My Beloved, Whom I Desire to Kill - 322

-Damn it, hold on tight.

Still unsure of what she was allowed to grab, Giselle grabbed Lorenz’s shoulder.

The gun barrels below spat fire. Simultaneously, the pilot cranked the nose sharply to the upper right. The shell, unable to follow the altered trajectory, exploded in the air within the valley they would have passed through.

Machine gun fire rained down beneath their feet, barely evading the artillery. The nose lifted again, and the propellers spun fiercely. Just as they skillfully slipped out of the anti-aircraft range, they faced the next gun position.

Piercing through the sound of the shelling, the sharp whirring of the propellers, the distorted groan of the fuselage fighting air resistance, and the staccato of machine gun fire, a voice mixed with static clearly hammered into Giselle’s ears.

-This goddamn Constance brand fatty.

He continuously hurled curses at the large, heavy, and slow boat in the sky. He had claimed to have learned aerobatics only on nimble fighter jets.

His words suggested he was a novice pilot caught in a bind, but his hands knew exactly what to do, pulling the control yoke and flipping countless levers without hesitation.

In the end, Lorenz managed to evade all the artillery fire even with this fat, slow plane. There might be burning holes somewhere Giselle couldn’t see, but the seaplane was flying intact for now.

Moreover, Giselle hadn’t been perforated either. Although her body was scrunched and wedged into the seat as the plane pitched and rolled like a roller coaster.

She survived.

-Are you alright?

The pilot checked Giselle’s condition, feeling for her with one hand while his gaze remained serious and intently focused on the front, his brow deeply furrowed.

—I’m alive.

The man’s tense eyes relaxed, curving into a small, wry smile. In that fleeting moment, a strange emotion ignited a warm fire within Giselle’s chest, making her momentarily hold her breath.

She felt a distance in that composed confidence. She had thought she knew this man best, yet he felt like a stranger. The man who had always acted like a child now seemed bigger than Giselle. This was because the man, who had been a darkness that absorbed the light around him, was now self-luminous.

For the first time, Lorenz was dazzling.

If Lorenz had seen the look in Giselle’s eyes as she gazed at him, he probably wouldn’t have just been pleased; he would have been so consumed by soaring vanity that he’d start another foolish display of bravado, squandering the points he had just barely earned.

However, he was too busy to spare a glance for Giselle. He mumbled curses while turning the radio dial.

-Those worthless bastards who do nothing but breathe are considered human because they were born from someone’s belly onto someone else’s boat.

He implied that he had nearly died because the —worms— at the Birkenbach Dam field headquarters had failed to give even basic notification to the Air Force and the base.

The moment the frequency locked in, he changed his tone and sought the Air Force controller. As the controller’s voice flowed into Giselle’s ear, Lorenz rattled off the situation like a machine gun.

-Transporting a patient in an enemy seaplane. Route is…….

A long string of latitudes and longitudes followed. He seemed to be communicating their flight path and destination.

-Request immediate cessation of anti-aircraft fire and notification that we are landing at the specified base. Also, inform them to have a hospital ready for a patient in urgent need of a blood transfusion.

-We need verification.

-Verify with the Army Field Headquarters at Birkenbach Dam.

-State your rank and name, caller.

-Army Intelligence.

The words he had been spitting out in haste, as if every second counted, were suddenly cut short at the waist. It wasn’t the person on the other end who cut him off. Only when the opposing party prompted him did Lorenz reluctantly append the rest—the part he wanted to deny.

-Colonel Edwin Eccleston.

-Repeat that, please.

The controller sounded as if he hadn’t heard correctly or refused to believe what he heard.

-I am Edwin Eccleston.

The controller in the headphones requested a standby. A short while later, he returned, confirming that verification was complete and that the enemy aircraft they were in would henceforth be treated as friendly.

Respect was evident in the final sign-off, wishing them a safe landing, but the faint whisper that had been repeating like a skipping record for some time refused to stop.

-I am Edwin Eccleston……..

Lorenz had lost his light. Giselle no longer had the strength to pull the man, who was drifting back into the darkness, out again.

