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The pain was excruciating, as if his body had been divided into two parts. He was struggling to breathe properly and his right arm was blocked.
Pav opened his eyes, noticing that he wasn't where he thought he was – not on the cold cobblestone floor in front of Prehevil's tower, but in a familiar place: the train on which he had arrived in that shitty place. He recognized its wooden walls, the purple curtains covering the windows and the seats of the same hue. Then he looked down and saw something
not too
foreign. There was a woman on the floor, sleeping. Her head was bowed over her crossed arms and resting on the seat next to his hip, the rest of her body kneeling on the floor. Long dress, black veil on her head... a nun.
As Pav watched her, she began to regain consciousness. She stood up straight, rubbed one eye, then looked at him.
Two beautiful blue irises, large eyes, rosy lips with a perfect cupid's bow, porcelain skin, eyebrows of such a light blonde that they almost seemed invisible. That was not just a nun, but the same woman he had first seen on the very train they were on at that moment, the same woman who had gasped because he had smiled at her during the trip and then fallen asleep with her head against the window, the same woman who had found the key in the underground bunker -who knows where that redhead who was with her and gave him a murderous look had ended up?-.
- You're... you're still alive…
He could tell just from her voice how exhausted she was. It was the third time he had met her, but the first in which he heard her speak.
He said nothing, only turned his head and leaned his cheek against the padding of the seat.
The nun stood up with extreme difficulty and, out of the corner of his eye, Pav noticed that her skirt was in tatters, now so short as to show her legs in full, the garters were visible and her left leg was completely mangled, full of cuts that were still bleeding. Only later he realized that his wounds had been bandaged with the missing skirt itself, the black fabric now wrapped tightly around his chest.
- Does your chest hurt...? Oh, of course it hurts, what a silly question... I'm a fool. – She placed a hand on top of his wound. It was cold, delicate, almost unperceivable. – I wanted to do more... but that was all I had. If only... if only Daan was still alive... he could have helped you—-
- Stop talking, you make my head ac—-
- S—sorry...! I didn't mean to—-
- Shut up, I said.-
- I'm so—- Realizing her mistake, she put both hands over her mouth.
- Good girl. Now let me sleep. – She looked away, without removing her hands from her face. – ...You can lower your hands. – Her arms fell along her sides. He saw her open her mouth, then bite her lip to suppress whatever she wanted to say. – ...Do you have something to say?-
- You're... you're weird. – She murmured, in an almost inaudible tone of voice. – First you want me to be quiet... then you ask me to speak...-
-
You
are weird. You act like a frightened child every time I come near you and then you save my life.-
- It's a nun's duty...-
- If you have to say bullshit, rather shut up. Tell me why you wasted your time saving me.-
He grabbed her right arm and pulled her to sit on the edge of the seat. She gasped. Pav could feel her pulse quicken from her wrist. She looked nervous, frightened. Better that way, it would have been easier to get her to talk.
- Tell me.-
- Your name... Pavel Yudin... – The -now former- lieutenant raised an eyebrow, urging her to continue. – is not... from Bremen... but from—-
- ...You heard it all, didn't you? – She nodded. – Embarrassing. To fail the mission of a lifetime in front of the eyes of a beautiful woman.-
- Why—-
- Don't think I'm a good person just because I wanted to put a bullet in the head of the chancellor of piss. – He shushed her by talking over her. – You could have used your skirt to bandage your leg instead of me.-
Pav closed his eyes and leaned his cheek against the back of the seat again, frustrated. He was already angry at himself for failing -yet he had clearly seen the bullet go into the back of Kaiser's head...-, and now there was that stupid woman to save his worthless life and remind him of the humiliation he had suffered.
He
was right: he had wasted his life because he had failed to get that damn revenge, and now he was on a decaying train in a godforsaken place with his chest ripped open and his arm broken.
Good shit
. He wanted to die right away, escape the humiliation and pain, go back to his family and hug his sisters, brothers, mom and dad again. But he couldn't even do that.
Good for nothing
.
He didn't know how long later he had reopened his eyes... he didn't even realize he had fallen asleep. The first thing he saw was that woman again – the nun.
She was still sitting in the same spot, on the seat next to him, but her lips were half-open and her eyes half-closed... her skin looked even paler.
Pav moved, and she noticed the movement only when he touched her hand. It was no longer icy, rather the opposite. Boiling, sweaty, even her face looked damp.
