Bounty Hunter [REWRITTEN VERSION]

Chapter 68: You Die, I Kill You

Chapter Summary; Alec doesn't know the difference between being alive vs being in Hell. Maize takes out her rage. We see our lovely Ri—Ryder return after all the action.

ALEC

They say when you die, the transition to heaven is peaceful, as your last experience in this world. Not that he had particularly thought about it a lot in his lifetime, but Alec had always imagined that peaceful transition as something blissful—fading into soft light or a calm river carrying your soul away to wherever it was all living things ended up when they died.

Bullshit.

His was nothing like that.

The moment he returned—or rather, more accurately described; was thrown back into consciousness—the only thing he felt was a pounding headache and a numb pain in his chest that made breathing feel like torture. He resisted the urge to groan, not that resisting much of a difference seeing how he wasn't sure anything in his body was responding to him. He couldn't decide whether or not everything hurt or everything felt utterly numb. This was no heaven.

Oh great, Alec thought within his consciousness, that meant he was probably in Hell. The only other alternative.

Damn...had he really been that bad in his life? Hard blow. He would have thought at least bringing down an arsenal of criminals, gangsters and murderers would have at least put him on the good side. Oh well. Perhaps Hell wasn't really that bad...he could probably learn to live with it.

Poor choice of words considering he was dead.

Right?

Well, time to see those fiery chambers, flaming pools of lava and throne of the devil...maybe I can bargain to claim his job once a week...He entertained the thought only half-jokingly as he ignored the pulse in his head blaring at him and squinted his eyes to force them slowly open against the blinding yellow light directly over his face. He found himself blinking in confusion as his vision properly worked itself into focus, only to find himself staring straight up at...

A blank, white ceiling.

This was hell?

To say the least...Alec was not impressed. Light blue curtains, white walls, stuffy size—his entrance into Hell looked like a bland hospital room. Underwhelming, to say the least. He had been expecting...well, he wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting. But it wasn't this.

When the conscious feeling of his limbs began to return to his body, the first thing Alec tried to do was move. Unwise mistake—even the slight attempt to bring his chest up sent a flare of pain through his still waking body. He remembered why, faintly recalling how he had been shot, but he really would have thought being dead and all would have removed the pain. Or maybe Hell-goers didn't get that luxury.

Talk about terrible customer experience.

It also seemed his movements had disturbed something at his side. Knowing he wasn't going to try and sit up again right away, Alec settled from turning his head to the side to look. He blatantly became aware that the odd resistance against his right hand was not unresponsiveness but rather, the culprit being detained by someone else's grasp. The head of long light-reflective black hair was forehead down against the side of the gentle mattress he realized he was laying on, and with his slightest movement, the head raised off the bed, for him to see a pair of amber coloured eyes he would know anywhere.