Mercy

A big city in 1902-ish

~Antionettes POV~

It had only been a few hours since Quin had left with our son Daniel. I had given her specific instructions to not come home before morning. I had always been a good liar, but it had never been so hard to convince her to leave. She had said it didn't feel right, she was worried. 

She was right.

Not that I'd ever tell her that.  No, I wouldn't need to, the body on the floor would say all I couldn't. Dante was coming. He had found me and he was coming.

He had every right, I knew. After what I'd done to Tamara, to countless other innocent people. He had never cared when he didn't know the names of those failed experiments, had reveled in my science when it gave him the strength of ten men. But I had hurt someone he loved, a line one did not cross with Dante Bellows.

He had loved me once, and maybe I had loved him. It had always been Quin, he'd known that. Accepted it. But he had loved me, and Daniel was his, even if he didn't know he existed. Though Quin had raised him more than either of us.

It was well past midnight when I heard the front door open, well more like shatter, then footsteps. I stepped into the kitchen just as he did. I half expected him to look sad, or maybe scared, but his eyes shone with a rage that didn't quite match the man I'd loved. I willed myself to stay calm, but I couldn't deny the fear his anger made me feel.

It was the anger I was all too familiar with, perhaps he really had spent too much time with me. Because it's the look I had given him when Tam had failed and he had yelled at me. The same rage boiling in me from childhood. 

He looked me up and down as if searching. Looking for any signs of the girl he'd loved. I had long wondered what it was that he'd loved about me. It seems he came to the same conclusion I had, there was none.

"You broke her." His voice was raw. As if he'd been screaming, "She is nothing more than a child."

"She knew the risks, she expected them." I shrugged, noticing he had started to walk closer, I'd taken a step back. Right into the door that closed behind me.

"You knew the risks. Yet you did it anyway!"

"How many people died? How many had I killed and you not bat an eye? How is this different."

"Because she was our friend."

"Your friend." I spat at him, he was right in my face now, maybe a foot between us.

His hands shot up with speed that didn't seem quite human. His hands found my throat, not hard enough to restrict breathing, but as a threat that he could. That I'd given him the strength to take my life.

"Do it. Prove what I know. You're just as bad as me."

"I'm nothing like you." 

"You watched me take every life I took. Stood by and did nothing. You're just as responsible as I am for everyone who died."

"You're wrong. I'm here to stop you from taking any more lives."

"Killing a monster doesn't make you a saint. I'd know."

"That was different."

"How? I took the life of a man who had taken everything from me."

"You...you..." The realization hit him, then more anger.

"See. We're the same."

"Oh come on, no dramatic last words? No pleas for mercy? No reminders that I had loved you." He said, and then squeezed.

"Gods have no mercy for miserable creatures like us." I choked out as spots danced in my vision.

"I think I understand your dad. You are as much of a waste of breath and life as he said." His words were cold, cruel.

I had never known him to be either, but I knew very well how loving someone could make you just that.

I couldn't reply. No matter how much his words hurt. I felt tears burn my eyes and I grabbed at his hands. They wouldn't move. I started crying and clawing at his hands as his grip tightened and my lungs burned. It was only a minute before everything went dark.

~3rd POV~

Dante did not let go as she went limp in his arms. He did not let go for a few more minutes. Then he collapsed and brought her into his lap.

Then he did the one thing he swore he wouldn't do. Not over her, not again. 

He cried. Cried over her, who she could've been, should've been. Over every life she took, and every life she had improved. Over the monster who had made her into such a cruel being, and how he wished he had killed him and maybe saved her from being what she had been. He cried until he had no more left in him. But he stayed there, holding her and shaking. Mumbling apologies she couldn't hear.

He left moments before sunlight started to shine over the horizon of the city. 

He was four blocks away when he heard Quin scream. And it was then he remembered the demon whose wrath he would surely face if she caught him. He ran. Ran until his lungs screamed as Ann's had. Until his legs nearly gave out like her's had.

He spent years wondering when Quin would come to kill him.

She never had, he had only got a letter, well two. One in Antionette pretty cursive and one in Quin's messy handwriting.

The one from Ann wrote:

Your son has your eyes.  He has your smile too.

I almost wish you would have got the chance to raise him.

His first word was 'no'

I guess that's where he takes after me.

He's only a year old. I don't think I've ever loved anyone as I love him.

I'm sorry for what I've done. I'm sorry you do not get to know the beautiful light that is our child's smile.

I wish you the best.

Love, Antionette

Quin had written:

I hope you live every day in the regret of not knowing your son. He's wonderful. 

A fitting punishment, don't you think? You took his mother, took my love. I take your son.

Yours truly, Quindevilin 

And he did spend every day in regret.

Regretting ever loving the cruel scientist, every giving her the power to shatter him.