Talk was cheap. Or, her thoughts were too broken to bits to be spoken.
Explosions in her eyes and she was blind.
And there, Camila's lunge went wild. Blaise taunted her, by some definition. The action lulled, and Blaise continued to pretend they cared.
A slow pivot. Cold appraisal, empty pupils as their eyes met.
Camila's voice cracked, a shiny new octave.
"SHUT UP!"
She wanted answers. Didn't demand them, wouldn't get them. As she threw herself at the headlight shadow she thought Blaise to be she led with the wrong arm, and blindly stumbled into a wall elbow first. A crumbly chalk squish of a bone finding some newly wrong position, a truncated piglet squeal of pain.
She was still standing, but on vapor and fumes.
Dormire
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Latin For Dragula
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It disgraced them that they ever saw a shred of value in someone this pathetic. If she hadn't been so incompetent Dante might have held on longer. It would have taken longer for his subconscious to betray him. He would always have to die, yes, but if she'd known anything at all about how to treat him they could have pretended a little longer, just a little longer. Instead she swooned. Inserted herself where she had no place because she had no place, not with Dante or anyone else. Camila was a thing without purpose clinging to the only person here who would affirm her value whenever she held out her hands for more. She was too stupid to realize Dante saw the same value in everyone, leaving her net worth at the same functional zero it had been when she woke up.
Blaise did not know her. Their analysis did not come from years of measured observation. Her social circle, her hobbies, her aspirations, her fears, none of it crossed their consideration. It was so much easier to move on if it was all her fault, and watching her crumple into the wall out of nothing but her own stupidity would cast doubts on any reasonable mind, no? How important could anything she had ever done before be if it had led her to this helpless moment?
Their things were arranged to go near a break in the wall. Flash light off and thrown somewhere among the ruins; they had another, and the darkness was more useful for them than it was for her. The straps of one large bag and two small slipped into their hands. Simple enough to dash into the night while Camila recovered, but they could not resist defying her one last time. "Unwanted. That is how you will die Camila." The soft, menacing hiss of their voice carried through the night. They hugged against the wall. At its end would be the path through the village. "When you do..."
They felt the corner.
"I hope it is as slow and painful for you as you wanted it to be for Dante."
They ran, leaving the two corpses to peace together.
((Blaise d'Aramitz Continued In If I Had Two Faces, Would I Be Wearing This One?))
Blaise did not know her. Their analysis did not come from years of measured observation. Her social circle, her hobbies, her aspirations, her fears, none of it crossed their consideration. It was so much easier to move on if it was all her fault, and watching her crumple into the wall out of nothing but her own stupidity would cast doubts on any reasonable mind, no? How important could anything she had ever done before be if it had led her to this helpless moment?
Their things were arranged to go near a break in the wall. Flash light off and thrown somewhere among the ruins; they had another, and the darkness was more useful for them than it was for her. The straps of one large bag and two small slipped into their hands. Simple enough to dash into the night while Camila recovered, but they could not resist defying her one last time. "Unwanted. That is how you will die Camila." The soft, menacing hiss of their voice carried through the night. They hugged against the wall. At its end would be the path through the village. "When you do..."
They felt the corner.
"I hope it is as slow and painful for you as you wanted it to be for Dante."
They ran, leaving the two corpses to peace together.
((Blaise d'Aramitz Continued In If I Had Two Faces, Would I Be Wearing This One?))
Camila froze. Some muscle in her leg turned to smooth stone and refused to move.
The light was dead, and Camila could once again see as her violently assaulted pupils, overly large, were returned to their shelter in the darkness. She watched Blaise take to the wall. Slower, stumbling, still rambling as they flailed and groped to make good their escape, by the syllable. Camila's breathing only continued to slow, even as she watched Dante's murderer unfailingly get away with it. The stutter step in her chest quieted, smoothed. Blaise was gone. Their words struck deep. No wounds, but Camila bled.
They were, in an unacceptably intimate way, right.
Her moment of fury was gone, shepherded and corralled and whisked away and never to be seen again, locked away where it and all the associated weakness of her more vulnerable self could never hurt anybody again.
