Katya and I went back to Saint Money 'cause we had robbed and kidnapped all over the world, and those countries' governments had barely opened any investigations against us. But the moment I killed those gang members in the nightclub, the governor of that city called us terrorists and sent after us the police, the CIA, the FBI, and every special force he had. Katya and I had to escape hidden in a truck I used to transport weapons and drugs there.
"Why the governor got so mad at you for killing some gang members?" you wonder. Well, it's pretty common for governments to protect their criminals more than their people.
Anyway, we entered a gated community filled of those big ass mansions that you can only see on TV 'cause you'd never get near them in real life, and one of them was Katya's house. We went into the garage, and there was a row of about 20 luxury cars. Who knows how many millions her family had spent on those.
They wasted their money, if you ask me.
I parked right away and closed the electric gate. I got out slowly and made a lot of noise.
I looked at Katya. This was the perfect moment to tell her she shouldn't be friends with a criminal like me. She would stay home with her family, in her own world, and I would go back to the life I had before I met her. Even though it had been a long time since I'd been with my gang; probably someone had already taken my place, or maybe my gang didn't even exist anymore.
I'd probably have to start from scratch again.
Fuck.
But I was a criminal, and that is the life people like me had.
Whether we liked it or not.
"Don't you want to get in?" I was still in the SUV, and Katya was knocking on my door.
I opened it and came out.
"So what were you thinking about?" She asked.
"Nothing. Not everything's about you."
"So about who is, then? Your whores, perv?"
I put my hand over her mouth to shut her up.
"Shut up, you fucking brat. But you should have asked your dad to give you one of these cars." At that moment, I didn't have the balls to leave. I opened the door and got out of the truck. "We were robbing banks left and right, and we would have made way more money if we had sold just one of these."
She laughed and took my hand away from her face.
"If it were up to him, he'd give me away before one of his cars. But come on. Grab my stuff." I opened the trunk of the SUV, and it was full of her suitcases. I didn' take any and went to the door.
"You're so mean," she said, grabbing as many suitcases as she could, and even though most of them had wheels, she could barely push them all.
"Look: you don't even need me," I teased her.
"Just help me," she begged, and that's why I helped her with some of his suitcases.
We left the garage, walked down a hallway, went into Katya's room, and left her things there.
"Come," she said, taking my hand and leading me through the house. Her hand was small and soft. As we walked, she told me about her parents and siblings, but all I could see was her smiling and grumbling about what she was saying. I was trying to memorize her face and each of her expressions 'cause I wouldn't see them again. I looked at her smile, at her eyes.
And at the bruise she still had from when I hit her.
"But don't worry about them," she told me. "There's no one home right now. There's almost never anyone here."
"If I'd known you lived in such a big house," I said as we walked through his game room, which had a pool table, a bowling lane, a bar, and a huge TV room with some couches, "I'd have told you we should stay here. You must have a full ocean back there."
"Shut up, my house isn't even that big," she told me. "Besides, my dad doesn't like me bringing men here. And now that I think about it, I'm going to surprise Chad later."
"Who?" I asked.
"My boyfriend, duh."
"You have a boyfriend?" I asked 'cause she'd never told me.
She then grabbed my face with her hands.
"OMG, you're so jealous," she teased me.
I then grabbed her face with my hands.
"No, I just wanna ask him how he puts up with you."
She let go of me and took my hands away from my face.
"Well then I'll just go with my boyfriend so you don't have to put up with me."
"Finally."
"Oh, yeah?" she put her fists in front of her face as if she were gonna box. "Wanna fight?"
She threw some slow punches at me, and I put my hands in front of her so she could hit them there, like I was helping her train. Then I threw some slow hooks, and she ducked and dodged them.
"Okay," she stopped boxing. "I'm leaving. Make yourself at home. And don't bring to your whores."
I said nothing.
"I mean it, perv. No whores."
"You remember that party where you met me?" I asked.
