Shadow Taking Over

7- Forbidden meeting

"I'm not repeating myself, Red," Pearl snapped.

"I know what it looks like, but I promise it's the real me. Lance.. he transformed me. Please, I need to see Tanner." Eve rose her hands in peace.

"Oh, I see," Pearl sneered. "So Lance sent you here, huh?"

"No!"

"Why don't I send you back to your Master," Pearl grinned.

An electric current coursed through Eve's limbs. Momentarily stunned, she couldn't make a break for it. Eve realized that the paralyzing sting had originated Pearl. Pearl closed the lengthy distance between them with one pounce. Several tendrils whipped through the tears in the back of her shirt. Eve provided Pearl with a cushioned landing. She threw her hands up to fight back, but the tendrils snapped onto her lower arms. Though she fought against the grip, Pearl clearly was much stronger than her in a fight. Using human hands, Pearl shoved Eve's torso down. Whip lash caught her in a painful frenzy.

Fire ignited the skin of her palm. She snapped her wrist upward to grasp each tendril. Flames scorched the sleek surface. Pearl cried out at the sudden infliction. The tendrils retracted halfway. Eve brought her arms together and centered a small burst of fire at Pearl's chest. She flailed off of Eve, cowering against the back of the couch with her tendrils as a shield. Sloppily, Eve clambered to stand. Pearl was faster to regain herself. Again, she pounced, aiming for her opponent's gut. They collided and toppled over. Eve never impacted the floor. She phased naturally onto it as she had on her way here. The sight of Pearl laying flat projected above her. Pearl used her tendrils to gather her footing.

"Oh c'mon now, that's cheating," Pearl sneered.

Her eyes scanned the room for where the imposter vanished to. Something in the connecting hallway caught her eye, momentarily distracting her. Eve took this window of opportunity to crawl out of the shadow behind her. With a swift kick to the back, Pearl collapsed forward. She landed hard on her hands and knees and had to take a moment to gather her breath. Satisfied the apparent danger had ceased, Eve dropped her hands to her sides.

"Pearl," Eve pleaded, "please, it is me. I'm not an imposter, and I am certainly not a servant of my father. He betrayed me, he hurt me. I would never serve him."

Pearl weighed her options. Kill her or believe her. Currently, her opposer had the upper hand. She could have struck her down ages ago, but instead she had a little monologue of nonsense. People lie to get what they want, fact of life. Pearl learned that lesson the not-so-easy way. Something about her seemed right though, but at the same time very wrong. Like a greater evil lurked within the innocent individual, waiting to emerge when the time was right. Pearl thought, she probably doesn't even know it. A certain dose of evil is buried inside every being, however it is a test of true strength whether they take the hit or keep it silenced. If what this supposed Eve spoke the truth, it meant that Lance had unlocked that evil and threw away the key.

But for now, Pearl felt she could allow a pinch of trust between them.

Two of her hind tendrils supported her so she could stand. Eve moved to help, only to have her wrist slapped by a free whip. The message was clear, Eve backed off. Pearl gathered strength back into her legs, rolled her shoulders and stroked the crisp patches where she had been burned. She sucked her teeth and sneered.

"Eve would never harm another being," Pearl commented. An insult came after that, but it was barely audible.

"You attacked first," Eve retorted gently.

The hands of the clock interlocked at the twelve. Lance would be back in the late evening, she hoped. Regardless, this had to speed along.

"Waiting for something?" Pearl asked not out of curiosity but out of suspicion.

"Lance is going to be home soon. If I'm not back before he is, the punishment would be.." she let her words dangle on the air. From the look on Pearl's face, she knew all too well. "I need to see Tanner."

"You've been dead- .. gone for awhile now. It has been Hell on my brother. You coming back randomly is going to add lemon to the cut."

"You.. you don't know that." Eve held herself with a doubtful frown.

Grabbing ahold of her forearm, Pearl led Eve towards the door. Eve did not resist because Pearl was right. Tanner didn't need to see her like this. With new abilities arising every day, each more deadly than the last, Eve was a danger to not only society, but to Tanner as well. There would come a day when she could master whatever horrors rested within her. But today was not that day. Right now, Eve had 'hazardous' tattooed all along her body telling everyone she loved to stay away. An eerie chill trickled down her spine. Tanner..

A tendril slipped over her shoulder to open the door. The fiery sunset drained into the living space, casting a slender silhouette behind Pearl. Eve glanced and found an anomaly. She did not possess a shadow. She was a lone shadow.

"You're gonna wanna hurry up so Lance doesn't catch you." Pearl ushered her out.

Eve nodded and stepped down the stairs miserably. Two dark shapes curled onto her shoulder, as though they were saying, "It's okay. You still have us." This provided some comfort on this awful day.

"Hey, Eve," Pearl called out. "Come back in a month, and I'll consider letting you meet him."

A chance. Her emotions skyrocketed. Eve beamed at Pearl. She took one step onto the shadow of the house, her foot passing through the barrier. With one last look at the home she so desperately wanted to escape to, Eve was gone.