Author's Note: Finally, I can upload my stories again. After a bloody day of the same error message.
At any rate, dark, angsty stuff within with no happy ending. You don't like it, don't read. Get it? Got it? Good.
Jimmy Neutron belongs to other peeps, not me.
Traitor's Kiss
Betrayal. The word held a bitter sting to the ears and resonated cruelly in the heart. Were Jimmy Neutron uninhibited by its clutches, he'd shrug it off and return to his inventions. Lamentably, scientific constructs were a thing of the past because he had no future. Cindy had misguided him yet again, only this time, she planned to end it, utilizing a weapon of destruction he himself designed. Ironic, that science had given him reason for life and now, provided its finale.
Spitting up blood, the teenager nursed a gaping chest wound, mere centimeters from his heart. Blood soaked his t-shirt and if he pressed his hand against the gash, it'd become as stained as his shirt. Never before had he seen so much blood and all of it his. Simply conjecturing on how much he'd lost caused his head to swim. If he were in full possession of his faculties, he could tell himself the lethal amount, but right now, he focused on surviving his travail through the tropical forest. Snakes hissed threateningly, one snapping its jaws at his feet. The entire island knew he was marked for dead.
Stumbling a few feet, he fought the bile rising in his throat; he'd already retched a few times, the last dry heaving. His head and heart ached; his body yearned for release into the next life, a displeasure he would deny it until absolutely necessary. Despite his imminent death looming above his head like a sharpened axe, he refused to submit to it. Once he achieved his final task, he'd let the Grim Reaper perform his duty.
Already, the sands in his hourglass trickled away and its impact echoed in his ears. In a few hours, he would die thanks to Cindy. In a few hours, he would be another body carried out to sea. Every breath he struggled to intake would cease. Every beat his heart scarcely took would stop. All his work, all his endeavors would be for naught.
No one but Eustace Strich and Cindy knew where he was. She'd warned him not to alert anyone else, including Carl, Sheen, and Goddard. In fact, he'd stripped the watch off ere directing the hover craft here. No one had any way to track him or verify his location. No one would know what occurred here but them. No one would know how Eustace hunted him like an animal and Cindy aided him. He'd die alone, cursing her name.
How could he have been so foolish? Moreover, why had he let her bewitch him into falling in love with her? She'd never cared for him; only power and revenge. Why else would she accost Eustace in his destruction?
Yesterday, she'd lured him here by promising a day together, like they had the first time three years ago. Wrapped in each other's embrace, they would hold hands under the stars and ignore society's limitations. After a stressful week, he'd acquiesced immediately and they hurriedly arranged the time and preparations. He'd slept with dreams of her kisses and awoke, blissfully unaware of what awaited him. Nonetheless, the treachery became apparent and her tongue coursing his lips transgressed into her salt licking his wounds. He wished he could despise her, because that would appease an emotional pain powerful enough to become physical; his broken heart. Anything to diminish the ache, but he could no sooner stop loving her than surrender cowardly. Despite her duplicity, he cared deeply for her and would unto death. At the moment, he was uncertain which troubled him more- his reaction, her actions, or his physical anguish.
Cradling his broken arm, received after Strich's misappropriated machine knocked him twenty feet to the ground, he swallowed the lump in his throat. A mere hour ago, he'd been challenged and, when he argued vehemently against his defeat, Eustace had laughed and stepped aside, revealing his beautiful Cindy. Snickering at Jimmy's expression, he kissed her soundly on the lips and his machine kicked him off the cliff and landing hard on his right arm. There'd been an audible crack, but Jimmy hadn't needed the crack to tell him the obvious.
At least, he'd assured himself, his legs were intact. Well, relatively intact. His right leg limped along thanks to Eustace nearly gouging it out with the spiked 'feet' on his contraption. Whatever drove him to desire his utter annihilation, Strich had certainly gone out of his way to enable it. The leg, however, was a flesh wound and nothing more. It hurt horrifically, like claws constantly raking him.
Oblivion entreated him, but he forced himself forward. A solitary tear streaked his pallid cheeks.
"Cindy, how could you?" he whispered, voice cracking as he fought to maintain his composure. His foot struck a rock and he flailed, nearly smacking into the hard packed soil. Just a few more feet and he'd be on the beach. A few more and he'd reach his destination. Beyond that, nothing mattered.
The savannah ended abruptly and he stumbled again, eyes watering. Rubbing them with his good hand, he ignored the irony that the very place he'd considered sanctuary with Cindy became his gravesite. He recalled assembling the treehouses with her and the many times their hands accidentally brushed during it. Such an innocent act and now, tainted like everything else. If he conjectured on their history, he doubted the words she spoke, the kisses she gave, her body against his and her thoughts regarding it. Nothing was sacred anymore.
