Desmond's posture changed completely in the blink of an eye.
Normally, Desmond was someone easy to overlook, to see as harmless, despite how tall he was. Despite the muscles that were clearly noticeable under his clothes. He lacked presence, so to speak.
But sometimes everything changed.
Like now. Tense, leaning slightly forward, as if ready for a battle.
He didn't look like his old self.
The Desmond she usually talked to and the Desmond that came out at times like this, as if he thought he was in the middle of a battlefield, even though he was just talking. Yes, the Desmond before her now resembled the savage beast that violently ravaged the enemy ranks.
To the human weapon she had seen in action during the attack and also that night, where the three of them had come close to losing their lives again.
But, of course, the facets were the same person.
There was nothing and no one hidden inside him. There was only him.
That could be seen as somewhat disturbing. However, it wasn't a transformation for the purpose of intimidation. It didn't have any kind of purpose, but was a completely unconscious process. She wasn't blindly guessing or simply thinking the best of her partner and friend.
Christina knew this because she could feel it as clearly as her own feelings.
Besides, it wasn't hard to guess why that was happening to him.
He had told her indirectly. He had had a difficult life. A life where every day was something that had to be earned. A life where nothing could be taken for granted.
Always aware of danger, on the brink of the abyss of ruin. The time he had spent on the streets must have been something like the life of an animal alone in the jungle.
A wild time. Dark. Violent.
Going through it, Desmond had surely learned many things that normal people didn't even think about.
Enduring such a moment"by"moment stress, it was no wonder that he could treat even something as simple as a conversation as if it were a battle unconsciously.
He had spent only a few years on the street, or so he claimed.
But to say "only a few years" seemed like a bad joke.
In any case, it had been long enough that he hadn't been able to forget what it meant to exist without the protections and privileges in which society enveloped its citizens.
In the wild jungle where people didn't go to war, but life was a war.
She understood him, and she wasn't afraid of him.
Not of him. But she did fear for him.
"Okay, you got me. But don't get me wrong. At the hospital I told you the truth, I just left out one detail."
She wondered if he was full of cracks or broken all the way through.
She wondered if, in that case, it would be possible for him to pick up the broken pieces, put himself back together and lead a more or less normal life.
It was almost like looking in the mirror.
Desmond needed salvation. And, just as she couldn't believe that Desmond was going to be saved, she didn't believe in her own salvation either.
"What detail?" asked the boy.
Christina didn't want to talk about this at all. It was the last thing she wanted anyone to know, and especially not Desmond. But at this point she had no choice.
He couldn't stop. While him knowing the truth would affect the relationship he had with Desmond, so would keeping quiet.
Amy had reacted far worse than she expected to him sharing a secret with only Desmond.
She had no reason to think that Desmond's reaction would be much better.
Quite the contrary.
He had come back to them, temporarily postponing the dream that had helped him get so far, the dream of his childhood. That was true.
However, at the same time…
He believed that his hopes would be betrayed, sooner or later. And he was ready to cut the rope at the slightest excuse.
Afraid of being hurt, afraid of others.
She had to tread carefully around him.
In part, he seemed too much trouble. Too "expensive" a person to maintain.
However, she was the same way in that regard.
How could she expect someone to put up with her if she wasn't willing to do the same with that someone?
All relationships... well, the healthy ones, went in two directions.
"That my power doesn't have an off button," she finally confessed. It's always active, dormant, and therefore the emotions of those around me, especially extreme emotions, always pass through me.
She didn't feel like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders in the process.
But the opposite was not true either.
Her body and heart, as if they had gone numb, reacted to the confession of her greatest fear as if she had said anything else.
But, come to think of it, the wounds that were most to be feared were the ones that didn't hurt.
And Desmond's reaction was....
"All right. I've never heard of such a case, but I can accept it."
A nod of the head.
"However, I don't think that's all of it by a long shot. Why would you hide something like that? What would be the point?"
