodding his head before charging forward, his chest colliding with the still extended gun in Azat's grasp "yes, well, while you were taking a fucking nap, those bastards were dragging her away at gunpoint-"

"But I thought-"

"You thought what?" Miran bursts, dropping his gun to shove at the taller man's shoulders "that you were clever? That Nashu Şadoğlu would let her waltz back into that mansion after- "

Another gun falls to the floor, this time one discarded by Azat in favor of shoving back

"Say It, you bastard!" Azat screams "After what you did  to her!"

There's a frenzy of fists then as the two men struggle to the ground

"They sent me to take her to her death" Azat grunts, gaining the upper hand before landing a punch on Miran's jaw "all because of you, because of what you did!"

The tides turn then, as Miran lands on top, taking more than enough swings that Azat's nose might be broken, or at least close to it

"but I was going to save her, I was going to take her far from here, I was going to-" Azat continues, through a gurgle of blood

Firat pulls them apart with a sturdy yank at each of their collars before the fight can escalate further and Miran nearly laughs, swiping away a trail of blood from his lip "You really are more of a fool than I thought, Azat Şadoğlu--you really believed that they would leave it to you? " he emphasizes with a swat of his hand "You, who even a blind man can see that you're in love with her" Miran snorts again at the dumbfounded look on Azat's face before spitting a bloody wad at the other man's feet

"Now" Miran starts, his voice going menacingly quiet "make yourself useful enough for me not to kill you and tell me where they took her"

"They can't, they can't" Azat says as if in a delirium before bursting back to reality "Why didn't you go after them!"

"They took all the keys, you idiot, now tell me where she is!"

"The Mansion" Azat says "I was to bring her back to the mansion--they mean to make her pay for your sins"

The Şadoğlu mansion Miran thinks to himself, already gathering his gun from the ground

I'm coming for you, Reyyan