| 18+ | Damian looked so different with his shirt off and a crop in his hand. He felt more real: no longer wearing the mask of the good doctor, he was the Exorcist, the master over my wildest fears, the stones on the shore over which my ocean of ma...
The question caught Damian off-guard. His Amma had always been a blunt woman, unafraid to say exactly what was on her mind. Even so, the question seemed unnecessary, certainly not something he would have expected her to particularly care about.
But of course, the question was harmless.
"Yes. I love her, Amma."
His response caused her to unleash a string of curses at which he could not help but laugh. "So crass," he chuckled, scolding gently. "What of it? Did you expect no woman to catch my eye forever?"
"Oh don't be smart with me, young man," she sighed. "Although it did cross my mind that with your more particular perversions you may never have found a woman to please you...but that matters not. Love makes of you a fool, it drives you beyond sense, makes you reckless-"
"Amma. Please, what's the meaning of all this? I'm as careful as ever, I promise you. I haven't forgotten my training."
The old woman was silent for so long that Damian feared they had been disconnected. But then...
"I have seen your fate for loving her."
Amma's voice was grim, and, for a moment, Damian was certain he heard a tremble in it. "What do you mean?"
"I kept catching glimpses, flashes of some horror befalling you before I received your letter. But once I held it in my hands and sensed the evil you faced, I saw it clearly: I saw this woman kill you, Damian."
Damian felt cold. "That won't happen, Amma. You know no vision is certain-"
"No, you're right," she said. "They are never certain, for there is always a choice, always. And it will come to a choice, Damian."
"Perhaps it need not even be so dire a choice-"
"You love her, Damian. Have you told her?"
"No," Damian gulped, his mouth feeling dry. He thought of all the moments he had come so close, when the words had lingered on the tip of his tongue. But fear held him back. He had never uttered such a thing to another.
"Good," his grandmother sounded relieved. "Don't tell her, for now. Her demons will use such a declaration against you both, they will see the weakness there." Damian could imagine Amma rubbing her head in thought, eyes closed and mouth pursed. "Sometimes love will make choices for us, Damian. That is what I fear for you. I've seen the path you might take: the choice to die so that she might live. Love chooses that, not logic nor reason-"
"It won't come to that," Damian said firmly. "We won't let it, will we?"
"No, we won't. An old lady worries, you know. But we won't. I'll be in New Orleans with all haste. I love you."
"And I love you, Amma. Don't worry. That isn't a choice I'll have to make."
Present Day, The Adley Estate
The world seemed to slow around him. Samara running for him, cleaver raised. His own finger beginning to squeeze the trigger. He knew what it looked like to shoot a person; he had seen the blood, the gore, the horror of it all. He tried to imagine such a thing with Samara lying there in the spreading pool of blood.
He couldn't.
His hand shook.
He'd never told her.
She had to know. Even if...even if she couldn't hear him.
"I love you, Samara." It was only a whisper on his lips. He had lowered his pistol, without realizing. Something in him had made that choice. "Gods, I'm sorry." She had almost reached him. It was all only seconds but those mere moments stretched to eternity. She would drive the cleaver home, but she was close enough to hear him now.
"I love you."
The cleaver swung down.
Blood spattered across the dirt and a ragged scream filled the cold cellar.
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