Minerva Anderson and Bennett Shaw have been inseparable since birth, getting themselves in and out of trouble around the once-great city of New York, now known as the New Order. At a young age, the two watched as the city become overflowed with refu...
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AuroraVanderbloemen
No thrill ever came from the chase.
I never ran or exerted more energy than I needed to, sweat never snaked down my porcelain flesh, and I never lost my prey.
The first lesson they taught us was the anatomy of our magnum-grade steel bullets were advanced tracking and listening devices, not just ruthless killers. When our bullets lodge into the human body, the metal shrapnel expands and latches onto the wounded host's heart, letting us know if they are still alive. On most occasions, one shot is enough to slain whoever merits my hand, but this girl wouldn't die.
Granted, I was a well enough distance away from her, but she didn't succumb to her wounds. I peered down at my gun, blue light illuminating before me. She laid sprawled in the grass, digging her fingers into the soft earth, trying to crawl and slither forward while cupping into her bleed stomach and waist. The light emitted a gentle chime, letting me know a bullet caught her.
Minerva Anderson's diagnostics loomed in the air encoded in crystalline light, her heart rate and location dancing in the crisp September air.
Her tracker was slowly sauntering ahead. I glanced up and noticed she'd reached the platform right as the last train screeched into the station, hauling to a stop. Moments after she lumbered onto the train, her bloodstained body went limp, and she plummeted to the ground before someone caught her. I could tell by the way they looked at her, she said it.
I gently cursed to myself as the train pulled away from the station. No matter, Minerva will surely die, even if not by my hand.
♱
The train lurched forward as Bennett held a raw and bloody Minerva in his arms. Her foreign body was cold under his touch.
When he came to after the process, he stood in a towering skyscraper on the far end of the city, so close he could almost peer over the great wall. He didn't know what he was doing there, but he looked in his pocket and found a faded note that told him to go to the Cherry Grove Park Train station. He didn't question the contents of the message or its validity as he made his way out of the tall glass building.
As he made his way there, Bennett reveled in the hum and distant bustle of the raging city streets, looking on to it with a fresh perspective. He liked how the cars brushed past him and the way their strong currents would graze up his body. Bennett didn't mind that sometimes the blend of air and rain on his shirt and skin would make him shiver or that his glasses would get wet and fogged from the dewy ground moisture. Bennett liked that he could get lost on any street and always stumble upon something he deemed beautiful.
As he reached the outskirts of the park, he could see the station's lights glisten before him. He didn't hear the shrill of bullets that soared in the distance as the oncoming hum of the twelve o'clock train mused in his ears. When he reached the platform, he didn't know what or who to look for, so Bennett waited, sitting on the lusterless gray concrete as he breathed in the ripe and pure night air.