- Why are you still here?-
- I have to...watch over you.... – Her voice had become hoarse. She was struggling to speak and her breathing was heavy. – If... you were to... die... I wouldn't forgive myself.-
- We don't even know each other.-
- I know... but... I don't want to see anyone else die in front of me. Abella, Daan, Marcoh... we were together, but a beast wielding two spears killed them... I was the only one left... and then I found you. I saw you shoot the chancellor, I saw him rip open your chest... when I realized you were still alive, I didn't think twice about bringing you here.-
- What's your name? – She seemed to recover for a moment and looked into his eyes. – I asked you on the trip, I asked you in the forest. You never answered me.-
- Maria... Maddalena... you can just call me "Maddalena"...-
- Maddalena... – He finally knew. It sounded strange coming from him, with his accent. – you're a fool. The stupidest woman I've ever met. You should have let me die.
Let me
die.-
- Don't—-
- Damn it, shut up, stop it. You saved me, well done, are you happy now, after pleasing your non-existent god? Now you can go to heaven or whatever the hell you believe they'll send your soul to once you're dead, but I didn't ask you for anything. You could have saved your friends but instead you preferred to do it with a Bremen pig.
Now get out of here if you don't want me to shoot myself in the head right in front of your eyes.
Or do it to you
.-
Silence. A few, interminable, seconds of silence. And then she began to sob, restraining herself without success. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks and fell on Pav's hand. He had forgotten that he had placed it on Maddalena's joined ones.
Pav lowered his gaze to his wet knuckles and then turned it elsewhere, preferring to fixate on the wall of the train than on the weeping nun.
- Is it true you enrolled in the Bremen army to avenge your homeland? – He didn't answer, his hand tightened on hers imperceptibly. – You... you're a martyr... you deserve to live... don't throw yourself away like this, Pavel...-
- The "Pavel" you're calling has been dead for years, burned in the flames that destroyed my home and killed my family.
... You preach to me, telling me not to throw my life away, yet you yourself are the first to do it, with that stupid veil on your head and the crucifix around your neck. You.-
- Don't denigrate other's faith.-
- I'm denigrating you, not your faith.
Do you know...? Do you know how many people I've seen crying with their hands clasped, incessantly asking to be saved, calling out to your dear Alll-mer? How many do you think were saved? None. He won't save you either, believe me.-
- You don't understand... you don't know what I've been through...- The nun sniffed, her voice was now a whisper.
- Then tell me.-
Maddalena was silent for a while, her back arched forward, her lips trembling. She looked... terrified, looking often at the door of the wagon as if she was afraid someone might come.
Pav said nothing, and she, after a while, finally decided to tell.
She unfastened her garters and pulled what little remained of her stockings down her legs, showing her knees. Aside from the fresh cuts on her left leg, marring her whitish skin were thick, deep scars; there were so many of them, some even overlapping each other, in stark contrast to her pure, delicate appearance.
- ... I was born in Vatican City, in a prominent mafia family. I was the firstborn, but during childbirth my mother had complications that made her unable to carry additional pregnancies.
This, however, was a serious problem for my parents: only a male could have inherited the place of head of the family after my father... and I wasn't one; on top of that, I had "ruined" the person who was supposed to give birth to the heir they needed.
It was all my fault...
They would take out their frustration on me, I was constantly being beaten and fasted so that I would remain weak and fragile. I had reached a degree where I was dissociating to the point where I no longer felt anything.
After that sentence she froze for a moment, trying to regularize her breathing. She was about to have a panic attack, but Pav saw in her eyes the desire to continue and to get rid of a burden.
- My first menstrual period came when I was fifteen. This meant that I was
finally
fertile, I could
finally
give them an heir,
I finally would have had a utility.
Because that's all women are for in that context: to make male children to carry on the family beliefs and female daughters to give as gifts to form alliances between different clans. And I was one of them, a walking womb, so they arranged my marriage to a man from an allied family. His name was Adriano and he was twentyfive years old.
When I saw him for the first time I was charmed by him... he was really handsome, kind, a party had been arranged for our first meeting and he had invited me to dance. I had really believed that he would have taken me away from the horrors I was forced to endure every day.
