Torn Asunder

Chapter 18 Dante

Injured, in shock, filled with rage and blood burning with Hunger, I launched myself at the pair responsible for all this torment, my mind filled with the need to rend them into crimson pieces. That, however, is not what happened. I launched myself at them, and about five feet away I crashed to the floor, weak and trembling as I felt something change inside.

My Valentine had pulled all of our otherness to herself one last time and I’d fallen to the floor with the lack of strength. Salvatore was laughing at my pitiful display of manliness, although I was in a woman’s body, but Ixchel was watching me with wide, horrified eyes. As if she could see the darkness about to come rushing back into me. I crawled a half a foot towards them, weakly planning to do violence even if I had no means to. All I could hear in my mind was my Valentine’s half of our soul calling out, demanding that I meet it. Salvatore was still laughing at my attempts to murder him, but Ixchel seemed to see, seemed to know the truth of my advance and she stepped back.

When I felt the Brute that was my Valentine’s insanity and Hunger come charging back towards me, I didn’t cower and try to save myself from it. I opened my arms and invited it in, feeling the Brute sink under my skin, into my blood and making my body rigid with power.Salvatore still had his head thrown back in laughter when I looked up at him, time moving in slow, jerky procession as our rage fuelled me. Ixchel was taking another slow, deliberate step back, her movements erratic looking with my speed but intended to extend her survival. Luckily for Ixchel, Salvatore was closer and the main focal point of my rage. Because of what he had done to me yes, and because if it hadn’t have been me, he would have still gladly done that to my Valentine and that was simply unacceptable. The dainty shoulder of my Valentine’s body crashed into Salvatore’s abdomen, bending him over the body I wore like a sack of grain. My momentum launched us until his back collided with the brick wall of the hallway. Ixchel was holding her hands to her face, shocked and horrified at my suddenly successful attack. Salavtore's breath was gone, the dual impact of my body and the wall sandwiching all the air out.

The dainty hands I was forced to use grabbed at his slicked back hair and I sawed his head downwards more, bringing my knee up to meet his face with a satisfying CRUNCH. "This is for Andros!" I screamed, feeling the hot wetness of his blood smear on my knee. "This is for Luca!" I pulled his head upwards again only to pull it down rapidly into my knee again, obliterating his nose and making him resemble Voldemort. "There's even one for Caleb!" I slammed is face against my knee one last time and pushed his head hard back against the wall. "This is for me!" with a last powerful shove I smashed his head backwards, hearing it split like a dropped watermelon. I released Salvatore's corpse and let it drop to the ground, feeling my neck creak as I turned to look at Ixchel who stood staring at me in horror.

I could imagine the sight I presented to her. The body I wore was my Valentine's, lithe and supple like a wild cat, tawny and golden like the lioness. Salvatore had stripped the clothes off of me and done terrible things. And the zombie Luca had gorged himself on the mess of my feet, bloody meat patches that oozed as they slowly healed. As the Hunger burned in me, the wounds sealed themselves, the meat filling up the empty flesh until I began to look more whole, but it was a slow process. I had my own and now Salvatore's blood painting my naked flesh, a primal war paint that suited the inevitable insanity in my eyes.

Ixchel was staring at me in pure horror, her lips twisted in a hideous grimace as she recognized something in what I had become. What we had become because of her and the others. I needed to get to the missing half of my soul, it was a gaping, painful wound that reminded me endlessly of my real task. To get to my Valentine. Only when I was with her would the pain end. The hallway filled with the raspy sound of my harsh breaths and the slap of my blood wet feet hitting the stone floor as I walked towards the spellbound Ixchel.