"Which one? The one where you were being a perv with Dipshet and his friends, you perv?"
On any other day, I would have told her I wasn't a perv, that maybe she was the perv for being at that party too. But that day there was something he wanted to know.
"Why you talked to me that day?"
She shrugged.
"'Cause you looked as lonely as I. Bye," she said, and left with her boyfriend. I checked my watch and saw it was 5 a.m. A very weird time to go see your boyfriend, but anyway.
If I wanted to get away from Katya, this was the perfect moment. I could just teleport away.
But she deserved at least an explanation.
And I wanted to thank her for everything.
So I thought I'd leave her a letter telling her all this. I could leave it in her room and go away.
Okay. I went to her room and grabbed a sheet of paper and a pencil from her desk. I sat down and… I didn't know how to start, so I first wrote down everything I wanted to tell her and then I could organize it later.
"I'm sorry."
"Thank you for not being afraid of me."
"Thank you for treating me like I'm your equal."
"I'm sorry for hitting you and yelling at you."
"I'm sorry for teaching you how to steal and kidnap."
"I'm sorry for teaching you my bad habits."
"Forgive me for not having the balls to tell you all this to your face."
"Thank you for putting up with me for so long."
"Please don't look for me; you deserve better."
"I couldn't have been luckier to have met you."
"I hope you find someone like that someday."
"I really enjoyed watching the sea for the first time."
"If I had known beforehand that it was best to leave your life, I would have asked you to go skiing again or ride a coaster."
"When I'm with you, nothing else matters."
"You gave me a life I never thought I'd live."
"I've had bad luck my whole life, but meeting you made it all worthwhile."
"Thank you for being the first person who truly loved me."
"Thank you for seeing me as a person and not as a worthless, pathetic criminal. For a moment, I could see myself like that too."
"I'm sorry for not being someone who doesn't hurt you in one way or another."
"You and I are from different worlds. I don't deserve to be in your world, and mine won't bring you anything good."
"Forgive me for being an idiot who only knows how to cause harm."
"I'm sorry for ruining you."
"Forgive me for thinking I deserved you."
"Thank you for being my friend."
"I'll never forget you."
"Goodbye."
"And thank you."
I don't remember if I wrote anything else, but I do remember that I stopped writing after a while. I took out my phone, and looked through the photos Katya had sent me throughout the trip. When we went skiing, before we were banned from Big Flags, at the New Year's party, at the beach house while I was looking at the ocean (I didn't realize when she took that one), at the club I destroyed—she was always smiling, and I was just very serious in the first few, but little by little I started smiling more. In the last one, the one from the club, we were both laughing.
I wish I hadn't had to leave her, but she was only going to suffer if she kept being with a criminal like me.
But then I could just stop being one. Maybe my gang and all the others even thought I was dead. Since I left with Katya, I haven't contacted anyone.
I could start from scratch and make a new life.
Maybe we could go to another city where nobody knew me or Death. When I was a kid, I wanted to travel the world teaching magic. Or I could do a lot of things with magic besides kill people. I was much better than that. I could take any idiot's job; I'd made Death the most powerful gang in the country. Us and ash controlled almost everything.
I kept thinking about all of that, but suddenly I heard a scream coming from the garage. I could feel Katya's aura and someone else's there. I dropped the letter on the desk and ran over.
In the garage, I found Katya gagging a girl who was tied to a chair. She was crying and trying to get free. I had seen her before, but I couldn't remember where.
Katya gagged her and hit her in the face. Katya was crying too.
"This bitch was fucking with my boyfriend!" she told me and slapped her. That other girl was screaming and crying.
"And where is he?" I asked 'cause he probably had seen Katya kidnap someone, and if he did see it, then we had to catch him before he spilled the beans.
"He's gone, but fuck him," Katya said, then opened the trunk of the SUV and took out the lug wrench. She walked over to this girl, held up the wrench, and I ran over and stopped her.