Desmond spoke as if she hadn't said much. But of course, to him it was nothing because he didn't understand it, he couldn't conceptualize it if it wasn't properly explained to him. Of course, how was he to understand how terrible it was to feel another person's feelings?
It was as crazy as the idea of thinking another person's thoughts.
She had to be clearer. Direct.
"Well, Desmond, most people would be upset to hear that I can feel their emotions in such an invasive way. Bringing to light even the things they are desperately trying hard to hide. But once again you are right. It's not just about that. And, since we've come this far... I'll be honest... Although I didn't want anyone to know about this... Although the very idea of anyone finding out mortifies me...."
Desmond waited patiently for her response. She thought he would say she didn't need to say more if she didn't want to, but he didn't say it. Just waited.
Christina pursed her lips.
She picked up the book and pressed it to her chest, as if it were something like a protective blanket.
Yes, it was as fragile as a blanket... but, at the same time, it was the only thing that stood between her and the merciless waves of the world.
So when those boys took the book from her, she collapsed like a house of cards.
The possibility of having it burned or damaged made her legs tremble.
It made her willpower collapse completely, and she became something she hadn't been even in her earliest youth. A frightened little animal.
She should have reacted far worse than she had at her first encounter with Desmond, considering how he had spoken to her after that terrifying moment of vulnerability, but she had not.
Partly because the boy had given her the book back.
Partly because she was the best person to be friends with Desmond, who didn't know how to communicate properly, since she could ignore the words and just look right through him.
She clutched the book tighter.
"This is not a spell book. "But she had to let it go to show Desmond. To show him the truth.
"Blank. All of them? But if it's not a spell book, then..."
"It's a... limiter, so to speak. My magic can't be turned off, but this book acts as a barrier between me and magic."
"Does it serve to make you weaker? I don't understand."
No, clearly he still didn't understand.
Even though she had said so much already. It should be enough, but no. How frustrating.
"I don't blame you. I'm doing a bad job explaining it. Uh, you see..."
Let's just get this over with. Just get it over with.
"When I say I can feel the emotions of the people around me... It's a little more complicated than that... It's not just knowing what someone is feeling."
Here it came. The moment of truth.
Christina was looking forward to this being over, but, at the same time, couldn't think of anything worse. So time stretched on indefinitely, trapping her in a timeless prison.
Her throat ached, as if she had something stuck halfway down.
She swallowed.
"It's feeling these things... as if they were my own emotions. This book," she squeezed it tighter as she said it, as if afraid it would disappear, that something invisible would rip it from her hands and she would never see it again, "is protecting my identity."
There was silence.
But not for too long.
"Fuck," Desmond said.
I couldn't have put it better, she thought with bitter irony.
◼
Amy woke with a jolt, wrapped in the sheets like the cocoon of a butterfly, sweating from head to toe. Only half conscious, half awake.
The other half of her had remained in the dream. In that nightmarish world that sought to dismantle everything she was.
In the last image.
The "attack" that had broken the surface of the dream, bringing her back to reality.
Amy hugged herself, curling into a ball, she began to tremble.
She had seen herself with that man's face. Amy brought a hand to her face, dug her fingers into it, probing, tracing the familiar shape of her face.
She took a deep breath.
Amy got to her feet and went to the bathroom. Heart pounding, she took a look at herself in the mirror....
And what she saw was, of course, her usual face.
It had only been a dream.
With her hands on the sink, Amy leaned forward. Her face contorted and she had the disorienting feeling that this was not her, no matter how much it looked like her. But, even if it wasn't her, even if she wasn't her old self....
"I don't look anything like that demon. "But that she felt the need to say it out loud said enough about her inner conflict.
Amy bit her lower lip hard. She watched the blood flow.
Why had she had such a dream?
She knew, deep down. Because of what she had done last night. The experiments.
Using people.
But that wasn't remotely comparable to what the demon did.
Not even remotely, fuck!
Her subconscious was a bastard, digging wherever it needed to for the sole purpose of hurting her. Was she starting to resemble the person who'd acted like her father all these years, even if he wasn't?
Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.
If he hadn't put her in this position, she would never have done anything like this.
Amy brought her hands to her face and pulled them back. Pushing her hair away from her damp forehead.
Never would her heart's innermost desire have been control.
She... needed control because it had been taken from her.
That was all she wanted, something anyone was entitled to: to be free. Everyone was born free.
And, once she earned the freedom that was her birthright....
No, she would continue to use the power Abigail had given her. Because it was useful. Because it would be foolish to seal it away for passing feelings.
But, still, that wouldn't make her like that demon one bit.
She was a human being and he was a demon.
They had no point of comparison.
Amy looked away from her own reflection.
◼
Her experiments had yielded some very juicy fruits.
Not only with Naomi. She had utilized her new power with other servants, and these were the results her efforts yielded.
First, physical contact was not necessary, but eye contact was.
She had to look at someone and, of course, speak to make that someone obey her will. So, unfortunately, she couldn't command someone by turning her back to them and her commands wouldn't be conveyed to anyone within range of her voice.
That physical contact would do no good worried her.
After all, if there were several people in her field of vision, there was a risk that they would all obey the command.
In her experiments, she hadn't managed to rule out that possibility.
Still, as far as drawbacks were concerned, that one was minor. It would force her to be more careful, but that was all.
Amy had already won.
Abigail, so to speak, had handed her victory on a silver platter. It was a little disappointing. Anticlimactic.
But the demon could do nothing against her, now that she had this.
And it would be so easy to defeat him.
Ruin him.
Yes, tear down his reputation and his little empire, and she would emerge from the ashes of it all as a free person. It would be so easy.
The worst part is that she would have to wait.
Wait until his next public appearance, no matter what the reason. Then she would strike.
Amy would tear it all down. Until there was nothing left.
◼
The mansion should be full of noise. However, it was silent. As if it had been emptied and she was the only person left in its entire expanse. walking around, she saw no one. She didn't hear them, she didn't even see the shadow of a person.
It was unreal. It gave her the feeling that she was dreaming. However, that could not be, of course. She was wide awake. Perfectly aware of what was going on around her.
Circumstances had simply erected this illusion around her.
She had the feeling that, at any moment, the walls would come crashing down on her. Like a death trap ready to spring as soon as it was triggered. The mansion couldn't get any bigger. Especially without a single person in sight. However, it was getting claustrophobic.
She had compared her room to the bedroom of a dollhouse. But even this mansion seemed something like that now. Something that didn't exist. A mansion like something out of a fairy tale.
But not because beautiful things and happiness were waiting around every corner. No, but because its beauty... and the promises it seemed to tell, were as fragile as paper. The beauty of the mansion existed only within the hearts of people watching from a distance. Who "read" about it.
But, in reality, that was where that beauty remained. On paper. And the truth was that the mansion was rotten inside, as were its two main inhabitants. The members of a family that had never been a family. That could never be a family.
That she was thinking along those lines might have suggested that she had wished she could have been a family with that man. And she had wished...at first, but no longer. She no longer harbored those childish hopes. Nor barren doubts that might make her hand tremble when the moment of truth came.
At last she found life. Noise, shadows. The shapes of people.
At last she emerged from the illusory fairy"tale mansion in which she was the only inhabitant.
Although it had seemed to her, at times, a labyrinth from which she could not escape.
There were servants outside.
They were chatting while moving things back and forth.
They were preparing for the event she had been waiting for days. Nothing special per se, basically it was a function for the demon to pat himself on the back for donating a pittance of his fortune to a good cause. In exchange for good publicity that was going to make him even more money.
Well, that's what he thought he was doing. Of course, if her plan went well, and it would, that was not how the show would end. The end of the show would instead be the beginning of the end for the Sunderland empire.
A smile tugged at Amy lips at that thought.
She couldn't remember the last time she had smiled since she had to return to this prison.
No, she did remember.
The first night she had spent in the mansion. The night she had received the power to dictate her own destiny. As she realized the power she now had, she wasn't able to help but smile as she did now.
