Tightening leather. Shivery breaths. He tries to swallow back the fear but it remains, clumsily a-balance on the tip of his tongue. It's there when he tries to steady his exhale, and it's there when he tries to bite down on an inhale. It's this way that Dante finds him. Holed behind the smell of hay and iron; tightening a belt over his own shoulder to keep life from seeping out. An eye flickers down to it, amidst haze and delusion, and he swears in his mind that he'd only looked away for a split moment, but when he looks back up, dual jets stare back at him. Eyes void of the life that now drains from the farmer's.
(When you steal a life from another, do you surrender a piece of your own?)
The steel slips below his jaw with a satisfying shick. Dante removes it only when the fear in those eyes, locked onto his, hardens; turns into hate.
And he finds that it isn't peace with which people leave this world. By his hand, it is usually anger. Resentment. They don't know why they're dying, and maybe that is worth agonizing over. Maybe it would be kinder to explain, to give them a moment to make peace, say a quick prayer, ask their god for forgiveness. Maybe, if he were a better man, he would.
He dreams, sometimes, that he’s in their place — struck with terror and confusion when the door crashes open or glass shatters around him. In those dreams, he’s the one staring down a bullet, the last thing he sees before everything fades. In those dreams, he tries to scream like they would, tries to struggle like they would. But he doesn't know how to. Then he wakes up, and he goes about his day, and he remembers the dream right as the gun cocks and his next target's brain explodes across the wall.
Other times, when he's really unlucky, he dreams of something else. Of velvet curtains, silk sheets and satin chemise. Fear dressed upon doe-eyed morganite. He dreams of draining them, slowly. He dreams of the fear transforming not into anger but disappointment — a bland version of anger. Then he hears that same leather tightening and realizes, too late, that it's his own fingers constricting around her pale throat. Whitened knuckles upon whitened skin. And it only gets paler, and the blood only drains further from her skin, and — he wakes up drenched in his own sweat.
How many nights pass? Weeks? On the seventh week, he is back at the opera house. Revisiting a location where he'd killed a mark.
The boss had always advised against doing this. Would've been a rule if he thought it'd ever lead back to the organization, but it wouldn't. Dante knows they'd all die first before they could.
In respect of the words he doesn't listen to, Dante settles for precaution.
Sirens ride past him. People turn their attention to where the police cars rush to, hoping to catch a glimpse of their direction. Dante ignores it, walks behind the audience on the side of the road and steps inside the building.
"Ticket?"
"No ticket needed. Just looking for company."
The man nods knowingly, gestures towards a different door from the one Dante had taken nearly two months ago.
"She'll be ready in half an hour."
Money and directions are exchanged. Then, they separate.
If Dante's wearing a suit, it’s hidden beneath an overcoat. His hair is tousled, and he’s left the gloves and watch behind. He hopes this as well as time has made the staff forget him, but he’s counting on the distraction of a stabbing incident a few blocks away to give him an hour or so.
His feet take him to a new hallway where they stop him outside a new door.
