━━━ ❝ My idea of help from above is a sniper on the roof. ❞
&
━━━ You never hire a saint to catch a killer.
Yet, codename Saint was all she
was known for, a persona so elusive
i...
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"Come on, stay with me!" an unfamiliar voice bounced around her head.
Was Alexis dreaming again?
Alexis was definitely dreaming again. Which was how she knew this was reality. Because she knew when she balanced over the thin line between life and death, she would dream. Sometimes she dreamt of hungover mornings and coffee runs with Maddox and the crew, inhumane circuit laps with Mactavish and Price, or the countless times Alex talked her ears off with the desire for another tattoo.
The pain that ached all over her body, accompanied by the abnormal brush of coldness told her it was time. Time to meet your maker.
She heard this joke once, and this sure as hell was the punchline.
"...keep squeezing... hand–"
Hadir? Was... was she really dreaming? This couldn't be real.
Worse were the dreams conjured by fear. The ones that took her right back to St.Petersburg to stare down the shimmering flames. The feeling of raw flesh after endless interrogations. And the reminder of wearing her blood like a second skin. It was she never left that tiny jail cell.
Alexis remembered the crackling of the flames. It was all that filled her ears. Her captors were missing. She was in the middle of nowhere.
The fire blazed a slow path straight for her like she was the final goal to reach. It tore down wooden crates, engulfed the flimsy curtains and went straight for her. Like the fire had a mind of its own and knew it wanted her.
This was it, the end of her legacy. Her stories were etched in flesh, and her book would be the grey stone in Arlington.
The salty tears streaming down her bruised eyes should have hurt, but didn't. The roaring fire snuffed out most of the oxygen and thinned the air. Her head was growing heavier by the seconds, eventually resting it against the grimy walls.
There are worse ways to go, she tried convincing herself.
When she started to drift away, she summoned enough energy to raise a fingertip over the wall—finding her name carved into the stones. Her real name.
Maybe, hopefully, somebody would remember her.
Her dreams manifested into her sleep over time. When she dreamt of St.Petersburg, she'd wake up with her mouth gaped wipe, like she paused mid-scream. Her fingers would tremble and she'd force herself to give in to her shaking legs and remain seated. She'd whisper to herself that it was only a dream. It'll stop.
Until it didn't.
Today, with her back on the ground, eyes rolled back, Alexis dreamt again.
The worst wasn't knowing she was going to die—that was the price of war. She had long made peace with the Grim Reaper. It was knowing she finally had something to live for.
