Monthly Bonus Content #2— 'It was the logical choice…' (Ava version) (Patreon)

So little bit of explanation before diving into this doozy of a piece just in case you missed it in my Update a few weeks ago! :D

When I was on writer's retreat, one of the more difficult tasks we were given was to take our love interest (or in my case with multiple, choose one, lol!) and our bad guy (again...had to choose one!) and have them switch roles but still write them so as readers would recognise them in that contrasting role.

We had to pick at least two defining things about those characters are flip them on their heads to make them the opposite.

I picked Adam/Ava, and their defining things were: their memories, and their want to make everything logical.

I can't tell you the bad person's defining things as that would be super spoilery! It is already touching on spoilery to bring them into this, as it's an a big antagonist who I haven't even introduced yet...but they were too perfect for this not to use!

So yeah, with that explanation out of the way...I hope you enjoy Ava's villainous side! :D

(I'm also aware that the MC was pretty weak in this scene, but we were supposed to have them not really involved in this scene at all so I choose to make them wounded enough they couldn't do anything to interrupt the flow!)

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Marble is quite beautiful. Particularly the marble that lines this hallway. The deep grey colour has a warmth to it, even as the stone is biting cold against my palms. Deep rose veins slice through grey, like dull lightning, and my blood seeps into the cracks turning the rosy hue into deep crimson.

“[Name]!” The panicked voice rings in my head, but it sounds like a distant echo. Is someone calling me from far away? Or am I just hearing things? I’m not sure, and I can’t figure it out. Not with the pounding ache that makes my vision blur and my mind spin.

My lungs shudder, and I splutter up another mouthful of blood across the elegant flooring.

My hazy, bruised mind seems to only focus on the fact of how I’ve spoiled the floor. I begin trying to wipe it up with my sleeve in frantic circles.

“[Name]! What are you doing?” Hands wrap around my shoulders, but I attempt to shake them off.

“I’ve ruined it,” I cry, swiping again and again, smearing the blood further across it in macabre swirls. “I’ve ruined it!”

“You’re in shock, mon amour.” The soft, confident voice begins to blanket my rapid panic. “Look at me. How much blood have you lost?”

I try to swallow, but white-hot pain strikes down my throat.

I whip my hand to my neck, feeling something warm and slick, before staring down. The dim light makes it hard to see, but I can smell the metallic sting in the air.

“I’m bleeding.” The statement shocks me out of my paralysis. I turn my head to meet familiar hazel eyes that stare at me with wide-eyed concern. “Why am I bleeding?”

She reaches up and swipes her thumb across my cheek softly to wipe away a splash of blood. “She bit you.”

Memories punch me, knocking me back as I shake my head trying not to remember the pain, the fear, the weakness.

“No…” I gasp out, clutching the sides of my head.

Arms envelop me, drawing my shaking body in closer, her cheek resting on my shoulder. “Shh, now, mon amour. You are safe now.” She tilts my head around to meet her eyes, hard with sudden determination. “I will never let her touch you again.”

I clutch at her grey Agency uniform, the thick material coarse but welcoming to my chill touch.

Thunder rumbles around us, except no lightning follows. It takes me a while to process it’s not the weather at all, but the pummel of booted footsteps.

A hulking figure looms out of the shadow.

Pain shoots down my neck making me gasp as ice green eyes pierce into mine through the thick shadow.

[Redacted]’s hands tighten around me. “Never again,” she whispers before drawing away and standing in front of me.

Ava stretches a finger out towards me from opposite us. “I need them.”

[Redacted] spreads her legs out before me as an extra barrier. “You can’t have them.”

“You would deny me?” Ava’s voice, hoarse from exhaustion—my blood apparently already having burned through her system—pitches with genuine confusion. “Their power is the only way I can win.”

“Win? Win what?” [Redacted] retorts. “Some illusion of what you had? You’re chasing hollow memories that have driven you mad, Ava. Let ghosts lie.”

Ava’s boots slide over the marble, gliding easily through my blood still pooled over the floor. “I will have them.”

“Then you’ll have to go through me.”

There is a flicker, only a second, but a definite flicker of hesitation before Ava gives one sharp nod. “Then so be it.”

Growls echo through the dark as the two lunge at each other. Feral snarls erupt and send a primal fear coursing through my system, begging me to get away, so I drag my broken body as far as I can into the corner.

One of the shadows smacks into a marble column. A shower of shimmering grey clouds into the air followed by a pained groan.

Ava steps closer to the fallen body. “You cannot win.”

[Redacted] stares up at her before her gaze drops towards me. She smiles, a trickle of blood oozing over her lips. The sweetness of her kiss ruined as well—all because of me.

She looks back at Ava, clutching an arm over her chest as her voice wheezes from her. “Maybe not. But you’ll still have to kill me if you want them. I won’t stop.” Her teeth grind so hard I can hear it through the dark. “They’re mine.”

My heavy, gritty breaths are the only thing to echo raggedly in the weight of the silence that follows.

When Ava reaches a hand out towards [Redacted]’s throat, my stomach whirls, and nausea makes me topple forward onto my hands.

“Stop!”

She does.

“I…I will give you what you want, just…just don’t.” I meet her eyes with my own pleading gaze. “Please don’t kill her.”

Ava examines me before looking back to [Redacted]. “Will you meet their wishes?”

“No,” she replies simply. “I love them.”

A snap rings through the dark.

A body slumps to the ground.

And my heart plunges into the sudden void that creates a canyon in my chest.

“What have you done?!” My cry shatters the silence.

“I had to,” Ava replies simply, turning her body towards me and disregarding [Redacted]’s crumpled form at her feet. “She would have continued to have sought you. This was the only way I could guarantee success.” She stands taller. “It was the logical choice.”

“Logical?” The word spits out of me, my physical pain numbed by heartbreak. “You killed her!”

She steps closer. “To get what I need.”

I glare at her as though the strength of it would be enough to pierce through her. “What do you need so badly it’s worth killing for?”

Moonlight bathes her as she steps into a stream of it shining through the broken window above. Her expression is as cold and unyielding as the blood-stained marble.

“…Forgiveness.”