War of Hearts

123rd Ave, Parkland County

I let my breaths run loose through the thickening winded airs of Maryland as I slammed my body against the shielded realm. It was protected. Of course, this was the Azerial Hawke realm; he was the last man to survive what some like to call “The Women War.” I just call it a victory. We hadn’t had any commotion between ourselves since the war ended; everything was calm and still. But everything that dies comes with sacrifice; I knew this. I knew this first hand. I dared myself to face the war as a single soldier during operations; I practically used myself as bait. It worked until it didn’t. Until my blood was tingling with a different kind of sensation, one that had felt like boils of thick ooze and misty fog beneath my darkened skin. My blood was cursed with power, a power that let me rip through flesh with the anger beneath my stare. I never used it, and I never plan on using it in the future. Never. Well, not until now. 

The war touched every part of America, leaving a handful of us alive; we women are active. Thankfully, we were able to bundle up the last of the magic that the men had left for us; we used this to start our children. Specifically female, we had no other option. Women ruled from the tips of the ocean to the crevices beneath our soil-based grounds. That was fine with me; that was fine with all of us. We had enough rivaling political men who betrayed our trust and threw our women into the depths of the sea; we had enough of it all. So we broke into war like they always wanted, and we won. But Azerial Hawke was the last man standing. He was a war lurker. In Maryland, we call warlurkers people that have survived the war but gained power through the violence. A different kind of supernatural power that only immortals have. Everyone on Earth is afraid of him and the unknown advantages that he carries. Everyone but me. We all deserve the victory of this war without a trace of men. 

I slammed a hardened fist against the shield, loud enough for it to let out a bitter grumbling sound as it lunged forward, nearly shattering my bones. Shit. I had to find another way through this forcefield. I squinted my eyes, focusing on the distant parts of the building. I noticed a subtle crack in the framed window. Bingo. I held my dagger beneath my dress, pressing it between my thighs as I climbed above the roof, latching onto the window frame. I let the heel of my metal boots latch on to the magnetic force as I forced my body through the window, blanketing myself with nothing more than the thickened smell of blood from my lips and some oddly citric and sweet lavender flowers. Dandelions, my favorite. I weaved bits of my curly hair behind the dreads that hung on my ear as I latched pins into my scalp to keep them in place. My heart thudded at the top of my chest as my breathing grew quieter; I heard distant whispers between the hallway and somewhere on the first floor. I needed to steady myself; this was a suicide mission. 

My mother died while fighting in the war; my father killed her. My bloodline had killed the mother that I held onto as a child; he killed her out of anger and pride. Little did he know, they lost, and he died. They both died in the end. I guess the best kind of love story always seems to end with death here in Maryland. My father let my mother bleed out in front of my little sister and me; he had a wicked grin through the edge of his narrow face, wrinkling the edges of his cornea. I gritted my teeth so loudly I could practically hear the shreds of teeth at the tip of my tongue, waiting to fall onto the battlefield. Women were looked at as emotional before the war, but men were looked at as vulnerable, oppressed, and shattered. It was all wrong; they were the oppressors; they had taken every last right that we had before they left office. We were slowly being killed throughout different lands; the war was only an extinction that needed to be put into play to save us all—saving us from what we could have become with them. But sometimes, I wonder what we could have been without war if violence was indeed the only answer. 

 “Avenda Mecalister?” A tsk was followed by each syllable in my stretched-out name. The man's voice was low and empty; his steps seemed to gain power as his boots pressed against the hinges in the floorboard. 

“Azerial Hawke?” I repeated his name in a taunting manner. Sure, I was afraid, but I wouldn’t let him know. Never. 

“So nice to see a woman on her knees for me, love.” I gritted my teeth, and he chuckled through his roaring voice as he continued, “But I’d like you to leave. With respect, of course.” He just had to add the signature of men from the previous decades. He didn’t mean respect; his words were just forceful, carefully picked to pose as threatening. 

“I’ll burn through you without hesitation,” I chewed the words before I spat them into the open air, cursing beneath my breaths. He was tightening the room between us. Slowly, but surely. I was going to die. Something within my power stopped; I couldn’t face him with the flame. I couldn’t burn through him. 

“I don’t doubt that, but I don’t want to waste my time here.” He snapped his fingers, and I fell through the floorboards, slamming my right cheek against the first floor. I held in a cry as I bit my inner cheek. “You’re here to kill me, I assume. To keep the-” He waved his hands around in the air as he tried to continue his sentence, finding the words through the thickening air. “The ritual of killing men, as I would say.” 

“It’s not a ritual. We won the war.” My body was on fire; I felt it burning within me as I spoke. It took every ounce of strength to pull the words through my lungs. We won the war; he needed to lose. I tried to pick up my dagger from between my thighs, but instead, I was welcomed with a deep growling chuckle and the feeling of ripped skin between my flesh. I winced and cursed between my breaths. 

“Of course you did.” He nodded his head, bobbing his throat as he spoke. “You all did, but that doesn’t mean I have to lose my life. I wasn’t apart of the war; I only gained this power because of your deaths and violence.” His words were forced, inked into my skin as I tried to squirm. I failed three times before I let out a sigh in protest of surrender. I couldn’t win. I felt helpless and vulnerable. Part of me felt terrible for him; I felt awful that I was here to kill someone who hadn’t chosen to be apart of any of this—all of this. I stared up at him for less than a millisecond, allowing myself to absorb his lean muscular figure, his strong arms, and dark hair. The way his fangs hung down lower than his eyes and the way they glistened through the thin beams of light that snuck through a crack in the window. He was beautiful, almost charming.

He’s not Papa. He’s not Papa. He’s not Papa. I had to remind myself that he wasn’t my father, that he hadn’t killed my mother, and no matter how much I wanted to seek revenge on my father’s wrongdoings, on every men’s misbehavior. He would never be responsible. I found the strength to sweep myself up off the floor and pat my dress down, inching towards him with open arms. 

“Kill me,” I demanded him to come forward with all of his strength; I prayed it would be quick. I prayed that it would be worth it, that he wouldn’t let me bleed out as my father did to my mother. But still, I had to test it. His violet eyes were vacant, with no emotion. Not even anger or shock, just empty. I repeated louder this time, “Kill me.” I pointed to my heart as he held my dagger between his fingers, kissing the prints of snakeskin with his fingertips. “Don’t let our beliefs go to rest after my body collapses. Let our souls do the talking. Let the war be the least of history. Don’t let our beliefs go to rest. Save yourself; I don’t need your saving.” 

“I think we both need saving from ourselves.” He held my fingertips, nearly cutting them with the edge of my dagger as I inched forward towards his chest. His aroma was rich and filled with dampening cologne. Traces of his freckles lined above his dimples as he grinned at me. We held each other before we collided. He was killing the space between us, the air between us, the breaths we now shared. We were just two—just one survivor of the war. Together, we were a war of hearts.