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Thick, black oil oozed from the felled drone’s wounds like a constant river, tarnishing the otherwise pristine snow around her. It pooled around Doll’s boot and soaked into the ground, its residual heat enough to melt the snow around it. Doll looked at V. She did not look back. Her gaze was towards the ground, supported by a trembling, barely standing elbow as her other arm clutched the gaping wound across her midsection, trying futilely to stifle the gushing flow of fluid. Her hair surrounding her face just about covered a pained grimace.
Doll took a step forward. Her boot squelched in the cooling oil and crunched through the snow. She knelt down so the two of them were now at eye level, or they would be if V would just look back at her. Even in defeat, she stubbornly refused to grant Doll this one little thing; she knew it was infuriating to her, even if she didn’t show it. They’d been fighting long enough by now that they knew each other in a way and on such a deep level unique to, and perhaps understandable solely by, them.
Squeezing the knife in her hand, Doll raised it slowly until the tip was just barely pressed against the bottom of V’s chin. Its sharp point grazed the plastic shell, leaving a thin mark in the splattered oil and mud that had dried and formed a sort of crust.
Doll took a deep breath in. “[Look at me,]” she said, releasing it. Her voice, low-pitched and almost silent, trembled. Even as she lightly pressed upwards, V’s head did not budge. Doll’s crimson brow curved down, her jaw tensed.
V’s hand in the snow clenched into a weak fist, shaking. Mustering what little strength she had left, she managed to shake her head and gasp out a single word. “Why…?”
Doll tilted the knife upwards, beginning to pierce the surface just enough to make V wince. Still, she did not budge. “[Look at me,]” she repeated, louder. Again, V stayed motionless.
“Why…” V mumbled. She coughed up a large glob of oil, spitting it out onto the snow as she gasped and sputtered. “Why… should I?” she said. In the corner of her face that was unobscured to Doll, she could see the faint glint of a fang. She was smiling. “You’ve… already won. You’re gonna… you’re gonna kill me anyways,” she continued. A tiny, almost inaudible hint of a feeble giggle crept into her voice. “Like hell I’ll let a worker drone have the last laugh.”
Doll glared at her for a moment. She took a long, deep breath in and held it for a second before releasing it just as slowly. “[I want to look you in the eyes one last time. You took everything from me; let my face be the last one you see.]”
V managed a weak, bitter snort. “Make me.”
Doll’s other hand roughly grabbed the back of V’s head. She gripped her hair and tugged down, finally forcing V to look at her. Her eyes were hardly open but her mouth, despite being wracked with pain, was curved up in a shaky, sardonic smile. Doll turned her head just slightly, gliding the tip of her knife down V’s body until it rested over her core. “[I hate you so much, V,]” she hissed.
Slowly, Doll pushed the knife into the glass coating that protected V’s core. It cracked and creaked as the blade was pressed deeper. V’s breathing became shallower as the pain became more intense. The cracks grew wider. The resistance grew tougher. V braced for what she thought was the inevitable. She closed her eyes and waited for the void to embrace her.
But then the knife ceased to go any deeper. Doll weakened her grip on V’s head and eventually released it, allowing her hand to fall down into the snow beneath them. When Doll’s hand on the knife started to tremble, V looked at her and her eyes immediately widened.
Doll’s head was angled straight down so her face was fully obscured. Her entire body was wracked with faint, consistent tremors as she dropped the knife, resting both hands on the floor.
V’s previous anger and defiance were all but washed away, replaced with confusion. She raised an eyebrow. Her gaze moved to the knife now lying in the snow and puddles of oil and then back to Doll’s head. “...What are you….”
Doll was silent. She breathed in, visibly heaving and jolting.
V’s head fell limp again. Her voice grew more intense, at least as much as she could manage. “Just get it over with already… do what you’re gonna do… why are you-”
“[I can’t.]”
Doll’s voice was barely even a mumble. V wasn’t even sure how she heard it; it would have easily blended in with the whistling of the gentle breeze.
Through gritted teeth, Doll sucked in a sharp breath as she weakly pounded the ground with her fist a few times.
She’d been planning, waiting, fighting for this moment for so long, for the chance to finally strike down this monster, finally have closure, finally have her revenge.
And she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Her lip trembled.
This whole… thing had eaten up so much of her life for the last few years. So much planning, so much sacrifice.
Her hands clawed at the snow.
She thought back to her classmates whom she murdered just so she could ambush V at prom.
For a brief moment, she saw her former best friend’s face as she told V to run. As far as she could recall, that was the last time she’d ever seen Lizzy.
She remembered how spectacularly that had failed.
Now, with her parents dead, her former best friend no longer in her life and herself as virtually a pariah, she realised…
“[This is all I have,]” Doll mumbled. V watched as she clambered to her feet and said nothing as she stood over her. Her eyebrows curved upwards and her mouth was open just a little, curved down slightly. She watched Doll take a hesitant step back.
This vendetta was all she had left. With V gone, it would be over.
Doll shook her head and took another step back. Her breathing became inconsistent, her eyes flickered between V’s face and the knife on the floor.
“Wh-where are….” V weakly called out.
Doll shook her head. Her expression became increasingly distressed.
This can’t end yet.
This was all she had left.
V, the one who had ruined everything for her, the one who set her down this path in the first place, was, in some sick way, the only thing she had left. She wasn’t ready to let go yet. The distance between them continued to grow until Doll could hardly hear V’s voice.
“The… sun will be up soon anyways… I won’t be able to heal to find shelter….”
Doll stopped even looking at V.
“...This is… what you want, right? You… want this, don’t you?”
Doll froze. V was right. This is what she wanted.
But she didn’t want it yet.
Can’t it wait just a little longer?