And still, she was vulnerable. Still she needed to cry. She was taunted, that she had only one hand to try and grab and claw at the irrigation unevenly streaking her cheeks. A silent spasm of her lungs, her knees hit the dusty ground and she didn't notice the burst of pain. Her side, the one that could support weight, zipped up against the wall from her hip to her shoulder, she collapsed further into herself. Whispered his name once, weakly, a child's security blanket ripped from her, and there all the warmth residual in her body that she'd called adrenaline voided her, and her silent sob became white noise, the static of an idiot girl vomiting her emotions with no regard for decorum.
Rather pathetic noises- hiccuping, sniffling, the dribbling snorts of her suddenly abundant snot getting stuck down the wrong pipe.
She cried for him now, because she could never do so again.
There would be no denying the gravity he'd had on her. Illogical, nonsensical, and that was why it'd be all the harder to let go. Camila had only ever trusted a few. Now she was minus one. She contemplated him in the minutes that she was alone with the overflowing cup of her own emotions, the one she drowned in as her thoughts grossly bubbled, incoherent save for the infinite need for the emptiness in his eyes to be filled by something, that she could look at him, that he'd look back. She, however, was not in the business of asking for miracles she could not pay back. Somberly, she understood this. She understood a lot of things, now.
She stood, with difficulty, needing to sway, to double over and to nearly crack her other shoulder against the wall. She affirmed that she had two stable feet on the ground. Dante watched over her, still. She went to him.
She shucked the blanket, for a moment. Exposed him to heaven, and to herself, and she forced the bile back. The tears anew, natch.
She was unsure how she remembered the Rosary- it was so long since she'd prayed it. She understood Dante had been faithful, more perhaps than she'd ever been. Ma, Pa, Martín likewise. She was the one who didn't belong. She scrounged the depths of her memory, flayed her gray matter alive, that she could do this on all their behalves. She held her hands to either side, facing heaven, as she began. As if somebody, anybody, would grab either and join along.
Dios te salve, Maria.
Llena eres de gracia,
El Seńor es contigo.
Bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres.
Y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre,
Jesús.
Santa María, Madre de Dios,
ruega por nosotros pecadores,
ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte.
Amén.
And, with each repetition, she took a single finger of his in her own. She traced the Rosary with his body. Blasphemy, perhaps. Everything out of order. But she did only what she knew how to do. As she'd ever done.
That was right.
She had to work in familiar ground from now on. She had to learn, to adapt. Because: Blaise was right. Camila was unwanted. She should have known better. She'd allowed herself to get close to Dante, and his reward had been his death. She should have listened to her own instincts. Her mistrust of Blaise. Her mistrust of anybody. That anxious flutter in her chest had been a warning buoy all along. An inevitability she'd only accepted long after she'd already paid the price in somebody else's blood.
She had no business involving herself in the business of others. No alliances. No vengeance. She would not hunt Blaise down. She would not hunt anybody down. She would not want anybody. She would not need anybody. She had no right.
She finished prayer with the ring on his necklace. The actual Rosary itself, the one that caused memories of his touching it with tender delicate fingers to almost snap her resolve as cleanly as his skull had crumbled. She forced it all down. Swallowed it, dry as her mouth and throat were.
Her sweat wracked body, with stains painted across the fabric of her clothes like they were canvas, that was all she had. All she deserved, and all she needed. She did not know where she would go, she did not know what she would do.
But she had to leave him be. He had to mean nothing to her from now on. His body being exposed to the elements, to the voyeurism of passerby, it had to mean nothing. As horrifically disrespectful as it was to him, to his spirit. She had to go. She had to be this, to do this.
Already calculating. Cruel and cold, that's what she had to be. That niggling emotion, that odd sensation that Dante was still watching over her somehow. That was weakness, and that had to be quashed. She would leave him here. She would leave him covered in a blanket, eyes gently closed, such that he could rest. She would move on.
With her bloodied shirt, some symbolism of whatever had connected them neatly folded, laid beside him. Left with the one being left behind.
She would never, ever, trust anybody again.
((Camila Cañizares continued in My Body Is Ready))
The light was dead, and Camila could once again see as her violently assaulted pupils, overly large, were returned to their shelter in the darkness. She watched Blaise take to the wall. Slower, stumbling, still rambling as they flailed and groped to make good their escape, by the syllable. Camila's breathing only continued to slow, even as she watched Dante's murderer unfailingly get away with it. The stutter step in her chest quieted, smoothed. Blaise was gone. Their words struck deep. No wounds, but Camila bled.
