Dancing With The Devil (part two)

Chapter 32: Blood

Astrid watched Jim leave the room. She wiped the tears out of her eyes and brushed her hair out of her face before looking at her father. He approached her with a subtle smirk on his lips and sat down in the chair Jim was sat in just moments ago. He put forward his hand to offer her the seat opposite but she declined.

"Don't even think for one second that I'm just gonna sit around acting as if I'm fine with all this."

"Maybe not yet, but after a while you'll get used to it," Lucas smirked and shook his head, "Now sit down, and make yourself comfortable, I don't want you feeling as though your not welcome here."

"I don't want to be welcome here."

"Then what do you want?" Lucas tilted his head, "other than to go back to your boyfriend."

Astrid shook her head, "I don't want anything from you, other than for you to just leave me alone."

"Well, you sealed that for yourself, you made your bead," the devil leaned forward and growled, "now lie in it."

"I have," Astrid pressed her lips together, "now what? What do you want from me?"

"Nothing."

"What?" Astrid shot up

"There's nothing I want from you."

"You told Jim that you wanted me."

"I may have done that. Doesn't mean I meant it."

"Well, then what's all this been for?"

"It's been for me, for power and for money, just like what most of the things people do in the world are for," he shrugged, "I never said I needed you, that's why I didn't make more of an effort to keep you here when you were younger. You assumed that I wanted you, when in reality, I'm just as powerful alone."

"Your not alone though, you have Amelie."

"So I do." he said, passively, "but now that you've offered me your loyalty, well, it's far more important to me."

"Why?"

"Because your my daughter, my family," he stood up and took a step closer to her, "we're connected by blood."

"That doesn't matter at all though,"

"Doesn't it?"

"If it did then you wouldn't have killed my mother."

"Well, your mother was asking for it, wasn't she?" Hansel shrugged.

"She wasn't, she did a decent human thing."

"You've spent the last five years of your life telling yourself that it was your criminal boyfriend who made you all... psychopath-y," he began. Astrid shook her head, not wanting him to finish, "but it was your mother, leaving you all alone in that state. With all that responsibility. The second you found out what I had done, you were curious, of course you were. Why else did you come today?"

"To get the poison-"

"Don't lie to yourself, you've done too much of that throughout your life."

"I came to confront you again."

"Nope."

"I did."

"No you didn't."

Astrid squinted ever so slightly at the man opposite her, he raised an eyebrow and she looked down at her shoes, full aware of what he was trying to get her to say.

"Yes I did-" she tried once more before being cut off.

"You came because you miss it." He snarled, "you miss being on top, you miss being feared by the people around you, you miss showing up to fancy galas in backless, strapless dresses on the arm of the most dangerous man in the world with every pair of eyes in the room trained on you, you miss the thrill of murder, you miss the excitement of a chase, the danger of a robbery, the elegance of a heist, a case, a scene. A showdown."

"Shut up."

"You're not even afraid to admit it," he laughed, "you're only acting shocked because you couldn't possibly entertain the possibility that I am right."

"Oh fuck you." she spat and turned on her heel and left the room.