la belle dame sans merci | carlisle cullen

Eighty-One

Minerva didn't even feel it, not like she usually did. Decidedly, that was the worst part. She'd counted heads on her way out of the bar. The music, shaking the walls, drowning out much room for rationale and the alcohol numbing, just for a second, the guilt of it all.

That was just the thing though. Minerva didn't feel bad about killing anyone. She just didn't. It was like brushing her teeth in the morning. As much as she despised fate, didn't they put those poor souls in her path? Wasn't she always meant to be their end? Was there any real difference between her and a heart attack? A car crash? Sickness? No. No, she was just the unexpected twist that fate employed.

It would have been fucking hilarious if it'd happened a week ago. A death touched which walks into a bar with a gas leak.. blah, blah, blah, fucking whatever.

A block away, a roll of her flint, kaboom, rest in peace.
It should have been a hell of an upper. She should have felt like she could. No, it was.. it wasn't right.

She felt it in her bones, the way it was supposed to feel, a warmth that started in the marrow, just at the base of her neck and spread to every ligament, crawling along every joint. It twined along the outside of her veins, slowly sinking in to every cell. The muscles followed, tensing and relaxing like she'd taken a handful of Valium and they'd just hit. Skin, next, goosebumps, tingling up and down her spine. There was nothing like it.

The energy didn't follow. Something so much larger than her that seemed to wrap around her entire being, digging deep into her soul and dragging it back to the surface of her. As quickly as the goosebumps pricked her arms they were settled down by the warm wash of rain, rooting her in reality. It wasn't right. It didn't do what she needed. It was all that made the carnage worth it and what did she have? Blood on her hands and nothing to show for it.

She flicked her soggy cigarette into the street as she headed back to her car, an annoying distance to keep from being associated with the 'horrible accident.' Walking, it was quite easy to disturb a camera's feed but driving was another story.

She knew how it'd look to them, a disruption of static as she passed by a lens. In fact, her vision was doing the very same thing. Muscle memory carried her forward and her vision became more kaleidoscope than sidewalk ahead of her.

"Don't do that." She whispered pressing her thumbs her knuckles hard to her eyes as she walked. "Stop doing that. Are you doing that?"

There'd be no response. There never was. Not when she needed it, anyway. Her vision was shifting through slices of waking dreams. No— Not dreams. It wasn't always a dream. It was a memory once, it was her reality. It was still real.

"That's not fair, don't-don't do that." She muttered shaking her head as if it would clear the vision.

Minerva was picking up her pace, as if she could out run the eyes of another life. It was the one thing she couldn't stay ahead of, not forever. Always tailgating, stepping on her heels, gaining and gaining.

Her grandmother, with her thick glasses and wrinkled face, the lines around her thin lips growing deeper as if her entire face were scowling. She'd forgotten just how big the glasses made her eyes, no way to escape granny's scrutiny. No hiding from her disappointment.

"Don't look at me like that." She breathed out, "It was an accident. You know it was an accident."

It had been an accident. Back then, anyway. 1849. Maybe 50. The timeline was murky. It was a mistake that she'd make again. Unwaveringly. She'd always make that fuck up again, she'd just hide it better if she had a redo. It had been a stranger's meaningless life or Diana's.