Enigma

by RuNyx

It was the thought that her sister had once been that dark mass on a beach somewhere and no one had seen her for a while.

elucidate

She wondered how long she’d have to live with the fact that after her sister died, her father had gone off the rails a few months later and killed a man, right before turning the gun on himself, leaving her mother and her behind with debt and stigma.

She fantasized about it, about being held and moved and taken, but knowing she wanted it. That was what made the difference.

“That’s Cazimir van der Waal,” Melissa supplied, and Salem blinked. Cazimir. That was the full name. Van der Waal. Of course he would be called that. His name represented the force in the universe between atoms, stronger when they were closer, weaker when they were apart.

I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.

She had looked like a goddess, a mystical creature hovering over the dead, come to life from the sea behind her. And in that one instant, she had become his muse.

He was just twenty-six on paper according to the university. In reality, he was two years younger.

“Why do you think they haven’t already lapped her up?” Baron chuckled, his tone dry. “Her sister made sure she remains untouched.” The family of the deceased weren’t to be touched.

For that alone, he had joined a group, infiltrated them, and was now doing their bidding, biding his time, just to get answers about someone he had loved and lost.

She remembered reading about a case where a murderer had used paper to slit his victim’s throat and then burned it, erasing the weapon and his fingerprints from it.

Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.

No, he was the collision of control and chaos, blaze and brimstone and barbarism, hellfire and hedonism, a hades of his own underworld, and damn her if a part of her didn’t want to be the girl he brought into it.

When does a war end? When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?

The lady seemed to consider for a split second, and then she nodded. “Only if you promise not to mention my name.” Salem had no idea who she was. She was just calling her “lady” in her head.

I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.

Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today.

“I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.” —Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Lassiter. Laz. Caz and Laz,

I am unstable, sometimes melancholy, and have been called on some occasions imperious.

Being in a group, especially in violent crimes, somehow absolves the individual of a sense of responsibility.” A girl from the middle row exclaimed, “That’s why boys go wild on bachelor parties!” The class burst into laughter while some of the guys said a chorus of gibberish in their defense.

If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger. —Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“I’m too heavy,” she whispered, not wanting to break the silence but aware that her whole weight was on him. She didn’t want him to die, not yet.

People can take our lives, our homes, our reputations, but they cannot take our names. No matter what tragedies we face, what we lose, this name stays with us.”

I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.

“Ooh.” Melissa rubbed her hands together. “Are we going spying? Love!”

He was wearing a skull mask of some kind. Without a word, he put a piece of paper in her hand and left her alone on the dance floor. She frowned, trying to control her breathing, and opened the paper. You’re next, goldengirl01. What the hell?

She looked at the tattoo on the side of his neck, one that she got with him, her only tattoo, and the words it said—memento vivere. Remember to live.