I sat and watched her sleeping by the firelight. She lay sprawled out on the hardwood, like on so many nights when after a bottle of wine; we would surrender to the fire's warm embrace. She lay in that slightly disheveled way with limbs slightly contorted and her long, dark hair sweeping across to hide her face. Her dress, white as the snow pressing in upon us, was the sort of thing I always insisted wasn't fitting for this cabin in the deep woods. She always wore white, year after year, as we came here for our winter retreat. She indulged her childhood desire to be a fairy princess, my little snow queen. She would run through the fields of snow, her all white attire concealing her in the scene until she was nothing more than a beautiful face floating in a sea of white mystery.
I could not have loved my soulmate more as I silently watched her sleep. Her lips parted as if saying one last thing before she succumbed. Was it my name, I wonder; was her last thought of me? I could have sat here forever, watching her sleep, but the ever widening crimson frame below her shattered this illusion.
Dispatching the men that had done this to her had brought me little comfort; only that cold sense of justice and this piece of paper. This paper targets everyone that I hold dear. I had thought her safe in our winter haven. But there is nowhere safe for me now, for any of us, and she paid this ultimate price for me to learn that fact. I should have warned her. I should have told her why I sent her here to meet me. I know she felt it odd for us to return so soon after our trip just last month. But she smiled her little smile and kissed her palm before taking my hand in hers and I knew from the warmth in her eyes that she loved and trusted me completely, as I did her. All that trust earned her was this unjust end.
I scan this list and see the names of everyone I love. My beloved's name was first, my parents second, my sister next. This paper is unfathomably long. Not just family and friends but co-workers, people I have done business with, practically everyone I have ever known. Knowing this enemy as I do, I am forced to assume that every name on this list was hit simultaneously. I dare not reach out to find survivors lest they trace it back and find me. No, I must assume that everyone is dead.
And now, so am I. How is a man judged if not by the company he keeps? Since I now have no company, I am nothing. If I am nothing, I have nothing to risk and they have just created the worst enemy imaginable. I will not stop until it is done and I can rejoin my beloved for I know that she will be waiting for me where ever it is we next go. A thousand deaths for every one inflicted upon me. I bend down and smooth away her hair. I steal one final kiss before I scatter this fire and set this cabin ablaze.
Word Count: 549
rating: 14
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