... But it was very brief. Our families arranged meetings for us to "get to know each other better", during which he— he—-
- ... Hey. You don't have to continue if you can't. Forget what we were talking about.-
Pav was disgusted, but that word wasn't enough to convey the magnitude of his feeling. What the fuck had he just heard?
The nun shook her head, wiping her tears with the sleeve of her dress.
- The only rule: virgin until marriage. – She looked up at him. It was like an icy dart. – And so he was having fun with me, using me like a toy, forcing me to do things I didn't want to... if I focus I can still taste him on my tongue, his hands on my body, his laughter, the smell of his sweaty skin. And the look of his father on me, witnessing everything and laughing with him.
I couldn't take his abuse anymore... so one night I tried to escape, but my father caught me in the act and beat me so hard that I thought I was going to die, then forced me to kneel on stones and broken glass until morning. He left me bleeding on the floor, my face so swollen that I could no longer see anything.
And I prayed, because it was the only thing I was able to do. I prayed to Alll-mer for years, begging him to free me and make me escape from that cursed place. He saved me the night before the wedding... I managed to escape and took refuge in a convent... from there I decided that I would have given my body and soul to him for the rest of my life.
The man in white who came to Prehevil with us... is the father of the one who should have been my husband...
... From one evil to another. What a shitty childhood. Pav didn't know that woman, but just hearing her talk about the people who should have loved and protected her but instead had done nothing but abuse her filled him with anger. He had struggled all his life on behalf of his family, and knowing that someone, out there, had a family but was being treated that way seemed alien to him.
Those blue eyes were beautiful, but cold and hiding indescribable horrors. Now he understood why her gaze seemed so familiar to him. It was like his own.
-
From one cage to another
.- It was all he could say to her.
- I didn't go from one cage to another.- She replied, in an annoyed tone.
- Strip. Let's fuck.-
- What are you talking about...?! I couldn't even if I wanted to!- Her face turned suddenly red.
- Checkmate.
Maddalena... open those stupid eyes of yours.
"I couldn't even if I wanted to"
... is this the freedom you desired when you ran away?
You are a bird in a cage. Even when outside, you behave as if you are still inside it. – The nun looked away. She pursed her lips as if to retort, but no sound came out of her mouth. – You still have time to achieve that freedom...
Don't consume yourself as I did.-
Dead silence and tension hovered in the air. Pav initially didn't know why he had told her all that, but then he realized how similar the two of them actually were. They had both chosen a path that would make their lives worthless. He had already wasted it all, but she... she still had time. She was very young, she could have done what she wanted if only she had realized her mistake. That was why he had endured having to be on the wrong side all those years, so that no one else would have to suffer what he had suffered. To protect the innocent from the horrors of war and Kaiser's tyranny. Maddalena represented all that; an innocent victim of something she hadn't chosen. If he had failed to murder the source of all his own pain, before he died Pavel Yudin would have liked to do at least one good deed: save the woman in front of him.
Suddenly, Maddalena collapsed forward. Pav sat up immediatly, wrapping his healthy arm around her torso to keep her from falling. She landed on him, slamming against his chest and taking his breath away. The pain was so excruciating that for a moment he saw everything blurry and began coughing to the point of tasting blood in his mouth, but he didn't let go. Slowly he lay down again, taking her lifeless body with him. She was burning hot... the infection in her leg had most likely raised her fever. If she didn't get treatment as soon as possible, they would have been in the same situation, both dead. He didn't care about himself, in fact, he hoped to
end it there
, but she didn't deserve it.
- Pavel... – Muttered the nun, with barely a whisper. – Men have always scared me. Just being near one of them causes me to have heart palpitations... shortness of breath... cold sweats...-
- They always hurt you, yet you saved one, little birdie. One of the worst kind. You really like to do stupid things, mh?- He replied, struggling. That fucking cut hurt like hell.
With what little strength she had, Maddalena clung to the armrest of the seat and sat back down.
- It wasn't stupid... I'm... I'm glad I spoke with you more. And sorry I fell on you.-
Pav remained silent. Ignoring the pain, he stretched his left arm towards the backrest, took his bloody jacket and put it over her shoulders. It was huge on her, but would have offered her a little warmth. Then he reached for the holster on his belt, pulled out his trusty Luger and pointed it at his temple. He didn't need to check that it was loaded, he could tell by its weight.
- You heard the guy on the tower. It's just the two of us left. Reach it, climb it, and take for real the freedom you deserve, Maddalena.