Were Eustace and Cindy romantically involved? Was that why she had betrayed him? Had she ever loved Jimmy? Had she cheated on him while they dated? When she kissed him, had she been thinking of Eustace instead? Had he stolen her heart and he received the booby prize? Did she have one or had she feigned that too?
Was their past a mere façade? Had he been too thick to see through her veneer? How long had she successfully deceived him? Had she planned to murder him years in advance? How could she be so heartless?
Did he mean anything to her at all?
Whimpering her name, he steeled himself for his demise. Facing his mortality petrified him, but what choice had Eustace afforded him? If he avoided confrontation now, he'd perish anyway. Dying fighting was the only luxury remaining and if it meant forcing himself to endure more torture before then, so be it. At least then he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of an unimpeded victory. They didn't deserve it.
He would say one thing, though- dying hurt like hell. The gaping wound near his heart ensured that. Coughing wracked his frame and he spat out blood. It pooled in a small hole in the sand and a few droplets joined the collection.
"Jimmy…" his name, whispered on the salty breeze. A perfect combination; Cindy and sodium chloride.
"I'm so sorry…"
He yearned to laugh, but like the coughing, understood it would do more harm than good. Was her confession a hallucination wrought by his dulled senses and last wishes? Or the truth, arriving far too late to aid him? Illusion or reality? Love or rivalry? Lover or foe?
"I love you…"
Despite himself, a mad bark of laughter escaped, one he paid for dearly. Blood speckled his lips and the sand below. His throat burned and the colors blended into one. Blinking furiously, they righted themselves, but the tears he banished surfaced momentarily. Had she any idea how much she'd hurt him? Were her words empty? Was Eustace operating her like a ventriloquist and a puppet? Speak, dummy, speak.
"Do you?" he whispered. "Do you know what love is, Cindy?"
Vision blurring, he spotted a faint yellow, her illustrious hair, and barely noticed her wave urgently. Probably to command Strich to finish me off…
Snapping an inaudible order at Eustace (Jimmy's stomach lurched unpleasantly), she leapt off the ladder midway and darted to his side. Yearning to have a weapon at hand, anything at all to fend her off, his knees buckled and he crumpled face first into the sand. It mingled with the open sore and he bit his lip to prevent an anguished scream. When would it be over? How much longer?
Warm breath on his neck caused him to roll onto his back. Cindy's eyes shone with tears, sprinkling his ruined shirt and choking her speech. Cradling him to her chest, she wept openly, and he wished he had the strength to shove her away. He didn't want her pity or remorse. Not now. Not when she was the culprit. Begone, wench.
"You have to understand…" she whimpered and he focused on her voice. It was all that kept him tethered to this world.
"Enough!" Eustace cried, landing on the sand a dozen yards away. She paled, clutching Jimmy tighter and kissing his forehead.
"I never meant for this to happen. I thought…I didn't…oh, Jimmy…" she sobbed, pressing her face into his shoulder.
"You failed me," Eustace snapped, slamming her into the shoreline. She spun and landed on her knees.
"I told you to fetch me the plans for his latest design and you refuse. I tell you to kill him and you botch that, too. What use do I have of you?"
Words, idle and meaningless, floated by Jimmy's head. Distantly, he thought he comprehended Cindy had not intended to cross him. He opened his eyes to survey the scene, but they were too heavy. He heard footfalls and Cindy's hand on his arm, but Eustace shoved her into the water. There was an indignant cough, a muttered threat, and, then, silence. The cold metal of a gun pressed against his temple.
"You said…you said if I worked with you once more, you'd abandon your homicidal tendencies towards him," Cindy squeaked, a shadow of her former self.
"You said…you said you wouldn't hurt him!"
"I lied," Eustace retorted, smirking. "Did you expect any different?"
"Let me take him back to Retroville in the hover craft," Cindy begged. "If we return swiftly, they can save him. Please, Eustace…please. I love him."
"I don't think so. He's beyond redemption."
Shifting her attention to Jimmy, she pleaded, "Get up. Fight him. Do something."
Before he could hope to reply, hot metal lodged itself in his brain. His last perception was Cindy sobbing hopelessly.
"Why don't you give him one last kiss?" Eustace snickered and, punching him hard in the stomach, she did as he commanded.
He's still warm, she thought and brushed her lips against his. A traitor's kiss.