𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐎, ⁿ. ᵐⁱᵏᵃᵉˡˢᵒⁿ ⁽²⁾ [DISCONTINUED]

𝖛. 𝖗𝖊𝖑𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖘

|𝐯. 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬|

𝐍athalie found herself roaming the streets of the Crescent City, covered head to toe in blood and smiling from ear to ear. She limped down the dark alley, tripping over the drunk people sleeping on the streets. She felt numb—utterly hollow.

Even if she was sometimes so furious that she couldn't think straight. Even if she'd gotten into not one, not two, but three bar fights in the four hours that she'd been wandering around the bars and inns of New Orleans. One of the brawls, at least, had been rightfully provoked—a man swore at a young girl, a filthy, foul curse. But the other two...

There was no denying it: she'd merely been spoiling for a fight. No blades, no weapons. Just fists and feet and wits. Nathalie supposed she should feel guilty about it—about the broken noses and jaws and arms, about the piles of unconscious bodies in her wake. But she didn't.

She couldn't bring herself to care, because those moments she spent brawling were the few moments she felt like herself again. Her Devils were gone to earth. Esther and Mikael were back to the land of the living. Her father was still trapped in that stupid Prison World.

The heretic saw the boy nearing the corner before he'd noticed her presence. She let the dark veins under her eyes show promptly as she grinned.

The boy turned around and his eyes widened. And when he beheld her standing there, her pearl-white fangs flashing under the moonlight, her skin covered in blood, her shirt hanging in strips, he ran.

She counted to ten, because she wanted to hunt, and it had been that way since she tore through her mother's womb and came roaring and bloody into this world. Listened and grinned.

Nathalie found the human pressing against the wall of a nearby dark alley, his phone lighting his face, terror evident on his features as he tried to call someone. Maybe a friend. A family member. A lover. She didn't care.

Within a blink of an eye, she appeared inches away from him, bracing her hands on either side of his face. "There you are," she whispered in his ear and the human dropped his phone, softly bleating with fear.

"I miss my father." Nathalie sighed, shoving the boy by his shoulders against the hard brick wall. "I made him a promise that I would show him everything the world has to offer, and then I left him behind to rot in that prison created for the two of us. The feeling of guilt sits not on my chest alone, but inside my brain. What I had done I cannot undo. So, I do this. Over and over and over again, with no one to pull me from the abyss."

She threaded her fingers down the side profile of the human's face and smiled. And when she tilted his head forcefully to face her, his bladder loosening at the sight of the blood and the lethal teeth and the wicked, wicked smile, Nathalie let him scream all he wanted.

"You missed me?"

She dropped the lifeless body, it hitting the pavement harshly. Blood dripped down her chin as she turned around. She felt as if the ground from beneath her feet disappeared once she laid eyes on him. "Dad?"