A smile of victory as if it was already written. And it was. The plan was foolproof in its simplicity. There was nothing the demon could do to prevent it.
Except forbid her to attend, Amy supposed, but he wouldn't do that. He would want to put "his piece" back on the board for all to see. The world wouldn't give in to his whims this time. This time, his way would be what would irrevocably destroy him. It would burn him with its own flames.
Yes, exactly that.
Not for wanting to display her as if she were a trophy. She would return him to the hell he came out of by showing the world his true nature. The news would spread like wildfire. And the flames would consume everything.
There would even be people recording when the day would come, which was so close already that Amy could even taste it in the air, the anticipation.
In other words, not only those present would witness the true face of the demon. The entire kingdom, or close enough, would see his true face. They would know the truth that had been buried in this mansion rotten to the ground for so many years.
Smile?
Thinking about it, not just smiling, it made her want to burst out laughing. But there would be time for laughter.
Wait a bit, guys, she thought.
I'll be back soon. Sooner than you think.
And then she could put all this behind her as if it were a bad dream. No, not just that. Amy would bury his whole past in this rotten mansion inside and never dig it up, never even look back.
For there was nothing worthwhile.
I'm on my way.
◼
"That's very nice of you, but I don't dance," Amy said, throwing up her hands. Find yourself another dancing partner.
"What?" The man laughed, "Yeah, you can't dance. Come on.
She couldn't blame him for not believing it. After all, it was to be expected that a lady of her status would learn to dance, among other things. Other "feminine arts".
It was true that she didn't know how to dance, not a simple excuse, but the man had no way of knowing.
That said, she could blame him for not knowing how to take no for an answer. Even if it had been nothing more than an excuse, he should have backed off.
This guy might have a lot of money, the best tutors in the kingdom at his service and all that, but that didn't stop him from lacking education.
An education that many men lacked, unfortunately.
And that wasn't even the worst of it.
It bothered her a little that she was approached by so many men and not a single woman, but that wasn't the point either.
"Didn't you hear me the first time? I don't know how to dance and public humiliation is not one of my favorite pastimes."
"Oh, so you were serious. I'm sorry. "He visibly deflated, and for a moment Amy hoped he would do the right thing, which was to stop busting her balls. Silly her. "Well, never mind. I can show you, gorgeous."
Gorgeous?
What a bad joke.
Yes, she always took great care in her appearance, because it was one of the things she had been instilled with. And because it was something she cared about personally. Still, her elegant and expensive clothes couldn't hide the fact that she wasn't all that.
Not ugly, or at least she didn't think so, but pretty close to it.
So the only interest this man who was probably almost ten years older had in her was the same interest they all had.
Her family name. Her money.
In other words, the profits. No one looked at Amy. Everybody looked at Amy Sunderland. Everyone saw what was good for them. Except those two, she reminded herself. Not once have they ever thought of benefiting from our relationship. Not once have they ever treated me in a special way. Not once.
She decided to cut the crap. He wasn't going to come back here anyway, after today.
"Don't your ears work? No means no."
The man made a completely stupid face. He didn't get angry at her answer, he didn't even have the room to do that, as he was too shocked how to react as these overly insistent, trying and unreasonable men usually did. That is, with pure rage, as if he was entitled to her time and attention just because he had something dangling between his legs.
If only he was after her for her beauty....
That kind of behavior would still be inappropriate and unreasonable, of course, but she figured genuine attention and compliments would be a nice thing. Even though he was a scumbag. And a man.
Amy looked for the demon.
The show was about to begin. The beginning and the end of everything. She met him and they went on stage. This would be her final performance.
Yes, he had been playing a role all his life. The role of a human being to the outside world, while allowing himself to be a monster behind closed doors. But today the whole world would see his true face.
Amy had to try hard not to smile. Not to give away her intentions.
That man was evil to the core, but not stupid. No, quite the opposite. That was why he had come so far. So she was afraid that he would realize she was planning something.
