A Deal With the Devil

Chapter 15

Kassandra's POV

I hadn't been able to feel safe after my mother left but in the course of just a few weeks, Ravanna was starting to bring that feeling back to me.

My senses weren't going into overdrive from having to be so hypervigilant but the anxiety was still there. I fear it always will be.

I wander about the house, afraid to touch anything.

The living room is quite large, it has a couch that's not littered with awful memories.

It doesn't reek of tense atmosphere or have that feeling of being a fake picture perfect model home.

There's a big flat screen tv hung on the far side wall, multiple console sets and I have no idea which ones are which.

I see a bookshelf in the far corner of the room and immediately gravitate towards it.

I hear Ravanna's laughter float around the room at my choice.

I smile sheepishly back at her.

I pull a random book off the shelf and look at the summary, I feel Ravanna drape herself on my back and I lean into her embrace.

When I'm in her arms, it feels like I've gone my whole life without feeling any warmth.

I hear her inhale, taking in the smell of my hair.

I don't know her obsession with it, I don't think it smells like anything special.

She lifts herself off my back and turns me around, she looks so deeply into my eyes and says, "I feel that it expresses your essence so perfectly that I cannot help be drawn to it amica mea."

She's called me that before in the hospital and I didn't know what it meant, now it's like I just know.

My love.

She smiles like she's holding a secret and I'm not sure what to make of it.

She takes my hand and puts the book back on the shelf while leading me to the hallway where there are photos of - me?

Every photo that had been taken of me and my mother before she left.

One of the day I was born, my mother holding me while she was in her hospital gown, another of my first birthday and so many others.

I walk down the hall still gazing at them all until I see it.

The last photo of me and my mother ever taken.

We were working on the car, we had our hats on backwards, grease smudged all over our faces and smiles that were almost identical.

I lifted my fingers towards it, softly grazing them over my mother's face.

Another photo to my left caught my eye.

It was one of me and Ravanna in the hospital.

I was sleeping, her eyes were closed and her lips gently pressed against my cheek.

She's so beautiful.

So are you.

I turn towards her and her hands immediately go to my face to gently caress it.

She starts answering a question without my asking it.

"I recovered the photos while your father was out, they were hidden in his room."

She paused as if gathering her thoughts, "You deserve to have these photos of your past -all this and so much more - but this photograph" she lightly touches the one of her and I, "this photo, represents your new beginning. You will be able to grow; untethered from violence, never again having to face the conundrum of whether or not you will feel safe in your own dwelling and never again having to hide maliciously intended injuries."