ROUND 3 - Exit...stage right (LYNCH KILL)
Nadiya sat on the edge of the large, oval conference table and dangled her shapely dancer’s legs. They had only been locked up in the bank for several hours, but nerves were already wearing thin. The harsh accusations and formidable lynch mob that had presented itself outside the vault was a true testament to how quickly the human psyche deteriorated. Nadiya considered this as she rhythmically swayed her feet to ‘Requiem Mass in D minor’ by the gloriously gifted Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Her eyes glazed over as she turned up the volume on her IPod and tried to ignore her companions in solitude who were beginning to pace, voices growing steadily annoyed. A few had gathered around her perch on the desk, taking seats, and looking glum.
Her predicament was strangely divine but easy to adapt to, having found refuge within her music and a strange fantasy of pirouetting in the arms of a deliciously handsome man who guided her body flawlessly and with passion. She envisioned her lithe body, graceful, and captivating, managing each dance move with liquid grace. To spin, to fly…it was exhilarating. With a long and wistful sigh, Nadiya felt movement around her and it was a long minute before she realized that her companions next to her had risen from their seats. Looking up, she popped a fitted ear bud out of her ear.
Silence.
Her large, luminous eyes grew wide as she saw that everyone’s attention had turned to her. She had not been paying attention and that would prove to be most unfortunate. Sliding off the table, she put distance between the lynch mob and herself, brandishing the throwing knife from her ankle strap.
Raising her eyebrows in annoyance, she shot back at the accusing eyes. ‘Oh right, me? I had something to do with all this?’
The lynch mob’s answer was to move toward her, pushing Mr. Green who looked on helplessly from the back of the room away despite his inability to interfere with what would most assuredly happen to Nadiya.
Pointing the knife defensively, she let out a terse snort. ‘I had nothing to do…oh fuck this.’
Nadiya made a break for the door after calculating her odds of talking any type of sense into these morons were pretty fucking low. The mob surged toward her, bottlenecking at the glass doorway out to the hallway, giving her precious time to make it to the elevator. Pressing the button quickly, she saw the number 1 light up, not giving her any hopes of reaching the third floor in time, so she rushed on to the stairway at the end of the hall, pushing the door open so hard it smacked back at her, catching her foot as she took the first step down. The pain was quick but intense.
Turns out it wouldn’t matter that the lynch mob was directly behind her. They were no longer a problem, but the stairway door hitting her ankle, throwing her off balance proved to be a mightier foe, but not any more so than gravity. It pulled down on her, crashing her knees onto the second step down, twisting her hips in one direction but her legs in another on the fourth step. The awkward twist and fall on several more steps caused compound fractures to both tibias, forcing them to dislocate her knee caps and puncture through the skin as she fell. Nadiya tumbled to the landing, most definitely ruining any future career of dancing should she live from this ordeal. The throwing knife that had come in handy for self defense was noticeably gone from her hand, but much to her surprise as she fell back against the wall, looking back up the stairs, she found it lodged into her ribcage, just below her heart. Her legs had twisted into painful, doll like dislocation as she felt her lungs begin to fill with blood.
The lynch mob stood at the top of the stairs, quiet and sullen at what they had caused. Remorse, however, did not cross any of their faces, but she did notice one shrug with a half grin. And so, Nadyia Kostkov had managed to get herself killed. Slowly and painfully.
Pulling the knife out of her ribs, she dropped it on the ground in front of her. ‘God…damnit,’ she gurgled.
Alex and Luc stood on the landing looking down at Nadiya as the mob left, closing the door behind them. Luc leaned against the wall leading down, his face blank. His polar opposite, however, stood with balled fists, his anger vibrating off the metal stairs. Unclenching his left hand, he raised it slightly and an unseen force lifted Nadiya’s head, her slowly dying eyes focused in on His.
‘Do not…take my name…in vain.’
He scooped his hands out like claws and swept it passed her, ripping at the air in front of him. Nadiya’s body trembled, shaking at an unseen force, her throat choking on her own blood. Alex waited a moment and then relaxed, snapping his fingers. Nadiya’s body tensed, her eyes filling with an unseen terror, and finally she died. Turning, Alex looked at Lucifer as He walked down past him, leaving without another word.
Luc watched Him leave, and then he looked back at Nadiya. He stepped closer to Nadiya and knelt down, lifting her dead head with his hand.
Whispering slowly he said, ‘A consuming fire - A just and terrible God, who, notwithstanding his special relation to thee, will severely punish thee, if thou provoke him.’
A slow grin touched Luc’s lips, devoid of sympathy and full of malice.