Was it just a brief surge of adrenaline? As the excitement subsided, her mind grew hazy. The uncontrollable trembling of her body was surely not just due to the cold high in the sky.

I am dying.

The moment she accepted that death was inevitable, a profound loneliness washed over her. She used the last of her energy to lean toward the man seated next to her. She wanted to rest her head, but as it touched his broad shoulder, it simply tipped over, sliding weakly down his arm.

The man’s broken record refrain stopped abruptly. Lorenz finally remembered Giselle and grabbed her. He pulled back the blanket around her body and turned as pale as the dying woman. Even the seat was now stained with blood.

-We’re almost there. Hold on a little longer.

Giselle’s lips, now cold and blue, parted toward the man who was desperately accelerating and gazing fervently at the southeast, where only forests covered in morning mist stretched out. If she was to leave her last words, it had to be now.

I love you, Edwin.

She regretted not saying it at the moment she felt compelled to. Back then, she’d felt a premonition that Edwin wouldn’t return, but it meant she would be the one unable to say it. Even if she didn’t know the meaning, she should have spoken her heart.

Yet, even at this final moment, when she would never have another chance, she postponed it again.

It was out of fear of becoming a chain around Edwin, who would have to live on without Giselle. Perhaps if she were a bad woman who never once said —I love you— first, he could shake off the memory and move forward.

Or perhaps it was for the sake of the courtesy Edwin cherished. She would be committing one more discourtesy by saying she loved him and thereby erasing Lorenz’s presence.

She didn’t want to kill the heart of the man who was trying his best to save her, not again. There were days she had poured rain-like tears into the storm of anger, hatred, and betrayal that this deceptive man had stirred within her, but on the day of her death, it all became trivial and laughable.

-Look, there’s the base. You can see it, can’t you? Natalia! Don’t fall asleep.

She gazed longingly at Lorenz, who was holding the control yoke with a trembling hand and talking non-stop to keep Giselle awake.

What a pity that your efforts will be for nothing.

The man actually struggled like that constantly, yet he seemed like a lazy parasite living off others. That was because he hid the process of his effort.

He wasn’t trying to act like a genius by suddenly displaying non-existent skill, like a magician pulling a rabbit from an empty hat. He even concealed the process of his efforts to be loved.

Looking at Lorenz’s expression now, she understood. He was afraid. Afraid of what would be left of him when effort, even when proven, yielded no reward: solitude.

Have you ever experienced being rewarded for your effort?

She suddenly felt pity for the man who tried to be loved but wasn’t, and who tried to live but never truly lived.

—Lorenz, I don’t want to die either…….

Giselle suppressed her love for Edwin and spoke of death for Lorenz’s sake.

It was a confession she could never make to Edwin. It wasn’t that she didn’t mind Lorenz suffering in agony over his powerlessness while listening to a dying woman’s plea to live.

She wanted him to know that there was someone who understood his struggle to avoid death. And that if he were to ever lose to Edwin in all those struggles, and only death remained before him, he shouldn’t be too lonely, because she walked this same path.

—Because the moment you lose the only thing you ever loved will be the last memory of your life. I don’t know how much of your life will be left after you kill me, but I hope you won’t be too lonely in my cold embrace.

Lorenz hadn’t killed Giselle that day. He was afraid of her curse. She felt concerned for the man who was cursed even without killing her. Words leave behind regret. This man, who had used words like a curse, now had lost eyes, lost in regret.

-You’re not going to die! Look closely. The base is right there.

Lorenz vehemently denied the reality, turning Giselle’s head forward. The military base, nestled like a bird’s nest on the hills beyond the mountain, was shrouded in mist under the faint morning sun.

Or perhaps the mist had settled only in Giselle’s eyes.

—Hold my hand…….

It was the first time Natalia, terrified, had asked him to hold her hand. She said he was the pillar that kept her from collapsing in fear. Not just Edwin Eccleston.

Any other time, he would have swelled with pride at gaining a place in this woman’s heart alongside that man. But now, he wasn’t sure if it was truly his place. Would anything he believed he achieved ever truly remain associated with his name?

I should crash this plane into the ground right now, holding Natalia’s hand, and we should die together.