"You're not like this," I told her.
"Leave me alone!" she yelled, hitting me in the chest with her free hand. "You're a fucking hypocrite! You've dome much worse things!"
"Give me the wrench," I asked her.
"Or what?! You gonna hit me again?! Do it, hit me again, you shitty thug, that's all you know how to do!"
"I'm so sorry."
"Why are you defending her?! I always helped you in everything! Why don't you help me?! What did I ever do to you?!"
Katya didn't tied this girl to the chair very well, so she was able to get herself free and ran to the electric door, flip the switch, and open it. I went to grab this girl, but she slid under the door as it opened and started running as fast as she could. I followed her and watched her get away. She took the rag out of her mouth and screamed:
"HELP! HEL—I threw a spell right at the back of her neck, and she fell dead to the ground. I ran to where she was. There were bloodstains on the street and the sidewalk. I used small spells to make holes so no one would see the blood anymore. Maybe I should have cast a spell that would paralyze her or some other one that wouldn't leave any traces, but I didn't think at the time.
I took off my jacket and held it to the wound, so the blood stopped spilling. I looked around, and everything was dark and silent. Dawn was just breaking, and it didn't seem like anyone had woken up.
I carried the body and came back to the house as quickly and quietly as possible so no one would see me. Katya was no longer in the garage. Well, I closed the electric door so no one would see us. It came down slowly and loudly. Then I opened one of the SUV's back doors and laid the body on the seats. That's when I saw her face more closely and recognized her. She was Olivia, Dipshet's daughter.
Whatever, what I had to do at that moment was find Katya's boyfriend before he spilled the beans and get rid of Olivia's body. Easy. When Dipshet found out, I'd take the blame and kill him and then disappear. If the government, Herobert, and all the gangs chased me to the end of the earth, that was fine by me.
I closed the door and the trunk.
"What is this?" Katya came to the garage bringing the letter I had left in her room. "What did I do to you?"
"I'm sorry."
"Go on. Go back with your shitty gang. No one there cares about you anyway. But you knew about that, right?"
I walked towards the SUV's front door.
"If you leave, you'll never see me again."
That was the idea.
I opened the door and tried to get in, but Katya ran towards me, grabbed my arm and started pulling me out.
"No, no, wait, I'm sorry! I'm sorry for everything!"
She hugged me tightly.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I'll never yell at you again, but don't go! Not you!"
She grabbed my face and tried to kiss me, but I pushed her away.
She hugged me again.
"You're the only one who doesn't want to take advantage of me! You're the only one who cares about me! I'll stop going to clubs, I'll do whatever you want but stay with me!"
She buried her head in my chest.
"I need you," she cried.
Seconds passed.
Go away, Miguel.
Just go.
Leave her there.
Tell her to go back inside.
At least do something right in your fucking life.
You were always the problem.
Everyone who knows you ends up suffering.
Your parents, your school friends, Darius, no one who knew you ended up well.
"Ok," in the end I didn't have the balls to leave. "Let's go."
She looked at me with her all-red eyes and smiled like I had never seen her smile before and hugged me.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you! I won't yell at you anymore and I'll behave, you'll see! We won't fight or yell or anything anymore!" She then let go of me and ran to get into the passenger seat.
I got into the SUV, pressed the garage door button, and it started to slowly go up.
"But don't scare me again with you leaving, ok?" she told me.
And that's when I realized: as soon as the door opened the garage door, I saw the feet of a few people outside. I hadn't noticed their auras before 'cause I was so distracted by all this Katya thing. There were about fifteen of them.
"What's that smell? What's on the back?" Katya came very close to me, put a hand on my face, and pushed me. She positioned herself between the two seats, turned around and looked at Olivia's dead body.
The garage door kept opening, and I saw those people approaching. They came in black SUVs, and they were all wearing black suits. I didn't recognize their auras, but I knew they were my men. I grabbed Katya to push her down and gathered a little bit of magic to create a shield, but in that split second, the first bullet hit the windshield.
