Princess Of Darkness (Editing)

Six: Where The Damned Call Home (Edited)

"I'll be honest with you," Lucian said, breaking the companiable silence that we'd lapsed into.  "You have me at a loss."

I looked up questioningly from the plate of fruit I'd been admiring.

Lucian poured more wine into both of our glasses.

"I asked you to meet me tonight so that you could talk me through how you came to be here."  He was watching me expectantly.

"Eve told me that you brought me here," I told him.  "I told her that you didn't know, either."

He shook his head, eyes studying my face for some clue.

"She's mistaken," he said to me.  "How did you find your way here?"

"Where do I begin?" I thought out loud.

"Perhaps the beginning would be a good place to start," Lucian laughed in good humor.

"That does seem logical," I agreed.  His laughter was infectious, and I giggled.  It sounded weird, felt weird. I hadn't laughed in so long.

"I left home," I started carefully.  I wasn't sure what to keep hidden and what I should tell him.  Then, I figured, considering I was lost in Hell, it didn't really matter how much he knew.  It was insignificant.

"I was looking for somewhere to go."

"Away from, Brett, your partner?" 

I looked up sharply at Lucian.  How could he possibly have known that?

"I was able to get inside your mind," he told me, apologetically.  "I suspected you might have been some new part of Rapture's plan. Precaution."  He shrugged and began playing with the empty wine glass, waiting for me to go on.

I nodded in understanding.  So that's what that strange feeling in my mind had been.

"I'm sorry that he treated you the way he did," Lucian told me sincerely.  Then his eyes hardened.  "There's a place for him here, when his time comes."

I shuddered to think about it.  I knew he was telling me the truth, but, still, I didn't want to imagine it.  Not that I didn't think Brett deserved everything Lucian would dish out to him.  I decided to focus on Rapture instead.

"I'd never even heard of Rapture until I got here," I said, truthfully.  "I've got nothing to do with her.

"I know," he told me reassuringly and nodded, encouraging me to go on.

So I told him the story of how I ended up in the town that I found the train tracks in, how I followed them and by pure chance, came across the ticket that was dropped by the crow.

"A crow dropped it?" Lucian tilted his head, seemingly casual, but I noticed the way his eyes snapped back into intense focus. 

I nodded, baffled as to why he found it so captivating.

I didn't leave out anything.  I figured he would know if I did, considering he had found out about Brett, and I wasn't sure how much he knew already.

He was frowning when I'd finished, staring intently at a spot on the wall behind me.

"I don't understand," he said, meeting my eyes with his own.  "There's no way you could possibly have gotten here without me knowing.  You shouldn't have been able to see the train.  This is a place for the dead, not the living."

"I am still alive, then?" The thought hadn't even occured to me until he'd said it.

"Very much so," he answered.