For the Hopeless

Chapter 22: The Line Between Humanity and Insanity

Bailey's shriek of pain faded in a sudden, gurgling cough. The devil's power flowed into her, pulsing through her neck like the powerful waves of an orgasm. The raw energy lulled her for a moment, threatened to take her in. Why would anyone deny this power, especially someone who'd been longing for it for so long? Why would anyone pass up this chance to become something to be feared and adored? To be a devil was to be feared and adored, after all, and she hadn't been a real devil for a long, long time. Why had she been fighting this? What was the point of being good when all of this power awaited her for being bad?

A quiet moan escaped her, a wordless plea for more, and the devil let loose an excited cackle. "I knew you would like it!" he cried, and the white-hot energy burning through her veins increased tenfold. She screamed again, but this time, it was a cry of joy instead of pain. She writhed against the wall, her nails digging ineffectually into the cracked cement. It felt so much better when she stopped fighting it...

"Any minute now, Bailey girl," he whispered in her ear, breath hot and reeking of sulfur. "Any minute now, you'll come back to us. Father will be so proud!"

These words put a snag in her acceptance like a rusty nail catching a silk scarf, and the pain returned with a searing heat like lava flowing through her body. She grunted in agony, but through her pain, she realized with horror what was happening to her. She was becoming like him, like every devil before him and beside him. She was becoming everything she'd been fighting for the past few decades.

The power felt good, yes, amazing, even, but was it worth it? She would be strong and imposing, powerful and tyrannical, but what good would that do her? She was never meant to be that way. She was never meant to be what nature had dictated. She had friends, now, some sort of family – people to love and protect. She had a world to save – race upon race to rescue from the humans. To give in now would be to give up on everything she'd won through her anti-devil lifestyle. To give in now would mean the destruction of the Novie who could not protect themselves.

And she'd never been one to give in.

A hard palm to the chest sent the devil sailing backward through the air, his fingers tearing from her neck to elicit a ragged cry from her raw, dry throat. Blood gushed from the fresh, gaping holes, and she fell to her knees on the floor as the devil's shoulder slammed into the cement several yards away. He slid until his body collided with that of a dead human male, and he sneered down at the corpse for a moment before turning his disdainful gaze to her.

"What is it you're trying to cling to in this world of yours?" he asked harshly as he got to his feet. "What is it that makes you reject me so?" His arm hung limply at his side, his shoulder broken or dislocated – she wasn't sure which – where it had hit the floor. Shouldn't it have been healing, though? She stared at it for a moment, but nothing changed. Had he lent so much of his power to her that he could no longer heal his own wounds? She frowned. His dedication to her was flattering; his ignorance of her true character was not.

"I'm not meant to be like you," she told him confidently, crawling her way to her feet with the help of the wall. She clamped a hand over the blood-spewing holes in her throat, and she could feel them slowly closing against her fingers. "I'm not my father's daughter; I don't think I was ever supposed to be."

"Nonsense!" he shouted, manic laughter adding a sharp edge to his voice. "You're a devil, and all devils are meant to be as I am."

She shook her head. "Not me," she told him, gently prodding her injuries to find them all fully healed. She straightened, her stance becoming more rigid, more imposing, her body positively oozing power as she scowled down at him. "Now, under different circumstances, I would have given you the choice to leave my life forever, but after that stunt you pulled, I have no choice but to kill you." Her tone was grim, her expression grimmer. He'd helped her so much before now; shouldn't that have meant something? But it couldn't mean anything. Not after he'd tried to take the precious gift that was her own sanity from her.