Leira [Completed]

Chapter Thirty Three

LEIRA'S POV

Before bafflement could seep into my thoughts and corrupt it any more than it already had, I conducted a series of steps to release Treyton's tightening grip on my arm. For a moment, he seized me, and he whispered in my ear.

"I did a good job, didn't I? Still pretending to be my normal self although the woman who killed my father is right there, in front of me." A chill crept up my spine. "As I've once said. I'm more like you than you notice."

I threw my head back, hitting him in the jaw before any more words could escape. I moved hastily, and soon had him pinned to the concrete ground.

A cunning smile reached his lips, and more rapid than a whirlwind, he grabbed the blade I dropped on the ground. I had to jerk back and release him before it sliced through my flesh.

Perplexity painted my features, and I let it show. He was not holding back. He aimed to kill, and he damned the consequences. The expression in his eyes was so familiar. A colour that illustrated his sheer hate and long-sought vengeance.

His hands clasped the knife I gave Luna with a type of certainty that can only be trained. My thoughts flashed to a moment when I observed it in the cabin.

My hands slipped into my pocket and I held out the blade my father gifted me. To win, I must not hold back. He knows I would, and he was using the weakness against me.

"You're Ariel," he mused. "You won't kill me."

I felt my eyes blaze, and I knew he saw it. An almost imperceptible wince crossed his face at the murderous mask I wore.

"I'm both," I retorted. Indeed, I would not kill him. But I would fight. He seemed to assume that I could simply erase the memory of ever being named Leira.

I did not allow myself to drown in the realization that Treyton, of all people, was the son of the man I killed. I focus on blocking and dodging the blows he hoped to land. I knew then that he was holding back when I witnessed his skill of fighting in the cabin. Perhaps, he might have improved over time. Only pure determination could result in the unforeseen brutality in his attacks.

I did not strike back. I would only do so if the choices were scarce. I caught a peek of two pairs of eyes on me in the distance. The owners of them were wary, apprehensive and unmoving.

It was a game of skill and luck, but one could not hide forever. An abrupt strike came for my shoulder, and I missed it by mere inches. I needed to start attacking, but I dreaded it. If my father, who trained me with ruthlessness for three years, were looking down at me, he would be disappointed.

I gripped the blade in my hand, and I launched myself. He was taken aback, but composed himself with ease and strengthened his blows. I halted in stifling what I could do and unleashed the attacks taught by my father during days of torment when I starved until the move was perfected.

The tip of the blade in his grasp almost grazed the skin on my face, and I realized that I was still holding back. I could not bring myself to stab or kill him because I knew I would lament it after.

I grit my teeth, pushing myself to proceed with the simplest method and bury my knife in his flesh. So many unguarded areas, yet I dismissed them. Binding him in a position was arduous, but it was I strived to do.

We did not halt even after our breathing turned ragged and continuing took a substantial amount of effort. I knew to hold back would eventually kill me. I knew it, but this was who I am. Neither Ariel nor Leira would murder another.

At least I perished fighting for myself. Perhaps, my fathers were waiting for me in the world beyond life. There, I might not be hunted for life by enemies that I did not make.

I braced myself. I was fighting with diminishing strength.

'Running isn't cowardly or an act of weakness if it was performed to avoid death,' the rule lingered and echoed in my brain. But what if I wanted death?

I believed it, surrendering to it when abruptly, a pair of blue eyes flickered in the back of my head. Justice. With the image of him, a spout of strength fuelled my blows. Suddenly, I wanted to fight. Not for me, but for Justice. It was then I discovered how strongly I wanted to live for him.

"Sometimes weakness is good for you. It triggers you to settle on the ideal alternative."

With a tug on the side of my lips, I lunged, so rapidly that Treyton struggled to dodge. His eyes were wide, and trepidation crossed his eyes before attempting to match my pace.

Just as I found an open spot for attack, an outrageous reminder crossed my mind. I had been reluctant to sink my knife into his skin, forgetting that I had a weapon even without it—my fist. It was preposterous that the thought only arrived now.

I launched my fist vigorously into his gut, and instinctively, my leg swept his. The ground welcomed him as he fell.

A scowl seemed to be permanently plastered on his face as he fixed his gaze on me.

"We're alike, you and I. I think you forget that," he scowled. Then, he gestured with his arm. Not to me, I discovered, but to the human figures that I failed to notice in the bushes of the park. He had guards behind him.

I looked at the silhouettes in the distance, watching as they approached. As simple as that, my attention left Treyton. A grave mistake. Before I could register, I was knocked onto the ground with a knife to my throat.

My gaze wavered on the two figures in the distance for a second longer before I averted it. I could have sworn I spotted two additional shadows drawing closer to them from behind.

"Look at me." Treyton's growl barely sounded human.

"Who are you?" I questioned, acknowledging the fact that I had never truly once made an effort to know him as a friend.

"The boy who'll claim your death." He flashed a wicked, sly grin.

"Forgive me," I muttered. "I had no choice then."

"No choice?" he bellowed. Flames appeared to ignite his face, or perhaps it was merely the evident turmoil and animosity that painted it. "You always have a choice, but you chose to end his life!"

"He would have killed me!" I retorted, feeling another distasteful remark linger on my tongue. Suddenly, I understood how it felt to be in the spot of my parents. I believed I was sold and abandoned, with little information of the limited choice in their hands.

The frigid tip of the blade seemed to have charred my face for a brief moment. I bit back my whimper as I surveyed the situation I was in.

I did not expect him to scrape my skin, where other forgotten scars from what felt like another life ago rested.

I gritted my teeth, welcoming the sting. I knew his next move before he performed on it, yet I could do nothing in my vulnerable position.

Treyton's had a firm clutch on my throat. "You lost, Ariel. I have people, where's yours?" he uttered smugly.

"You'll never forgive yourself if you were to end me," I managed to rasp out.

"I'll never forgive you for slaughtering him, either."

I sensed the nearing blade, and I braced for the death that awaited me. Those blue eyes flashed again, but it failed to quell my burning resignation for demise. I was so young, a simple girl who wished for a typical life. Maybe my fate was signed when I was taken in by a king of the east.

I waited, and it grazed my chest as if teasing me.

Then, brisker than a heartbeat, he was torn away from me. The sharp clink of metal against metal rang out, and I was unable to distinguish my rescuer before Treyton's last blow to the back of my head. 

I did not feel the impact of the ground; darkness already obliterated my vision and consumed my consciousness with feverish frenzy.

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