It was an unreasonable fear, because he couldn't guess what she was really planning. And even if he did, he wouldn't be able to stop her. The only person in the world her power wouldn't work on was Abigail, the one who had given it to her.
Still, she controlled her smile.
It was too soon to start celebrating.
"And now, please welcome the man who had made all this possible and his beautiful daughter."
Amy grimaced and walked up to the stage, closely accompanied by the demon. Part of her wanted to scream that she wasn't his daughter, that this bastard wasn't her father. But she pushed it down, kept it under lock and key.
But that wasn't the only thing she resented.
It seemed she only had value as Henry Sunderland's daughter or, as a woman, just because of her looks. She'd heard that sort of thing enough times that she'd almost come to truly believe it.
That she had no more value than that. That she was nothing more than a trophy. That her value was reduced to that, to look good on a shelf.
There was cheering, of course. The crowd raised a ruckus.
But many were distracted by the party, with the banquet prepared, and saw what was about to happen on stage as a mere formality.
Even the journalists who were here to make news seemed to want to be anywhere but here.
But soon, everyone wouldn't be able to take their eyes off the stage.
Amy would make sure of it.
The announcer stepped aside to make room for the demon, who took a step forward and began his carefully rehearsed speech, faked from a to z.
To her, his words were like an indistinct drone. Just noise.
She had no role here.
Her only role was to be displayed like an exotic animal in front of this crowd. Well, that's how the demon might view her. As an exotic animal trying to escape again and again from her cage, complicating her life, giving him unnecessary headaches.
But it wasn't right to say that was her role, here and now.
Her role was to be an accessory to make him look better. No more, no less. Silent, standing still, like a statue. As decoration.
She waited for the right moment.
For the speech to end, because the sound of her voice would be covered by the noise of the crowd.
"Hit me until I end up on the floor," she ordered him.
She needed to see someone to give her an order, but the same didn't apply the other way around. It didn't matter if the demon wasn't looking in her direction. He was already hers anyway.
She saw the blow coming. Of course she did. She was a soldier and he was just a civilian. It would be a bad joke if she hadn't been able to do it.
Especially when she had expected it because she had even ordered him to.
She had to suppress the desire and instinct to pull away, let alone respond with a blow of her own. Tense, she let herself be hit. The sound of skin colliding against skin echoed in the air.Above the silence that had suddenly fallen over the crowd.
The demon was under her control. For possibly the first time in his life, he was not the one in control.
At the very least, for the first time in Amy's life it was she who was in control.
And it was a wonderful thing.
It didn't end there. She had ordered him to beat her until she couldn't stand up, and he would follow that order quite literally. He would give her a brutal beating in front of this entire crowd.
Amy drew a triumphant smile, lips stained with blood. She couldn't help it, nor did she want to.
It was her moment. Besides, she doubted anyone would look closely enough to notice she was smiling, not when it was happening. And if they did, well, what did it matter?
People reacted strangely in times of stress.
A single smile couldn't make them think differently about the beating they would contemplate. It wouldn't get them even close to the truth.
Since Amy had used no known magic, not even the police would get any closer to the truth.
In any case, her smile was quickly hidden. Not by herself, but by the demon following her order.
In other words, with a good smack that caused her smile to fall and her head to move to the side with a snap.
"What are you doing?" gasped the announcer, shuddering, breaking the tense silence.
Amy took a moment to feel bad for him.
For everyone who was watching this terrible spectacle, while the automaton he had turned the demon into made sure she couldn't walk when it was over. Punching and kicking her nonstop, his expression a blank mask.
If she'd had any other choice, Amy would have preferred that they didn' t have to witness something like this. But she didn't, but most of all....
It hurt.
It hurt, yes. To swallow the urge to burst out laughing, that is.
Amy fell to her knees. Feeling the taste of blood in her throat, in her mouth.
The girl took a deep breath and raised her head to look at the demon, in a halt between blows.
I will destroy you...
And take back everything you stole from me.