Psychopathy

Chapter 19- The Other

Her fingertip was bleeding. Red, viscous blood was running down her finger, and Isabel tilted her head, studying it intensely. The devil hadn't been at all unnerved by her new appearance. In fact, he had loved it. He had told her that it proved she was settling in nicely as the queen of hell. He had told her that it meant she was ready to start taking on her duties as queen. He had told her that it proved she was becoming his, truly and fully. Except she wasn't. Several times when he had come for her, she had used her claws and fangs to try and attack him. But he'd gotten the best of her, every single time.

So now she was trying to come up with some way to beat him. She'd wondered if her horns were as sharp as they looked, and she had barely had to press her fingertip onto one before her skin broke. She wondered if she could use that somehow. So as she watched the blood drip from her fingertip, she began to formulate a plan.

That was, until she heard a voice calling her. She looked up from her fingertip and looked around the horizon. The devil was nowhere to be found. But the voice didn't sound like him. It didn't sound like the devil or a demon calling her to fulfill one of her new duties. No, the voice was soft, and sweet, and almost... feminine? But that wasn't possible. The king took care of any issues regarding female damned.

But then she heard the voice again, a little louder this time. It was definitely feminine, and it almost sounded like it was coming from the lake. She didn't have any duties to attend to at the moment, so she supposed she could take a little trip down to the lake. If anything, it would be nice to stretch her legs, especially since she didn't have that damned shackle on her anymore. Shame on him for assuming that she was so subservient to him to not try to escape.

And if he found her, she'd just say she was taking a little field trip around her new realm. Getting the feel of it. Hopefully he'd believe her.

She kneeled down by the lake and looked at the boiling red water that she'd come to know so well. So well, in fact, that she was able to turn it to regular with just a passing thought. She tilted her head, wondering what she was supposed to see. She heard the voice again, and it was coming from the water. She put her fingers in the water, and only jumped slightly when something brushed against her fingers.

She pulled her hand out of the water just to see a figure start to appear in the water. The image finally settled, and Isabel was surprised to see that the image was of a woman. A woman with long chestnut hair and amber eyes stared back at her, smiling slightly. But Isabel didn't recognize her, despite something wiggling in the back of her mind that told her she should.

"Who are ye? What do ye want?" she asked in a growl. Since the transformation, her voice had become lower and had attained a harsh edge to it.

"Who am I? Ye don't know?" the other woman asked, smiling slightly. She was familiar, sure, but Isabel still didn't know exactly who she was. Maybe she knew her in a past life. Maybe it was someone she used to know, but this image was from before she knew them. That idea had some merit to it. Despite the familiarity of the woman, Isabel felt like something was missing from the image.

"No, I don't."

"Have ye really lost yerself so much that ye don't even recognize yerself anymore?"

************

"NO!" Reid shot out of bed, breathing heavily, covered in a thin layer of cold sweat. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to calm his racing heart.

It was just a nightmare. Just a nightmare. But in the moment, it had felt real. It always felt real. Every single time he had that damned nightmare, it felt so real that he felt his heart drop in his chest every time he woke up. He felt everything shatter as the grief of Ciara's death hit him hard and fast.