They were, in an unacceptably intimate way, right.
Her moment of fury was gone, shepherded and corralled and whisked away and never to be seen again, locked away where it and all the associated weakness of her more vulnerable self could never hurt anybody again.
And still, she was vulnerable. Still she needed to cry. She was taunted, that she had only one hand to try and grab and claw at the irrigation unevenly streaking her cheeks. A silent spasm of her lungs, her knees hit the dusty ground and she didn't notice the burst of pain. Her side, the one that could support weight, zipped up against the wall from her hip to her shoulder, she collapsed further into herself. Whispered his name once, weakly, a child's security blanket ripped from her, and there all the warmth residual in her body that she'd called adrenaline voided her, and her silent sob became white noise, the static of an idiot girl vomiting her emotions with no regard for decorum.
Rather pathetic noises- hiccuping, sniffling, the dribbling snorts of her suddenly abundant snot getting stuck down the wrong pipe.
She cried for him now, because she could never do so again.
There would be no denying the gravity he'd had on her. Illogical, nonsensical, and that was why it'd be all the harder to let go. Camila had only ever trusted a few. Now she was minus one. She contemplated him in the minutes that she was alone with the overflowing cup of her own emotions, the one she drowned in as her thoughts grossly bubbled, incoherent save for the infinite need for the emptiness in his eyes to be filled by something, that she could look at him, that he'd look back. She, however, was not in the business of asking for miracles she could not pay back. Somberly, she understood this. She understood a lot of things, now.
She stood, with difficulty, needing to sway, to double over and to nearly crack her other shoulder against the wall. She affirmed that she had two stable feet on the ground. Dante watched over her, still. She went to him.
She shucked the blanket, for a moment. Exposed him to heaven, and to herself, and she forced the bile back. The tears anew, natch.
She was unsure how she remembered the Rosary- it was so long since she'd prayed it. She understood Dante had been faithful, more perhaps than she'd ever been. Ma, Pa, Martín likewise. She was the one who didn't belong. She scrounged the depths of her memory, flayed her gray matter alive, that she could do this on all their behalves. She held her hands to either side, facing heaven, as she began. As if somebody, anybody, would grab either and join along.
Dios te salve, Maria.
Llena eres de gracia,
El Seńor es contigo.
Bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres.
Y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre,
Jesús.
Santa María, Madre de Dios,
ruega por nosotros pecadores,
ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte.
Amén.
And, with each repetition, she took a single finger of his in her own. She traced the Rosary with his body. Blasphemy, perhaps. Everything out of order. But she did only what she knew how to do. As she'd ever done.
That was right.
She had to work in familiar ground from now on. She had to learn, to adapt. Because: Blaise was right. Camila was unwanted. She should have known better. She'd allowed herself to get close to Dante, and his reward had been his death. She should have listened to her own instincts. Her mistrust of Blaise. Her mistrust of anybody. That anxious flutter in her chest had been a warning buoy all along. An inevitability she'd only accepted long after she'd already paid the price in somebody else's blood.
She had no business involving herself in the business of others. No alliances. No vengeance. She would not hunt Blaise down. She would not hunt anybody down. She would not want anybody. She would not need anybody. She had no right.
She finished prayer with the ring on his necklace. The actual Rosary itself, the one that caused memories of his touching it with tender delicate fingers to almost snap her resolve as cleanly as his skull had crumbled. She forced it all down. Swallowed it, dry as her mouth and throat were.
Her sweat wracked body, with stains painted across the fabric of her clothes like they were canvas, that was all she had. All she deserved, and all she needed. She did not know where she would go, she did not know what she would do.
But she had to leave him be. He had to mean nothing to her from now on. His body being exposed to the elements, to the voyeurism of passerby, it had to mean nothing. As horrifically disrespectful as it was to him, to his spirit. She had to go. She had to be this, to do this.
Already calculating. Cruel and cold, that's what she had to be. That niggling emotion, that odd sensation that Dante was still watching over her somehow. That was weakness, and that had to be quashed. She would leave him here. She would leave him covered in a blanket, eyes gently closed, such that he could rest. She would move on.
With her bloodied shirt, some symbolism of whatever had connected them neatly folded, laid beside him. Left with the one being left behind.
She would never, ever, trust anybody again.
((Camila Cañizares continued in My Body Is Ready))