And the second one.
And the third one and many others. At the time Katya and I were crouching in our seats, all we could hear were gunshots. I hugged Katya as tightly as I could and concentrated hard to keep the shield from breaking.
They kept firing and slowly approached us. Their auras were pretty weak, so I just had to wait until they ran out of bullets to hit them back.
But then I felt something on my arm and looked down. My glove and my entire sleeve were covered in blood, and not only that: Katya's hair was also stained, especially at the nape of her neck.
"KATYA!"
She wasn't moving. I stopped hugging her and looked into her eyes.
"KATYA! KATYA!" I shouted, even though I had seen that hollow stare countless times.
And I didn't feel her aura anymore.
You killed her.
I hugged her as tightly as she had hugged me a minute ago. I felt the back of her neck, and immediately found the bullet hole.
That bullet was for you. You were supposed to die, not her.
"KATYA, PLEASE DON'T DIE!"
Why you crying, you fucking pussy? You knew that nothing good could happen to her if she was with you, and yet you stayed.
"PLEASE, YOU FUCKING BRAT, PLEASE, PLEASE! STAY WITH ME!"
You could have made a shield the moment you saw those people, but you did nothing.
You could have killed them all, but you did nothing.
You let this happen.
But at that moment I thought there must be a spell that can bring people back to life. Magic can do anything. Magic has always been able to do anything.
You know that spell doesn't exist. You killed her, and you can't undo it.
You wanted to get away from her, and you did.
There's no going back. You'll never be with her again.
No, there must be a spell or something that powerful, something like the power of friendship. Yes, maybe the power of friendship can save her—it's the greatest power there is.
But you were never her friend; if you had been, you would have left her alone.
Even so, I only used a little bit of magic for the shield and everything else to heal her.
Death gave you everything you had, but you knew that sooner or later it would take it all away.
In the criminal world, your enemies will find you and your allies will betray you.
And yet you still let your guard down.
But no matter how much magic I used, her wounds wouldn't heal. I used more and more magic, all I could, but she just stayed the same, and I used more and more magic, and I felt the shield slowly cracking, and those sons of bitches were already surrounding the SUV and shooting at us or hitting the shield, and Katya just wouldn't revive…
You wanted to protect her so much, and look what you did to her. Where's your power of friendship? Where's the Dark who could take on anyone and everything, who was going to destroy Herobert with the power of friendship?
He would have saved her, and if he'd seen you with her, he would have pulled her away from you.
He's the hero for a reason, and you, the villain.
The shield was cracking more and more, and I kept using all the magic I could to heal her, but it was no use. I tried and tried, but if I had the power of friendship, even just a little, I could revive her. Magic can do anything; otherwise, what was the point of all those fucking years of practicing it? What good were all those fucking spells? What was the point of being in those gangs, in all that crime, if in the end I was left with nothing?
Your life has always been a waste. Ever since you were a child, you've always been a burden.
The shield finally shattered. I moved Katya aside, and those fucking assholes pointed their guns at me and started shooting, but I barely felt the bullets, and I kept using all the magic I could to revive her. It didn't matter if I died, as long as she lived; that I'd finally do something useful.
If you want to die so badly, die then, but you know that even if you die, you wo''t go to the same place as her.
You'll never see her again.
You'll never hear her voice again.
Say goodbye to her.
I collapsed to the SUV's floor, and though I could barely move, I stretched out both arms toward her and used all my power to revive her. I couldn't die there, I couldn't fail now. I was Dark, damn it! I had built an empire from nothing, I had risen from poverty, I was the most powerful magician in the world, and if Herobert could use the power of friendship, I could even revive the dead and travel through time and do whatever the hell I wanted! Katya wasn't going to die here! Katya couldn't die!
And I screamed with all my might and unleashed every ounce of power I could muster, and it was so much that I just couldn't control it.
I barely remember what happened after that.